C. Henry Martens's Blog, page 11
April 7, 2017
Intuiting the Domino Effect
©2017 C. Henry Martens
Do you ever get that sneaking suspicion that something is not right?
I do.
I try to tell myself that the uneasy feeling is just collywobbles or the threads being plucked in a cobwebbed mind. Considering my track record, I have to eventually pay attention. Call it intuition, or even precognition… I see things coming.
I’ve begun to pay attention.
When did it start? I can’t rightly say. Perhaps it was when I was fantasizing several years ago about what would happen if the earth suddenly lost its atmosphere.
I went to great lengths to figure out just how much breathable air there is in a visually referenced way, so that I could illustrate it easily to others. This is what I came up with. Take a string and tie two loops in it so that each extreme is exactly thirty-one inches from the other. Then stick a thumbtack in one end and a Number two pencil in the other, and trace a circle. You end up with a circle sixty-two inches across. Letting everything inside this circle represent the circumference of the earth, if you were to trace a line around it to represent how far the breathable atmosphere extends, how much distance would there be? Think about this for a while.
The reason I mention the atmosphere… is that something seems amiss.
We hear all kinds of dire predictions about the honey bees disappearing. Lots of theories. Some say a parasite, some a virus, some a combination, as well as other theories. Bats are getting a fungus in their nose that suffocates them, decimating entire colonies. Amphibians are disappearing for reasons unknown. There are arks dedicated to preserving frog species by harvesting the last living specimens and keeping them alive in controlled environments. Some are generations from the originals. Entire classes of animals are threatened or disappearing.
I remember going out at night and listening to the frogs. Even those areas that still have nightly calls have far less variety. Have you noticed?
When is the last time you heard a woodpecker in the Ponderosa forests? I used to hear several a day. Is there any wonder the trees are beetle infested?
There is a theory about generational change and how one generation sees their experiences, their world, as normal and of little concern, and the next generation the same, and the next, next, next… all not concerning. But over time, the accumulated change is increasingly significant. What you consider normal today, your grandparents would wonder about.
My father was in his late forties when I was born. He owned a home on the coast of Florida and a boat that he and my mother and their friends would use to go to Cuba for the nightlife. On the way to and from, they would fish. They told tales of huge fish… and I don’t believe they were “fish stories.” There were rumors of divers disappearing, giant groupers suspected of swallowing them. I can tell you this… most people fishing the Gulf no longer bring home near the same size catch. But as people are born and die off, the stories of the “good ol’ days” seem increasingly far-fetched, and normal seems… normal.
When I was born, African safaris to kill abundant animals were considered normal, natural, and even exciting. Women were drawn to the machismo of the big game hunter. Society has changed, but is it because of concern for animal well-being, or because people are now recognizing that there are limits to sustainability? Perhaps both… but one feeds on the other.
Have you been thinking about that breathable atmosphere problem I gave you? Sixty-two inches represents the earth. Where would you draw a line showing the breathable atmosphere?
I noticed about three years ago that some of my garden didn’t grow as usual. It was a hot summer, sudden and early, and I chalked it up to heat stunting the young plants. Two years ago and last year, the same thing. Some of the plants don’t seem to be doing as well as they should. Extra care, a little fertilizer, some things that used to work… and they still don’t produce as well as expected, and some not at all.
We all notice the macro-biology devastation easily. Blame is easy to assign to elephant poachers killing for tusks they can black market. The black rhinos are even being poached from zoos recently. But even ivory-free giraffes are struggling now. I love watching videos of whales being freed from nets that have grown into their flesh, but I always wonder about how many are never discovered in time. And what about the little stuff that we don’t notice?
Why are the krill threatened? Of all the things in the world, why the shrimp that literally feeds the rest of the ocean? I’ve been informed that the rising temperatures, so out-of-the-ordinary in how fast they are going up, is not allowing krill to adapt. The young are losing their ability to form exoskeletons. We won’t have to free baleen whales from plastic nets if they have nothing to eat.
So all of these experiences, these topics of discussion, these concerns, go into my mental hopper to be digested and regurgitated and chewed on like an old cud. And I have to wonder… where will the next domino fall? That domino is out there…
Have you imagined where that line is designating how much breathable atmosphere there is on earth? For some reason I kept the mental image in my head of all of those elementary school drawings I’d seen as a kid. You know… that one with a little blue and green planet surrounded by air like a marble centered in a blue bowl. But that’s not right. That mental image doesn’t work.
If you drew that circle, everything within the line representing the earth… then the LINE ITSELF represents the atmosphere. Something just less than the width of a pencil line or the ink from a medium ball point pen.
To me that’s a little scary. Understanding that the breathable atmosphere is thinner in relation to the earth than the icing on a very thinly spread cake is surprising. Understanding brings perspective, and suddenly I am made aware that there isn’t much atmosphere on the earth. A puff of solar wind might steal a significant portion of it. A fire in the back yard adds up. I breathe more carefully, with more appreciation.
That domino is out there…
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Do you ever get that sneaking suspicion that something is not right?
I do.
I try to tell myself that the uneasy feeling is just collywobbles or the threads being plucked in a cobwebbed mind. Considering my track record, I have to eventually pay attention. Call it intuition, or even precognition… I see things coming.
I’ve begun to pay attention.
When did it start? I can’t rightly say. Perhaps it was when I was fantasizing several years ago about what would happen if the earth suddenly lost its atmosphere.
I went to great lengths to figure out just how much breathable air there is in a visually referenced way, so that I could illustrate it easily to others. This is what I came up with. Take a string and tie two loops in it so that each extreme is exactly thirty-one inches from the other. Then stick a thumbtack in one end and a Number two pencil in the other, and trace a circle. You end up with a circle sixty-two inches across. Letting everything inside this circle represent the circumference of the earth, if you were to trace a line around it to represent how far the breathable atmosphere extends, how much distance would there be? Think about this for a while.
The reason I mention the atmosphere… is that something seems amiss.
We hear all kinds of dire predictions about the honey bees disappearing. Lots of theories. Some say a parasite, some a virus, some a combination, as well as other theories. Bats are getting a fungus in their nose that suffocates them, decimating entire colonies. Amphibians are disappearing for reasons unknown. There are arks dedicated to preserving frog species by harvesting the last living specimens and keeping them alive in controlled environments. Some are generations from the originals. Entire classes of animals are threatened or disappearing.
I remember going out at night and listening to the frogs. Even those areas that still have nightly calls have far less variety. Have you noticed?
When is the last time you heard a woodpecker in the Ponderosa forests? I used to hear several a day. Is there any wonder the trees are beetle infested?
There is a theory about generational change and how one generation sees their experiences, their world, as normal and of little concern, and the next generation the same, and the next, next, next… all not concerning. But over time, the accumulated change is increasingly significant. What you consider normal today, your grandparents would wonder about.
My father was in his late forties when I was born. He owned a home on the coast of Florida and a boat that he and my mother and their friends would use to go to Cuba for the nightlife. On the way to and from, they would fish. They told tales of huge fish… and I don’t believe they were “fish stories.” There were rumors of divers disappearing, giant groupers suspected of swallowing them. I can tell you this… most people fishing the Gulf no longer bring home near the same size catch. But as people are born and die off, the stories of the “good ol’ days” seem increasingly far-fetched, and normal seems… normal.
When I was born, African safaris to kill abundant animals were considered normal, natural, and even exciting. Women were drawn to the machismo of the big game hunter. Society has changed, but is it because of concern for animal well-being, or because people are now recognizing that there are limits to sustainability? Perhaps both… but one feeds on the other.
Have you been thinking about that breathable atmosphere problem I gave you? Sixty-two inches represents the earth. Where would you draw a line showing the breathable atmosphere?
I noticed about three years ago that some of my garden didn’t grow as usual. It was a hot summer, sudden and early, and I chalked it up to heat stunting the young plants. Two years ago and last year, the same thing. Some of the plants don’t seem to be doing as well as they should. Extra care, a little fertilizer, some things that used to work… and they still don’t produce as well as expected, and some not at all.
We all notice the macro-biology devastation easily. Blame is easy to assign to elephant poachers killing for tusks they can black market. The black rhinos are even being poached from zoos recently. But even ivory-free giraffes are struggling now. I love watching videos of whales being freed from nets that have grown into their flesh, but I always wonder about how many are never discovered in time. And what about the little stuff that we don’t notice?
Why are the krill threatened? Of all the things in the world, why the shrimp that literally feeds the rest of the ocean? I’ve been informed that the rising temperatures, so out-of-the-ordinary in how fast they are going up, is not allowing krill to adapt. The young are losing their ability to form exoskeletons. We won’t have to free baleen whales from plastic nets if they have nothing to eat.
So all of these experiences, these topics of discussion, these concerns, go into my mental hopper to be digested and regurgitated and chewed on like an old cud. And I have to wonder… where will the next domino fall? That domino is out there…
Have you imagined where that line is designating how much breathable atmosphere there is on earth? For some reason I kept the mental image in my head of all of those elementary school drawings I’d seen as a kid. You know… that one with a little blue and green planet surrounded by air like a marble centered in a blue bowl. But that’s not right. That mental image doesn’t work.
If you drew that circle, everything within the line representing the earth… then the LINE ITSELF represents the atmosphere. Something just less than the width of a pencil line or the ink from a medium ball point pen.
To me that’s a little scary. Understanding that the breathable atmosphere is thinner in relation to the earth than the icing on a very thinly spread cake is surprising. Understanding brings perspective, and suddenly I am made aware that there isn’t much atmosphere on the earth. A puff of solar wind might steal a significant portion of it. A fire in the back yard adds up. I breathe more carefully, with more appreciation.
That domino is out there…
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To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
March 31, 2017
Review: Battery Powered Tools for the Homesteader
©2017 C. Henry Martens
Over the years I’ve owned a mess o’tools. Many are still with me, as I rarely break them, and even less often lose them. If they have become casualties, it is because they weren’t good enough to keep.
My biggest gripe with battery-powered tools is that the batteries are included in the kits and the manufacturers never seem to price those kits as though the batteries cost anything. Then when the batteries wear out, a couple of batteries can cost as much as the original kit. The tools are fine, but somehow the batteries are gold. This makes no sense to me, and it makes me think the manufacturers are in collusion with each other… because I would buy a tool solely on the knowledge that I could replace components reasonably if they break. Often, just as with many electrical items, the new technology has changed and the new batteries won’t power the old tools. One of my fantasies in life is to win the lottery and give tool manufacturers some competition geared toward people that use tools.
As I said, most of these tools come as kits, and I’ve bought several. Of those I mention here, I will have either owned them myself or used them because they were available on a job.
Hitachi: A really great set of tools that included a drill driver, a circular saw, and a reciprocating saw. Being my first set, they used NiCad batteries. I had no problem with them until they failed to charge after years of use. Suddenly a charge would barely cut through a two by four. I owned these tools for over ten years. Really difficult to throw them in the trash, knowing the tools were fine but cheaper to replace them with a new set. The battery replacements were close to a hundred bucks a piece, but the tools were functioning as well as the day I bought them. I really liked the drill driver especially. It was light but had plenty of torque, and the bit holder at the front was out of the way and convenient.
Milwaukee: Nice set with a drill driver with the hammer drill selection, a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, and a flashlight. Lithium batteries, and I’ve noticed they aren’t holding a charge as well as they used to after eight years. But they haven’t suddenly given out so far, either. We’ll see if they last as long as the Hitachi. The reason I bought this set was because the driver reminded me of the Hitachi. Nice and light and torquey. The hammer option has come in handy, too. Putting screws through metal roofing has been easier. I never expected to use the flashlight at all, so it went to the bottom of the bag and gathered dirt, but I have occasionally dug it out, and it’s a decent light that is adjustable so you can point it where it is needed.
DeWalt: I’ve heard people brag these tools up for years, and I’ve always thought if I could find a good deal on them I would make the leap. They are just too pricey normally, but on a sale I bought a driver, and then a circular saw that used the same battery. I have to say that these were disappointing. They are heavy… and did I mention they are HEAVY? I have to ask… why? I wonder if heavy tools equate to quality in some people’s minds? The driver was as good as any, although heavy, but the circular saw was a chore to use. I’ve never had a saw that liked to wander as much as this one. After a couple of blade changes, I gave up and used the blades with other saws. The batteries only lasted about three years. I ended up buying a single battery and selling the whole mess at a yard sale, the tools looking almost new. I felt sorry for the guy with the big grin buying them.
Ryobi: Well, if the DeWalts were bad, these were stinking terrible. They didn’t last a day under normal use. I don’t know how the company is still in business. I thought I’d gotten some unusually bad equipment so bought a corded grinder, and within fifteen minutes it was shooting sparks from inside of it and sounding like it was going to fly apart. I have no idea how long the batteries might last as these tools went back to the retailer to be refunded under warranty within a week.
Makita: I’ve had several Makita tools over the years, and I’ve thrashed them. I can’t remember ever breaking one. This is what I bought to replace the corded Ryobi grinder, and it is still humming along after a couple of years of hard use. I have a relative in the building trades, and Makita is what he uses. If the Milwaukee tools ever give out, I’ll probably try Makita.
Ridgid: I don’t own these as they seem kind of primitive to me. They just don’t appeal. But I have another relative that does extremely wonderful custom cabinetry with them and swears by them. He is the kind of guy who judges how good food is by how much it overlaps the plate, so maybe he has a point. He swears by the lifetime warranty, but that makes me wonder how often he has to use it. If the batteries have a lifetime warranty, maybe the tools are worth considering.
Dremel: I bought a slick little battery powered unit to do some fine work where I didn’t want to be dragging a cord around. Just like most of these experiences, the battery is trash and the tool looks like new. I just don’t use it enough to justify a new battery.
I have to add that I used to buy Black and Decker back in the day when corded tools were the norm. They always gave me good service. In fact, I had my first circular saw for long enough that the plastic blade guard warped and was melting against the blade as I used it for years.
I’ve heard things have changed in the tool industry, that some brands are listening to bean counters about how to make a cheaper product, and if that’s so, it is why they won’t be listed in a very few years with brands that have given quality service and been worth the price. But that’s the way of the world. Bean counters lure them in with tales of higher profits, and then they turn into Kmart/Sears and eventually get replaced by people who will soon be listening to bean counters.
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To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish
Over the years I’ve owned a mess o’tools. Many are still with me, as I rarely break them, and even less often lose them. If they have become casualties, it is because they weren’t good enough to keep.
My biggest gripe with battery-powered tools is that the batteries are included in the kits and the manufacturers never seem to price those kits as though the batteries cost anything. Then when the batteries wear out, a couple of batteries can cost as much as the original kit. The tools are fine, but somehow the batteries are gold. This makes no sense to me, and it makes me think the manufacturers are in collusion with each other… because I would buy a tool solely on the knowledge that I could replace components reasonably if they break. Often, just as with many electrical items, the new technology has changed and the new batteries won’t power the old tools. One of my fantasies in life is to win the lottery and give tool manufacturers some competition geared toward people that use tools.
As I said, most of these tools come as kits, and I’ve bought several. Of those I mention here, I will have either owned them myself or used them because they were available on a job.
Hitachi: A really great set of tools that included a drill driver, a circular saw, and a reciprocating saw. Being my first set, they used NiCad batteries. I had no problem with them until they failed to charge after years of use. Suddenly a charge would barely cut through a two by four. I owned these tools for over ten years. Really difficult to throw them in the trash, knowing the tools were fine but cheaper to replace them with a new set. The battery replacements were close to a hundred bucks a piece, but the tools were functioning as well as the day I bought them. I really liked the drill driver especially. It was light but had plenty of torque, and the bit holder at the front was out of the way and convenient.
Milwaukee: Nice set with a drill driver with the hammer drill selection, a circular saw, a reciprocating saw, and a flashlight. Lithium batteries, and I’ve noticed they aren’t holding a charge as well as they used to after eight years. But they haven’t suddenly given out so far, either. We’ll see if they last as long as the Hitachi. The reason I bought this set was because the driver reminded me of the Hitachi. Nice and light and torquey. The hammer option has come in handy, too. Putting screws through metal roofing has been easier. I never expected to use the flashlight at all, so it went to the bottom of the bag and gathered dirt, but I have occasionally dug it out, and it’s a decent light that is adjustable so you can point it where it is needed.
DeWalt: I’ve heard people brag these tools up for years, and I’ve always thought if I could find a good deal on them I would make the leap. They are just too pricey normally, but on a sale I bought a driver, and then a circular saw that used the same battery. I have to say that these were disappointing. They are heavy… and did I mention they are HEAVY? I have to ask… why? I wonder if heavy tools equate to quality in some people’s minds? The driver was as good as any, although heavy, but the circular saw was a chore to use. I’ve never had a saw that liked to wander as much as this one. After a couple of blade changes, I gave up and used the blades with other saws. The batteries only lasted about three years. I ended up buying a single battery and selling the whole mess at a yard sale, the tools looking almost new. I felt sorry for the guy with the big grin buying them.
Ryobi: Well, if the DeWalts were bad, these were stinking terrible. They didn’t last a day under normal use. I don’t know how the company is still in business. I thought I’d gotten some unusually bad equipment so bought a corded grinder, and within fifteen minutes it was shooting sparks from inside of it and sounding like it was going to fly apart. I have no idea how long the batteries might last as these tools went back to the retailer to be refunded under warranty within a week.
Makita: I’ve had several Makita tools over the years, and I’ve thrashed them. I can’t remember ever breaking one. This is what I bought to replace the corded Ryobi grinder, and it is still humming along after a couple of years of hard use. I have a relative in the building trades, and Makita is what he uses. If the Milwaukee tools ever give out, I’ll probably try Makita.
Ridgid: I don’t own these as they seem kind of primitive to me. They just don’t appeal. But I have another relative that does extremely wonderful custom cabinetry with them and swears by them. He is the kind of guy who judges how good food is by how much it overlaps the plate, so maybe he has a point. He swears by the lifetime warranty, but that makes me wonder how often he has to use it. If the batteries have a lifetime warranty, maybe the tools are worth considering.
Dremel: I bought a slick little battery powered unit to do some fine work where I didn’t want to be dragging a cord around. Just like most of these experiences, the battery is trash and the tool looks like new. I just don’t use it enough to justify a new battery.
I have to add that I used to buy Black and Decker back in the day when corded tools were the norm. They always gave me good service. In fact, I had my first circular saw for long enough that the plastic blade guard warped and was melting against the blade as I used it for years.
I’ve heard things have changed in the tool industry, that some brands are listening to bean counters about how to make a cheaper product, and if that’s so, it is why they won’t be listed in a very few years with brands that have given quality service and been worth the price. But that’s the way of the world. Bean counters lure them in with tales of higher profits, and then they turn into Kmart/Sears and eventually get replaced by people who will soon be listening to bean counters.
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To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish
March 24, 2017
Short Story: Testing 1..2..3..
©2017 C. Henry Martens
As a group of recruits, this one had not seemed exceptional, but the test was reaching the third hour. Someone had always bailed by now, so the money in the office pool was getting bigger odds every ten minutes. Someone was going to win a big pot.
Every fifteen minutes to half an hour someone had made the rounds and challenged each of the recruits with another task. As they were out of sight of each other, none of them knew that the others were having the same difficult or embarrassing things assigned to them. Every cop that participated came back chuckling, and I have to say that the rest of the office got a few jollies out of it, too. They were all watching out of the corners of their eyes.
That’s the way it goes on a slow day in this police station, we play jokes on each other, even in 2036 when we are all (HA!) adults. But this joke playing on the new blood was deadly serious. There was a lesson to be learned, and hopefully, the point would be made to one or more of the recruits. Most would not get it, but they would get the opportunity. No test would be able to reveal whether or who got it, but the lesson was valuable enough to do the lesson, regardless of the results. The ones that lasted in their job, usually advancing to higher ranks, were always the ones that made the connection.
I was sitting at my desk, kicked back and enjoying a conversation with the Irish bus driver that had delivered the fresh meat several hours ago, the bus driver also being one of their tougher instructors. We were sharing war stories, always a good time to pass the time waiting. But after three hours, we were starting to have some silence between tales. I really didn’t want to get to the point that we started to show each other our scars. It had happened before and O’Connor had one that he was particularly proud of in a place I would rather not see.
I saw the kid first. He had been escorted on arrival to some back corner of the station and told to stand in it. You would not believe how much work it is to find corners for seven recruits. Once in the corner, a dunce cap was placed on his head… and so it began. Now, a young man stood in the doorway with lipstick smeared on his face and something erotic super glued to the zipper of his pants, which strangely seemed to work even though they were on backwards.
Angry, smoldering eyes met mine as his teacher droned on about some drug bust that had gone south. But behind the anger, the kid was also embarrassed. He was the first to break, and he knew it. I interrupted the story to indicate the kid, and O’Connor casually spun around with a look of disdain on his face. Without a word, he pointed to the conference room, and the kid fairly marched in. He was trying to make the best of his disgrace, and like many young men would, show some disdain for anyone that would call him on it. But he was embarrassed, you could tell.
I remembered the words O’Connor had thrown at the newbies on arrival.
“There’s a special place in Hell for the first of you that break. The first determines what the rest get, and get it themselves, double.” The big man fairly singed the recruits with his burning gaze. “You will do everything you are told to do. You will do it as instructed down to the period on each sentence. If a uniform approaches you, you will turn and bow and address that person as “Sir” and never as anything else. It does NOT matter what you are instructed to do. It does not matter what you are asked to do. It does not matter if you are spoken to in Greek, or Swahili, or sign language. YOU WILL figure it out and DO IT!”
O’Connor did not need to add, “Am I clear?!” The recruits were clear. Thus began the hazing ritual and one of the learning experiences that would forge a cop.
Five young men and two young women filled the seats. The rest of us surrounded them, milling about on the edges of the room and giving all of them the evil eye. This was part of it, letting them know that we were disappointed. But this time the kid that was first was pretty much shrinking into his seat. The room got much quieter when O’Connor entered.
“We have a winner!” The teacher emphasized the word ‘winner.’ The kid cringed and hung his head. O’Connor moved behind him and gripped the back of the kid’s shoulders. “Lucas here couldn’t take it. He jumped out in record time. What do you think of that? Do you have any idea what his performance has cost you?”
The group, all with hanging heads and heavy frowns, glanced from under lowered lids at Lucas. Some shook their heads, perhaps some answering O’Connor’s question, but some in anger or embarrassment.
“Anything any of you want to say to this panty waist?” The big man looked around the room, striking each newbie with a frown. “Now’s your chance. Any’a you want to work with this guy? To pull a shift, share a squad car, or get in some heavy shit?”
One of the kids raised his hand.
“WHAT, BARKLEY!?!?” thundered O’Connor, as though ready to pop the kid’s head between his fingers like a grape. “WHAT have you got to SAY!?!?”
To give the kid credit where credit is due, he pinked up even before he spoke. “Pardon me, sir, but I was just going to say that I never thought it would be Luke. It coulda been me as easy.” He was angry, a little, which might account for the pinking face after he had paled under O’Connor’s heavy notice.
“So you want to make excuses for him!?” bellowed O’Connor. He gripped Lucas’ shoulders in huge hands and looked ready to choke him. Everyone in the room noticed. “What else does anyone have to say?”
“I think he shoulda manned up and grown a pair.” This from the dark-haired woman. “We gotta have each other’s back, don’t we?” She wore too much eye make-up, and the lipstick on her face was mixing with it as she perspired.
“Yeah,” said a kid with hair like dirty dish water. “Nothing was so bad that he couldn’ta taken a few more licks. We all did it.”
“I agree,” grumbled the big kid, obviously a weight lifter. “When I get through probation and assigned I’ll be watching who I get partnered with.”
A couple more comments flowed, two of the recruits markedly silent. One was Barkley, the other a small woman with mouse brown hair. She was normally quiet, and this time was no exception. While Barkley was diminished by O’Connor tongue lashing him, the woman seemed to be studying the situation.
“I don’t believe you guys,” she finally spoke up quietly, “We all got the same treatment, and I know for a fact that any one of the barbs that got slung at me, in the right light, could have pushed me over the edge.” She lowered her voice even more, knowing that the rest might be looking at her with predatory eyes and ready to pitch her into the same pit as Lucas and Barkley. “If I was ready, so were others here. Lucas just got the particular thing that set him off first.”
Glowering, the instructor bored into her and she quailed ever so slightly. Then she came to a decision and sat up straight as though proud of her statement. She glared right back… but meekly, lol.
The comments continued, sometimes at the urging of the instructor.
Mouse Hair took some heat from the others. Even Lucas spoke up and apologized to her and the rest, saying that she should be harder on him. Saying that there was no reason for her to make excuses.
I was standing to one side of O’Connor when he spoke next, so I could see Lucas’ face.
“Okay, so that’s how it is, eh? This is where the rubber meets the road, and all of you have taken a side.” He continued, “So is that it? You have your opinions, and you’re all willing to stick to them?” He panned the room and the recruits all nodded.
Grinning, the Irishman said carefully, “This has been an exercise, and as such you should expect the unexpected.”
The recruits didn’t yet know what he meant, but a couple looked up and studied their teacher’s face.
“The problem is, all of you are wrong to make up your mind. You aren’t a jury, a judge, or a victim… or even a witness. You have no investment worthy of making a judgment against, or in favor of, another person. Not to mention someone you work with. I’m going to ask you to make that distinction, to prioritize a neutral attitude unless you are directly involved in actions by a subject you are observing or interacting with.”
Something had changed, and none seated at the table understood where this was going.
Reaching into an inner pocket, O’Connor displayed a fan of what looked like tickets to an event.
“These are dinners at a restaurant, and the six of you,” he indicated everyone except Lucas, “get a free meal from one of the sponsors supporting us.” He let it sink in, wondering if anyone would bite.
“You said that the first out would get double,” the weightlifter spoke in an unusually soft tone. “I don’t get it.”
“Yes, I’m glad you asked,” said the instructor, “and Luke here will be going for a one night stay at the same resort where your meal will be served, and the rest of you can either pay for a room or drive home since you weren’t first.”
“Wait a minute.” The dark-haired woman was upset. “How does he get a pass and even get rewarded for going out first?”
O’Connor hesitated. He wanted their full attention.
“Look, we aren’t looking for Navy Seals. Some guy that will step into the hole in an outhouse with a shit eating grin on his face, all to hide from an enemy so he can kill the guy. We’re looking for people that are smart enough to prioritize and not put up with too much shit.”
I always appreciated that particular part of O’Connor’s speech and I grinned at the metaphors.
“We aren’t here for anger management, either. Each of you had a right to get pissed off. We wanted to push your buttons, and remember… we have detectives to investigate your pasts. We have things on all of you. Believe me when I tell you that you will continue to hear about whatever we found.”
A couple of the people looked a little guilty. Dark hair girl and the dishwater hair kid. I would have to find out why.
“You are not required to take crap. But just as important, you are not required to act on it. Lucas here was tough enough to hold out for three hours, so were all of you… but he was also smart enough to quit a uselessly demoralizing situation with no real value. YOU… ,“ and here the Irishman was very clear, “are expected to do what is right. THAT is the job more than anything else. When you think you can get someone off the streets by becoming a mentor and ignoring some minor indiscretions, do it. If you think that someone needs to feel the weight of a heavy hand, make sure you leave no marks. But most importantly, just as in this situation, don’t expect any scenario to be what you expect. People will lie, but not all people. Some people will look dangerous and will BE dangerous… but there will be people that you expect to take a side against you and they will do the opposite, and there will be old white grandmothers that will pull a blade and try to gut you.”
This talk was good for everyone in the room, I was thinking. We, those that had been on the job, knew what was being said.
“You have to see what’s in a kid’s hand before you make a decision. No excuses. You have to do the right thing, because that is the job. If you don’t think your pay compensates you enough to do the right thing, then you are in the wrong profession. We set an example.”
Listening, I had to think about what the cops of several years ago went through with the Black and Blue Lives Matter riots. Those cops in the teens had been angry, and it all got out-of-hand. I remembered what my mother had said about the situation, as she stood on the front lines behind her badge and a plexi-glass shield. If the police chief from that city on the east coast hadn’t stood up and said that they were looking at it wrong, there would have been more deaths than there were. Attitudes didn’t change overnight, but once the good cops stopped protecting the bad cops… well maybe the cops that made bad decisions, and they started to fire and even prosecute depending on the severity of the breach of trust things changed. That was the turning point.
It didn’t hurt that several well-respected people in the black community came together to form the Show Respect movement.
And then, once the police departments followed the east coast chief’s lead, they set an example and a slow decline in crime was easy to accept. I hear that there are some prisons being mothballed soon, even with an expanding population.
So that was it. One, take responsibility. Two, reestablish trust. And three, mutual respect.
I hear there is a similar movement in the medical profession. And teachers’ unions have changed their tune and are now weeding out the ones that have been getting paychecks even though they can’t be trusted with kids. Judges are treating sports figures and celebrities like they should be examples and role models. Who knows where this might lead? Now, if we could only get a responsible Congress.
Naw… it’ll never happen.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
As a group of recruits, this one had not seemed exceptional, but the test was reaching the third hour. Someone had always bailed by now, so the money in the office pool was getting bigger odds every ten minutes. Someone was going to win a big pot.
Every fifteen minutes to half an hour someone had made the rounds and challenged each of the recruits with another task. As they were out of sight of each other, none of them knew that the others were having the same difficult or embarrassing things assigned to them. Every cop that participated came back chuckling, and I have to say that the rest of the office got a few jollies out of it, too. They were all watching out of the corners of their eyes.
That’s the way it goes on a slow day in this police station, we play jokes on each other, even in 2036 when we are all (HA!) adults. But this joke playing on the new blood was deadly serious. There was a lesson to be learned, and hopefully, the point would be made to one or more of the recruits. Most would not get it, but they would get the opportunity. No test would be able to reveal whether or who got it, but the lesson was valuable enough to do the lesson, regardless of the results. The ones that lasted in their job, usually advancing to higher ranks, were always the ones that made the connection.
I was sitting at my desk, kicked back and enjoying a conversation with the Irish bus driver that had delivered the fresh meat several hours ago, the bus driver also being one of their tougher instructors. We were sharing war stories, always a good time to pass the time waiting. But after three hours, we were starting to have some silence between tales. I really didn’t want to get to the point that we started to show each other our scars. It had happened before and O’Connor had one that he was particularly proud of in a place I would rather not see.
I saw the kid first. He had been escorted on arrival to some back corner of the station and told to stand in it. You would not believe how much work it is to find corners for seven recruits. Once in the corner, a dunce cap was placed on his head… and so it began. Now, a young man stood in the doorway with lipstick smeared on his face and something erotic super glued to the zipper of his pants, which strangely seemed to work even though they were on backwards.
Angry, smoldering eyes met mine as his teacher droned on about some drug bust that had gone south. But behind the anger, the kid was also embarrassed. He was the first to break, and he knew it. I interrupted the story to indicate the kid, and O’Connor casually spun around with a look of disdain on his face. Without a word, he pointed to the conference room, and the kid fairly marched in. He was trying to make the best of his disgrace, and like many young men would, show some disdain for anyone that would call him on it. But he was embarrassed, you could tell.
I remembered the words O’Connor had thrown at the newbies on arrival.
“There’s a special place in Hell for the first of you that break. The first determines what the rest get, and get it themselves, double.” The big man fairly singed the recruits with his burning gaze. “You will do everything you are told to do. You will do it as instructed down to the period on each sentence. If a uniform approaches you, you will turn and bow and address that person as “Sir” and never as anything else. It does NOT matter what you are instructed to do. It does not matter what you are asked to do. It does not matter if you are spoken to in Greek, or Swahili, or sign language. YOU WILL figure it out and DO IT!”
O’Connor did not need to add, “Am I clear?!” The recruits were clear. Thus began the hazing ritual and one of the learning experiences that would forge a cop.
Five young men and two young women filled the seats. The rest of us surrounded them, milling about on the edges of the room and giving all of them the evil eye. This was part of it, letting them know that we were disappointed. But this time the kid that was first was pretty much shrinking into his seat. The room got much quieter when O’Connor entered.
“We have a winner!” The teacher emphasized the word ‘winner.’ The kid cringed and hung his head. O’Connor moved behind him and gripped the back of the kid’s shoulders. “Lucas here couldn’t take it. He jumped out in record time. What do you think of that? Do you have any idea what his performance has cost you?”
The group, all with hanging heads and heavy frowns, glanced from under lowered lids at Lucas. Some shook their heads, perhaps some answering O’Connor’s question, but some in anger or embarrassment.
“Anything any of you want to say to this panty waist?” The big man looked around the room, striking each newbie with a frown. “Now’s your chance. Any’a you want to work with this guy? To pull a shift, share a squad car, or get in some heavy shit?”
One of the kids raised his hand.
“WHAT, BARKLEY!?!?” thundered O’Connor, as though ready to pop the kid’s head between his fingers like a grape. “WHAT have you got to SAY!?!?”
To give the kid credit where credit is due, he pinked up even before he spoke. “Pardon me, sir, but I was just going to say that I never thought it would be Luke. It coulda been me as easy.” He was angry, a little, which might account for the pinking face after he had paled under O’Connor’s heavy notice.
“So you want to make excuses for him!?” bellowed O’Connor. He gripped Lucas’ shoulders in huge hands and looked ready to choke him. Everyone in the room noticed. “What else does anyone have to say?”
“I think he shoulda manned up and grown a pair.” This from the dark-haired woman. “We gotta have each other’s back, don’t we?” She wore too much eye make-up, and the lipstick on her face was mixing with it as she perspired.
“Yeah,” said a kid with hair like dirty dish water. “Nothing was so bad that he couldn’ta taken a few more licks. We all did it.”
“I agree,” grumbled the big kid, obviously a weight lifter. “When I get through probation and assigned I’ll be watching who I get partnered with.”
A couple more comments flowed, two of the recruits markedly silent. One was Barkley, the other a small woman with mouse brown hair. She was normally quiet, and this time was no exception. While Barkley was diminished by O’Connor tongue lashing him, the woman seemed to be studying the situation.
“I don’t believe you guys,” she finally spoke up quietly, “We all got the same treatment, and I know for a fact that any one of the barbs that got slung at me, in the right light, could have pushed me over the edge.” She lowered her voice even more, knowing that the rest might be looking at her with predatory eyes and ready to pitch her into the same pit as Lucas and Barkley. “If I was ready, so were others here. Lucas just got the particular thing that set him off first.”
Glowering, the instructor bored into her and she quailed ever so slightly. Then she came to a decision and sat up straight as though proud of her statement. She glared right back… but meekly, lol.
The comments continued, sometimes at the urging of the instructor.
Mouse Hair took some heat from the others. Even Lucas spoke up and apologized to her and the rest, saying that she should be harder on him. Saying that there was no reason for her to make excuses.
I was standing to one side of O’Connor when he spoke next, so I could see Lucas’ face.
“Okay, so that’s how it is, eh? This is where the rubber meets the road, and all of you have taken a side.” He continued, “So is that it? You have your opinions, and you’re all willing to stick to them?” He panned the room and the recruits all nodded.
Grinning, the Irishman said carefully, “This has been an exercise, and as such you should expect the unexpected.”
The recruits didn’t yet know what he meant, but a couple looked up and studied their teacher’s face.
“The problem is, all of you are wrong to make up your mind. You aren’t a jury, a judge, or a victim… or even a witness. You have no investment worthy of making a judgment against, or in favor of, another person. Not to mention someone you work with. I’m going to ask you to make that distinction, to prioritize a neutral attitude unless you are directly involved in actions by a subject you are observing or interacting with.”
Something had changed, and none seated at the table understood where this was going.
Reaching into an inner pocket, O’Connor displayed a fan of what looked like tickets to an event.
“These are dinners at a restaurant, and the six of you,” he indicated everyone except Lucas, “get a free meal from one of the sponsors supporting us.” He let it sink in, wondering if anyone would bite.
“You said that the first out would get double,” the weightlifter spoke in an unusually soft tone. “I don’t get it.”
“Yes, I’m glad you asked,” said the instructor, “and Luke here will be going for a one night stay at the same resort where your meal will be served, and the rest of you can either pay for a room or drive home since you weren’t first.”
“Wait a minute.” The dark-haired woman was upset. “How does he get a pass and even get rewarded for going out first?”
O’Connor hesitated. He wanted their full attention.
“Look, we aren’t looking for Navy Seals. Some guy that will step into the hole in an outhouse with a shit eating grin on his face, all to hide from an enemy so he can kill the guy. We’re looking for people that are smart enough to prioritize and not put up with too much shit.”
I always appreciated that particular part of O’Connor’s speech and I grinned at the metaphors.
“We aren’t here for anger management, either. Each of you had a right to get pissed off. We wanted to push your buttons, and remember… we have detectives to investigate your pasts. We have things on all of you. Believe me when I tell you that you will continue to hear about whatever we found.”
A couple of the people looked a little guilty. Dark hair girl and the dishwater hair kid. I would have to find out why.
“You are not required to take crap. But just as important, you are not required to act on it. Lucas here was tough enough to hold out for three hours, so were all of you… but he was also smart enough to quit a uselessly demoralizing situation with no real value. YOU… ,“ and here the Irishman was very clear, “are expected to do what is right. THAT is the job more than anything else. When you think you can get someone off the streets by becoming a mentor and ignoring some minor indiscretions, do it. If you think that someone needs to feel the weight of a heavy hand, make sure you leave no marks. But most importantly, just as in this situation, don’t expect any scenario to be what you expect. People will lie, but not all people. Some people will look dangerous and will BE dangerous… but there will be people that you expect to take a side against you and they will do the opposite, and there will be old white grandmothers that will pull a blade and try to gut you.”
This talk was good for everyone in the room, I was thinking. We, those that had been on the job, knew what was being said.
“You have to see what’s in a kid’s hand before you make a decision. No excuses. You have to do the right thing, because that is the job. If you don’t think your pay compensates you enough to do the right thing, then you are in the wrong profession. We set an example.”
Listening, I had to think about what the cops of several years ago went through with the Black and Blue Lives Matter riots. Those cops in the teens had been angry, and it all got out-of-hand. I remembered what my mother had said about the situation, as she stood on the front lines behind her badge and a plexi-glass shield. If the police chief from that city on the east coast hadn’t stood up and said that they were looking at it wrong, there would have been more deaths than there were. Attitudes didn’t change overnight, but once the good cops stopped protecting the bad cops… well maybe the cops that made bad decisions, and they started to fire and even prosecute depending on the severity of the breach of trust things changed. That was the turning point.
It didn’t hurt that several well-respected people in the black community came together to form the Show Respect movement.
And then, once the police departments followed the east coast chief’s lead, they set an example and a slow decline in crime was easy to accept. I hear that there are some prisons being mothballed soon, even with an expanding population.
So that was it. One, take responsibility. Two, reestablish trust. And three, mutual respect.
I hear there is a similar movement in the medical profession. And teachers’ unions have changed their tune and are now weeding out the ones that have been getting paychecks even though they can’t be trusted with kids. Judges are treating sports figures and celebrities like they should be examples and role models. Who knows where this might lead? Now, if we could only get a responsible Congress.
Naw… it’ll never happen.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
March 17, 2017
Review: LEM 1-HP Meat Grinder
©2017 Kari Carlisle
I am not the most mechanically inclined person. I am easily frustrated when machines don’t work and am more likely to get someone else’s help to fix something before I start screaming and throwing things and saying bad words. As Chief Grinder Operator in my house, I can honestly say I’ve only had to get help once, and that was during the initial assembly. I like the LEM meat grinder more than Mikey likes Life cereal.
So far I have only used the grinder for grinding homemade dog food. I feed my dogs raw meat and bones, and this grinder does a fabulous job of grinding whole chicken legs, many of them half frozen, for an hour straight. In fact, in the two years I’ve had this grinder, I have not had to sharpen the blade. I wouldn’t try to grind any bones harder than poultry, though. And I would never feed cooked bones to my dogs as they could cause internal damage.
The hole that you drop the meat through is large enough for a large chicken leg or medium leg quarters, so whatever you might be grinding will need to be cut into chunks no wider than about 2 ½ inches. The grinder comes with different plates for the size of grind you want. One of these days, I’ll try making my own sausage. I think you can grind cheese and vegetables, too. Hmm… spinach-parmesan-chicken sausage sounds good, don’t you think?
I highly recommend also buying the LEM Products Meat Grinder Accessory Kit. I’ve only used a few of the items that come in it, but it’s totally worth it for the foot pedal and cleaning brushes alone. You will also want to get a food grade bin to receive the ground meat. I have a big one from Cabelas. I can grind probably 30-40 pounds of meat before I have to stop and bag it for the freezer. You can also get a special mixer, but I haven’t bought one yet. The mixer will come in handy for making sausage because it mixes the meat and seasoning and whatever else you want to combine. If you’re making large batches, I can see that being easier that trying to hand mix everything.
I’m sure this grinder would also come in handy for hunters who process their own game or for anyone who just wants to make their own ground meats from whole cuts. There are LEM grinders that are less expensive and less powerful that I would probably recommend for occasional use, but if you’re doing quantity and/or grinding bones for your animals, the one horsepower model is definitely the way to go.
Here's a yummy recipe to try with some freshly ground beef...
Beef and Broccoli Casserole
1 lb. ground beef2-3 bunches broccoli1 stick butter1 package rice noodles1 tablespoon potato starchseasoning of choice½ lb. shredded cheddar cheese
Brown ground beef with one tablespoon butter. Set aside. Chop broccoli and sauté in remaining butter until soft. Cook rice noodles according to instructions. Coat casserole dish with olive oil. Mix beef, broccoli and noodles together with flour and seasoning in casserole dish. Top with cheese and bake 20-30 minutes at 350° F.
Seasoning ideas: Bragg liquid amino acids (tastes like soy sauce) and Chinese 5 spice; Real Salt.
Optional add-ins: sautéed onions and garlic.
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www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publis
I am not the most mechanically inclined person. I am easily frustrated when machines don’t work and am more likely to get someone else’s help to fix something before I start screaming and throwing things and saying bad words. As Chief Grinder Operator in my house, I can honestly say I’ve only had to get help once, and that was during the initial assembly. I like the LEM meat grinder more than Mikey likes Life cereal.
So far I have only used the grinder for grinding homemade dog food. I feed my dogs raw meat and bones, and this grinder does a fabulous job of grinding whole chicken legs, many of them half frozen, for an hour straight. In fact, in the two years I’ve had this grinder, I have not had to sharpen the blade. I wouldn’t try to grind any bones harder than poultry, though. And I would never feed cooked bones to my dogs as they could cause internal damage.
The hole that you drop the meat through is large enough for a large chicken leg or medium leg quarters, so whatever you might be grinding will need to be cut into chunks no wider than about 2 ½ inches. The grinder comes with different plates for the size of grind you want. One of these days, I’ll try making my own sausage. I think you can grind cheese and vegetables, too. Hmm… spinach-parmesan-chicken sausage sounds good, don’t you think?
I highly recommend also buying the LEM Products Meat Grinder Accessory Kit. I’ve only used a few of the items that come in it, but it’s totally worth it for the foot pedal and cleaning brushes alone. You will also want to get a food grade bin to receive the ground meat. I have a big one from Cabelas. I can grind probably 30-40 pounds of meat before I have to stop and bag it for the freezer. You can also get a special mixer, but I haven’t bought one yet. The mixer will come in handy for making sausage because it mixes the meat and seasoning and whatever else you want to combine. If you’re making large batches, I can see that being easier that trying to hand mix everything.
I’m sure this grinder would also come in handy for hunters who process their own game or for anyone who just wants to make their own ground meats from whole cuts. There are LEM grinders that are less expensive and less powerful that I would probably recommend for occasional use, but if you’re doing quantity and/or grinding bones for your animals, the one horsepower model is definitely the way to go.
Here's a yummy recipe to try with some freshly ground beef...
Beef and Broccoli Casserole
1 lb. ground beef2-3 bunches broccoli1 stick butter1 package rice noodles1 tablespoon potato starchseasoning of choice½ lb. shredded cheddar cheese
Brown ground beef with one tablespoon butter. Set aside. Chop broccoli and sauté in remaining butter until soft. Cook rice noodles according to instructions. Coat casserole dish with olive oil. Mix beef, broccoli and noodles together with flour and seasoning in casserole dish. Top with cheese and bake 20-30 minutes at 350° F.
Seasoning ideas: Bragg liquid amino acids (tastes like soy sauce) and Chinese 5 spice; Real Salt.
Optional add-ins: sautéed onions and garlic.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publis
March 10, 2017
Countdown: 10 Terrific Time Traveling TV Shows
©2017 Kari Carlisle
Do I have time travel on my mind? Yes, I do! I’m having so much fun working at the Arizona Renaissance Faire, and I’m heading there again this weekend (March 11-12). And it’s Time Traveler’s weekend at the Faire (No way! Yes way!), so if you are in the greater Phoenix area this weekend, don your steampunk garb or Star Trek uniform and come see me and my greyhound, Simon, in the Greyhound Guild booth. Tell me you read this blog post, and I will give you a print copy of any one of C. Henry Martens’ books!
Okay, down to business. I promised you a countdown. Here you go….
10. Mr. Peabody & Sherman – Before this was a movie, it was a children’s cartoon a long time ago. Dog and boy use Way Back Machine to check out historical events. This was probably my first introduction to time travel. Oooph, dating myself.
9. Time After Time – Brand new show that I confess I haven’t seen yet, but it looks good. Even if it’s not, the actors are pretty hot. The only reason I haven’t tuned in is because it’s on at the same time as…
8. Making History – Another new show in which millennials screw up the American Revolution using a duffel bag time machine. Yes, it’s a comedy. Amusing first episode, but jury’s still out on this one.
7. Quantum Leap – And I’m dating myself again, but I used to love watching Scott Bakula ‘jump’ into people’s bodies throughout time to fix their problems. Who am I kidding? I just used to love watching Scott Bakula.
6. Star Trek franchise – Though Star Trek was about space travel, the stories occasionally sent characters through time. One of my faves – Kirk and Bones trying to stay out of trouble while obtaining supplies in 1940’s Chicago so Spock could get them back home. But of course getting into trouble anyway.
5. Stargate franchise - And speaking of space shows dabbling in time travel, Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and SG-U all had their time travel episodes. My absolute fave – the SG-U crew finding their own descendants on a planet, hundreds of years after their doubles time traveled back and got stranded.
4. Red Dwarf – Binge-worthy, British space comedy that technically isn’t about space travel, though after millennia in suspended animation, the last remaining crew member wakes to find himself far from home and having to share a giant spacecraft with a disturbed hologram, A.I., robots, and the single remaining offspring of the evolved ship’s cat. Yes, all of them disturbed. And sometimes there is time travel. And curry. And toast. Did I mention it’s British? Yeah….
3. Continuum – Too-short-lived time travel drama that brings a cop and a gang of anti-corporation (no government in the future) activists to our own time. Very complicated with lots of cool twists, gadgets and effects, but it's the good stories and characters that make it worth finding to stream.
2. Outlander – Interesting take on the time travel story, as it doesn’t involve our present time at all. A WWII English nurse finds herself transported back 400 years. Rich in character development, story, and scene, I love this one. I mean, men in kilts… what's not to love? It does have its violent and hot and steamy moments, though, so not for innocent eyes.
And Number One…
Doctor Who – I won’t even pretend to have seen every single episode in how many of its original seasons? And in the 9 seasons of its rebirth? Or should I say regeneration? Doctor Who is the epitome of time travel, taking us anywhere and everywhere and to the very end of the universe. Meeting companions, aliens, robots, historic figures, and every episode nearly destroying time itself, the stories are complicated and as mysterious as the Doctor himself. Can a show be campy and sophisticated at the same time? Only Doctor Who.
I hope you enjoyed my countdown. Tell me in the comments your favorites and if I missed any here. Or tell me in person this weekend!
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publis
Do I have time travel on my mind? Yes, I do! I’m having so much fun working at the Arizona Renaissance Faire, and I’m heading there again this weekend (March 11-12). And it’s Time Traveler’s weekend at the Faire (No way! Yes way!), so if you are in the greater Phoenix area this weekend, don your steampunk garb or Star Trek uniform and come see me and my greyhound, Simon, in the Greyhound Guild booth. Tell me you read this blog post, and I will give you a print copy of any one of C. Henry Martens’ books!
Okay, down to business. I promised you a countdown. Here you go….
10. Mr. Peabody & Sherman – Before this was a movie, it was a children’s cartoon a long time ago. Dog and boy use Way Back Machine to check out historical events. This was probably my first introduction to time travel. Oooph, dating myself.
9. Time After Time – Brand new show that I confess I haven’t seen yet, but it looks good. Even if it’s not, the actors are pretty hot. The only reason I haven’t tuned in is because it’s on at the same time as…
8. Making History – Another new show in which millennials screw up the American Revolution using a duffel bag time machine. Yes, it’s a comedy. Amusing first episode, but jury’s still out on this one.
7. Quantum Leap – And I’m dating myself again, but I used to love watching Scott Bakula ‘jump’ into people’s bodies throughout time to fix their problems. Who am I kidding? I just used to love watching Scott Bakula.
6. Star Trek franchise – Though Star Trek was about space travel, the stories occasionally sent characters through time. One of my faves – Kirk and Bones trying to stay out of trouble while obtaining supplies in 1940’s Chicago so Spock could get them back home. But of course getting into trouble anyway.
5. Stargate franchise - And speaking of space shows dabbling in time travel, Stargates SG-1, Atlantis, and SG-U all had their time travel episodes. My absolute fave – the SG-U crew finding their own descendants on a planet, hundreds of years after their doubles time traveled back and got stranded.
4. Red Dwarf – Binge-worthy, British space comedy that technically isn’t about space travel, though after millennia in suspended animation, the last remaining crew member wakes to find himself far from home and having to share a giant spacecraft with a disturbed hologram, A.I., robots, and the single remaining offspring of the evolved ship’s cat. Yes, all of them disturbed. And sometimes there is time travel. And curry. And toast. Did I mention it’s British? Yeah….
3. Continuum – Too-short-lived time travel drama that brings a cop and a gang of anti-corporation (no government in the future) activists to our own time. Very complicated with lots of cool twists, gadgets and effects, but it's the good stories and characters that make it worth finding to stream.
2. Outlander – Interesting take on the time travel story, as it doesn’t involve our present time at all. A WWII English nurse finds herself transported back 400 years. Rich in character development, story, and scene, I love this one. I mean, men in kilts… what's not to love? It does have its violent and hot and steamy moments, though, so not for innocent eyes.
And Number One…
Doctor Who – I won’t even pretend to have seen every single episode in how many of its original seasons? And in the 9 seasons of its rebirth? Or should I say regeneration? Doctor Who is the epitome of time travel, taking us anywhere and everywhere and to the very end of the universe. Meeting companions, aliens, robots, historic figures, and every episode nearly destroying time itself, the stories are complicated and as mysterious as the Doctor himself. Can a show be campy and sophisticated at the same time? Only Doctor Who.
I hope you enjoyed my countdown. Tell me in the comments your favorites and if I missed any here. Or tell me in person this weekend!
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publis
March 3, 2017
The Aliens Among Us
©2017 C. Henry Martens
Oh, you’ve all heard the rumors. Either from your besties, or the strange guy down the street, or maybe that cool blog site that you don’t know whether to take seriously. The less than reliable sources that you wonder about, even that one between your own ears in the dark silence of the night. The ones that say, “There are things out there. Things that just can’t be real… but I’m sure they ARE.”
So here is a short list of the critters you may encounter if you aren’t careful. Or if you are just plain unlucky.
Reptiloid Transdimensional Overlords: You know… lizard people. These are scaly critters known to use fake skin to disguise themselves so they can walk among us, passing for your boss or the nosy neighbor lady. They have a plan to take over the earth.
Starfish: What, you thought these were natural? Boy, are you out of touch. These things vomit their stomachs out of their mouths and onto their food, and then secrete stomach acids to digest anything that their stomach contacts outside of their bodies. You think that’s not an alien? Get a clue, bozo. And they aren’t as slow as you think. Just stop watching them for a minute. In the dark they’re even faster, unless they know you’re watching.
Hair Balls: Oh, you thought the cat was the alien? Nope, they are the unfortunate haven for the insidious Hair Ball parasite. You can hear the result of their torturing the cat in the wee hours of the night as the feline victim retches its guts onto the floor. If you give them time, they will move across the floor until they are directly in your path to the bathroom.
Cellulose Eaters from the Ripple Quadrant: These creatures mimic humans almost perfectly. The only reliable clue is that they all have these super-defined muscles on their bellies. They are so plentiful in Hollywood and in beauty pageants that most people accept them as real human beings. But watch carefully around the buffet and you will notice that they have an affinity to celery and other uncooked vegetables. If they eat enough, those six packs expand like a cow’s stomach and they will belch a lot, eventually chewing their cud. And you just thought it was gum, right?
GMO’s: These are difficult to define, as most have come back in time and aren’t invented yet. There is a huge variety, too. While technically they aren’t aliens, having originated on Earth, they are NOT human either. Some can be recognized by their smell, usually thought to be a cloying floral scent mistaken as too much perfume. Others may be caught blinking their nictitating membranes, or dipping into the avocado with their extra long tongues. The ones to worry about are the ones that pull silk from their derriere and tend to kill their mates. Usually these are female.
Pug Ugly: What, here again you thought they were just little facially challenged dogs? Geeze, and I suppose you think their owners are really the ones in control, too, right? The movie, Men in Black, got it right. These little critters are usually found in numbers in the same home. They don’t tolerate better looking mutts easily. That’s why they like to hang out with humans.
Greyhounds: This is from my editor’s experience... They ‘look’ like dogs, but they do a very poor dog imitation. They are really feline-like aliens that are disguised as dogs, gathering intel on humans. They have endeared themselves to humans for centuries. The ancient Egyptians figured it out, though, and believed them to be gods. Watch out for the “dead cockroach” position – this is when they go into a trance to communicate with their home world.
Carnage Snifters: Discovered by Alfred Hitchcock back in the day, these guys have infiltrated the movie industry as bit players. Everyone thinks they are sea gulls and ravens, but just before the movie, The Birds, came out, these voracious aliens decimated the natural populations of gulls and crows and took over. If you are out at sea and want to entertain yourself by throwing some bread to the birds, you better hope they like it. People disappear at sea all the time.
Porcupine: Okay, we shoulda known, right? I mean really… These guys like to amble about in the woods until they discover a couple of people having a “picnic” on a blanket, and then they start to hum as though they are a person coming through the bushes, making all kinds of racket until you notice that the ascending and descending hum is coming from grass too short to hide anything but a Munchkin. Then they peer up at you with their beady little eyes and a big grin on their face, turn around, and walk away laughing.
Dust Bunnies: Okay, there are naturally occurring Dust Bunnies that are indigenous to Earth, but they aren’t found running around the house. The ones that you catch in the middle of the room are the aliens. If you wake up at night with something fuzzy in your throat, coughing, then you did something to tick them off.
Hummingbirds: These little suckers are lethal. Have you ever watched? They don’t even like each other, much less other species. Have you ever noticed that the feeder with all the earwigs in it is the one they prefer? While they have a sweet tooth, the also like their protein. Another one to watch out for in the woods.
Earwigs: Speaking of earwigs, these guys tried to escape their home planet when the Hummers showed up and took a liking to earwig pâté. They congregate under moist boards and in other dark places, and if it weren’t for the Hummingbirds they would be coming out in daylight and getting in everyone’s ears like they used to do in the dark ages. Why do you think Europeans started to take baths?
Remote Controls: And here you thought that you had put that thing where you knew where it was. HA! The laugh’s on you. Actually the housing for these tiny little hive mind critters is made in China, but the guts are all the same, and do they like to get a rise out of people. Humans call them by many colorful names, and not only because we can’t pronounce their real one. Test out whether you have an infected unit by intentionally placing yours in a specific place when you are going out… and see if you can find it when you return. Do it at least three times as they can be pretty cagey.
The Otis: These beings are highly intelligent, but they pretty much quit inventing anything after they mastered anti-gravity. Now they sell it to anyone with a high rise or multi-level retail building. They are also very popular in airline terminals. Occasionally they get a wild hair and don’t show up for appointments, but otherwise are considered pretty reliable.
SciFi Authors: Well if it isn’t obvious, you must not read science fiction.
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Oh, you’ve all heard the rumors. Either from your besties, or the strange guy down the street, or maybe that cool blog site that you don’t know whether to take seriously. The less than reliable sources that you wonder about, even that one between your own ears in the dark silence of the night. The ones that say, “There are things out there. Things that just can’t be real… but I’m sure they ARE.”
So here is a short list of the critters you may encounter if you aren’t careful. Or if you are just plain unlucky.
Reptiloid Transdimensional Overlords: You know… lizard people. These are scaly critters known to use fake skin to disguise themselves so they can walk among us, passing for your boss or the nosy neighbor lady. They have a plan to take over the earth.
Starfish: What, you thought these were natural? Boy, are you out of touch. These things vomit their stomachs out of their mouths and onto their food, and then secrete stomach acids to digest anything that their stomach contacts outside of their bodies. You think that’s not an alien? Get a clue, bozo. And they aren’t as slow as you think. Just stop watching them for a minute. In the dark they’re even faster, unless they know you’re watching.
Hair Balls: Oh, you thought the cat was the alien? Nope, they are the unfortunate haven for the insidious Hair Ball parasite. You can hear the result of their torturing the cat in the wee hours of the night as the feline victim retches its guts onto the floor. If you give them time, they will move across the floor until they are directly in your path to the bathroom.
Cellulose Eaters from the Ripple Quadrant: These creatures mimic humans almost perfectly. The only reliable clue is that they all have these super-defined muscles on their bellies. They are so plentiful in Hollywood and in beauty pageants that most people accept them as real human beings. But watch carefully around the buffet and you will notice that they have an affinity to celery and other uncooked vegetables. If they eat enough, those six packs expand like a cow’s stomach and they will belch a lot, eventually chewing their cud. And you just thought it was gum, right?
GMO’s: These are difficult to define, as most have come back in time and aren’t invented yet. There is a huge variety, too. While technically they aren’t aliens, having originated on Earth, they are NOT human either. Some can be recognized by their smell, usually thought to be a cloying floral scent mistaken as too much perfume. Others may be caught blinking their nictitating membranes, or dipping into the avocado with their extra long tongues. The ones to worry about are the ones that pull silk from their derriere and tend to kill their mates. Usually these are female.
Pug Ugly: What, here again you thought they were just little facially challenged dogs? Geeze, and I suppose you think their owners are really the ones in control, too, right? The movie, Men in Black, got it right. These little critters are usually found in numbers in the same home. They don’t tolerate better looking mutts easily. That’s why they like to hang out with humans.
Greyhounds: This is from my editor’s experience... They ‘look’ like dogs, but they do a very poor dog imitation. They are really feline-like aliens that are disguised as dogs, gathering intel on humans. They have endeared themselves to humans for centuries. The ancient Egyptians figured it out, though, and believed them to be gods. Watch out for the “dead cockroach” position – this is when they go into a trance to communicate with their home world.
Carnage Snifters: Discovered by Alfred Hitchcock back in the day, these guys have infiltrated the movie industry as bit players. Everyone thinks they are sea gulls and ravens, but just before the movie, The Birds, came out, these voracious aliens decimated the natural populations of gulls and crows and took over. If you are out at sea and want to entertain yourself by throwing some bread to the birds, you better hope they like it. People disappear at sea all the time.
Porcupine: Okay, we shoulda known, right? I mean really… These guys like to amble about in the woods until they discover a couple of people having a “picnic” on a blanket, and then they start to hum as though they are a person coming through the bushes, making all kinds of racket until you notice that the ascending and descending hum is coming from grass too short to hide anything but a Munchkin. Then they peer up at you with their beady little eyes and a big grin on their face, turn around, and walk away laughing.
Dust Bunnies: Okay, there are naturally occurring Dust Bunnies that are indigenous to Earth, but they aren’t found running around the house. The ones that you catch in the middle of the room are the aliens. If you wake up at night with something fuzzy in your throat, coughing, then you did something to tick them off.
Hummingbirds: These little suckers are lethal. Have you ever watched? They don’t even like each other, much less other species. Have you ever noticed that the feeder with all the earwigs in it is the one they prefer? While they have a sweet tooth, the also like their protein. Another one to watch out for in the woods.
Earwigs: Speaking of earwigs, these guys tried to escape their home planet when the Hummers showed up and took a liking to earwig pâté. They congregate under moist boards and in other dark places, and if it weren’t for the Hummingbirds they would be coming out in daylight and getting in everyone’s ears like they used to do in the dark ages. Why do you think Europeans started to take baths?
Remote Controls: And here you thought that you had put that thing where you knew where it was. HA! The laugh’s on you. Actually the housing for these tiny little hive mind critters is made in China, but the guts are all the same, and do they like to get a rise out of people. Humans call them by many colorful names, and not only because we can’t pronounce their real one. Test out whether you have an infected unit by intentionally placing yours in a specific place when you are going out… and see if you can find it when you return. Do it at least three times as they can be pretty cagey.
The Otis: These beings are highly intelligent, but they pretty much quit inventing anything after they mastered anti-gravity. Now they sell it to anyone with a high rise or multi-level retail building. They are also very popular in airline terminals. Occasionally they get a wild hair and don’t show up for appointments, but otherwise are considered pretty reliable.
SciFi Authors: Well if it isn’t obvious, you must not read science fiction.
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February 24, 2017
Inevitable Extinction Theory
©2017 C. Henry Martens
The first glimmers of this idea started rolling around in my head as a high school student, several years… decades... ago. The idea that the human race is destined to become extinct. I have finally arrived at a place where I think I can put down the relevant points after years of speculative thought.
What prompts this article, the culmination of this idea of Inevitable Extinction regarding the species Homo Sapiens, is a small side note published in the latest National Geographic magazine, the special issue of January 2017, titled “Gender Revolution.” The tiny note to the side of the page states that male and female children get different nutritional benefit from their mother’s breast milk… based on how financially stable the family is.
Why would that apply to humankind being poised on the knife’s edge of extinction?
Well, let’s start at the beginning.
First off, it is necessary to understand that humans are dangerous, and they make mistakes as a group that they would not make as individuals. One of the mistakes bred into us is a societal, tribal, species related instinct to survive. The idea that the more of our particular *brand* there are, the better off those of our brand are going to be.
Have you ever noticed the intensity of any group in soliciting an “other” over to the *side* of the group? The effort made to absorb the unlike individual into the cohesiveness of the tribe? It doesn’t matter if it is religion or a football team, any set of individuals that lose their independence, even two that come to believe they have a best way, will try to convince any others that they should join.
So human beings have a reason to gather together in numbers.
Now this affinity for being alike, in groups, may have evolved from a necessity to survive the savanna of long ago Africa, us against the savage world… but nevertheless, it is still with us today. A carry-over from our need to cooperate to feed and protect ourselves, and our success as a species.
This urge to survive as a group, a species, is integral to the idea of inevitable extinction.
The second leg of the theory is gender dominance. I’m not speaking of one gender dominating another by abuse of one kind or another, but the fact that one gender can be more numerous than the other.
Did you know that it is possible to influence gender in your offspring? Not only is it possible, but it occurs naturally in populations. The result is a natural form of birth control, and beneficial to the population under most circumstances.
The influence that skews gender birth rates one way or the other is most often food. Really? Well… yes. Food is essential to life, and what you eat sets up the chemistry of your body. Depending on what kinds of nutrients you ingest, your diet affects everything from the content of your gut biome to how acidic or basic the rest of your body is. That, the acidity of your body, affects the likelihood of which gender of sperm fertilizes the ovum. It shouldn’t surprise many people that the male sperm is more vigorous and faster than the female sperm, and the female sperm is longer lasting. In a more acid environment one gender of sperm has an advantage, in a base environment, the other does.
But what has this got to do with extinction? Well, what gender survives to reproduce has a great degree of impact on the future population. More females, more children… fewer females, fewer children. Before the rise of medical intervention, this was critical, and our only evolutionary birth control.
Population impacts future food supply. Have you ever heard anyone say, “The best predictor of future performance is past performance”? Well, it is true, not only in the stock market but also in natural environment food supply. The earth has natural cycles. We evolved to take advantage of the times of plenty, as well as the lean times.
In a natural environment with no medical intervention, more female children as a percentage are born in times of plenty. It follows that in lean times more male children are born. But gender percentages are skewed by nutrition in other ways. In a hunter-gatherer society that is dependent on protein as the major source of sustenance, male numbers are higher, and in societies depending on plants, carbohydrates, and sugars, females are more likely.
This is how we evolved.
Hunting societies need hunters. In the far north where the main source of nutrition is stored fat and frozen or dried fish, more male children were born. Warmer climes and agriculture skew the numbers the other way. In times of plenty, with lots of food to eat, we are evolved to have more female children. It is a natural cycle.
So, again, how does this relate to extinction?
Have you ever heard of overgrazing?
But before I get to that, let’s visit that National Geographic blurb one more time. They said that male and female children get different nutrients from breast milk, depending on how financially secure the woman is that is feeding them. In wealthy families, the boys get richer milk, and in poorer families, the females receive the richer milk. Do you see the correlation? This all goes back to hunter-gatherer evolution. Wealthier people have more, and richer, protein sources, and male children are encouraged to survive and thrive. Poor people eat a lot of carbs, and female children are the result.
Now I could get into the way our social structures have evolved as a result of these natural phenomena, but sociology is another subject. But there is certainly one result that is pertinent.
As our form of capitalism churns out ever more wealthy people at the top of the economic ladder, there are an ever increasing number, an exponential number, of people at the bottom of the economy. The percentage of female births have been unnaturally high considering the general financial condition of the lowest economic tier. What is considered substandard nutrition, a diet based on inexpensive foods like rice, pasta, and grains, is a bonanza of nutrition according to our evolutionary necessities… and the poor are not only gaining weight, but are also producing more female children. Which feeds the cycle.
Couple the larger percentage of women with medical advances keeping children alive through their childbearing years, and we have a situation where the population has grown well past a natural number of human beings on the planet.
Overgrazing. Think it can’t happen? There are nations in the world that are dependent on aid to feed their citizenry. And these are the good years. Between good climate and technologically advanced agricultural practices, the food supply is unnaturally abundant. As the soils are overworked and the aquifers drained, there will come a reckoning. The cycle of abundance will eventually decline into a cycle of shortages.
I have to wonder if nature set this all up as a way to weed out the animals that are inclined to overbreed and overgraze.
One point needs to be made. Women have all of the power in what eventually must transpire. Men can not be depended on to limit population numbers. First, males of the species are far too arrogant. They see big numbers as a survival strategy. More people like me… mean I am more likely to win. And men are unlikely to release that thinking easily. Short term thinkers, men.
Some recent numbers suggest the population is declining in industrialized nations. Governments are filling the gaps with immigrants, people who are much more likely to live in poverty and still produce large families. The cycle continues.
So these are the thoughts running through my head. I would like to think there is a solution, but babies are so cute, aren’t they?
If you follow the logic to its inevitable conclusion, you may see that we are getting ever closer to a tipping point. Overabundance, poverty, biological predisposition to high percentages of female births leading to more female births, diminishing resources like good soil and easily acquired water… and the very human proclivity to put off what can be avoided until there is a crisis. Imagine the entire world as one big Easter Island…
Inevitable extinction.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
The first glimmers of this idea started rolling around in my head as a high school student, several years… decades... ago. The idea that the human race is destined to become extinct. I have finally arrived at a place where I think I can put down the relevant points after years of speculative thought.
What prompts this article, the culmination of this idea of Inevitable Extinction regarding the species Homo Sapiens, is a small side note published in the latest National Geographic magazine, the special issue of January 2017, titled “Gender Revolution.” The tiny note to the side of the page states that male and female children get different nutritional benefit from their mother’s breast milk… based on how financially stable the family is.
Why would that apply to humankind being poised on the knife’s edge of extinction?
Well, let’s start at the beginning.
First off, it is necessary to understand that humans are dangerous, and they make mistakes as a group that they would not make as individuals. One of the mistakes bred into us is a societal, tribal, species related instinct to survive. The idea that the more of our particular *brand* there are, the better off those of our brand are going to be.
Have you ever noticed the intensity of any group in soliciting an “other” over to the *side* of the group? The effort made to absorb the unlike individual into the cohesiveness of the tribe? It doesn’t matter if it is religion or a football team, any set of individuals that lose their independence, even two that come to believe they have a best way, will try to convince any others that they should join.
So human beings have a reason to gather together in numbers.
Now this affinity for being alike, in groups, may have evolved from a necessity to survive the savanna of long ago Africa, us against the savage world… but nevertheless, it is still with us today. A carry-over from our need to cooperate to feed and protect ourselves, and our success as a species.
This urge to survive as a group, a species, is integral to the idea of inevitable extinction.
The second leg of the theory is gender dominance. I’m not speaking of one gender dominating another by abuse of one kind or another, but the fact that one gender can be more numerous than the other.
Did you know that it is possible to influence gender in your offspring? Not only is it possible, but it occurs naturally in populations. The result is a natural form of birth control, and beneficial to the population under most circumstances.
The influence that skews gender birth rates one way or the other is most often food. Really? Well… yes. Food is essential to life, and what you eat sets up the chemistry of your body. Depending on what kinds of nutrients you ingest, your diet affects everything from the content of your gut biome to how acidic or basic the rest of your body is. That, the acidity of your body, affects the likelihood of which gender of sperm fertilizes the ovum. It shouldn’t surprise many people that the male sperm is more vigorous and faster than the female sperm, and the female sperm is longer lasting. In a more acid environment one gender of sperm has an advantage, in a base environment, the other does.
But what has this got to do with extinction? Well, what gender survives to reproduce has a great degree of impact on the future population. More females, more children… fewer females, fewer children. Before the rise of medical intervention, this was critical, and our only evolutionary birth control.
Population impacts future food supply. Have you ever heard anyone say, “The best predictor of future performance is past performance”? Well, it is true, not only in the stock market but also in natural environment food supply. The earth has natural cycles. We evolved to take advantage of the times of plenty, as well as the lean times.
In a natural environment with no medical intervention, more female children as a percentage are born in times of plenty. It follows that in lean times more male children are born. But gender percentages are skewed by nutrition in other ways. In a hunter-gatherer society that is dependent on protein as the major source of sustenance, male numbers are higher, and in societies depending on plants, carbohydrates, and sugars, females are more likely.
This is how we evolved.
Hunting societies need hunters. In the far north where the main source of nutrition is stored fat and frozen or dried fish, more male children were born. Warmer climes and agriculture skew the numbers the other way. In times of plenty, with lots of food to eat, we are evolved to have more female children. It is a natural cycle.
So, again, how does this relate to extinction?
Have you ever heard of overgrazing?
But before I get to that, let’s visit that National Geographic blurb one more time. They said that male and female children get different nutrients from breast milk, depending on how financially secure the woman is that is feeding them. In wealthy families, the boys get richer milk, and in poorer families, the females receive the richer milk. Do you see the correlation? This all goes back to hunter-gatherer evolution. Wealthier people have more, and richer, protein sources, and male children are encouraged to survive and thrive. Poor people eat a lot of carbs, and female children are the result.
Now I could get into the way our social structures have evolved as a result of these natural phenomena, but sociology is another subject. But there is certainly one result that is pertinent.
As our form of capitalism churns out ever more wealthy people at the top of the economic ladder, there are an ever increasing number, an exponential number, of people at the bottom of the economy. The percentage of female births have been unnaturally high considering the general financial condition of the lowest economic tier. What is considered substandard nutrition, a diet based on inexpensive foods like rice, pasta, and grains, is a bonanza of nutrition according to our evolutionary necessities… and the poor are not only gaining weight, but are also producing more female children. Which feeds the cycle.
Couple the larger percentage of women with medical advances keeping children alive through their childbearing years, and we have a situation where the population has grown well past a natural number of human beings on the planet.
Overgrazing. Think it can’t happen? There are nations in the world that are dependent on aid to feed their citizenry. And these are the good years. Between good climate and technologically advanced agricultural practices, the food supply is unnaturally abundant. As the soils are overworked and the aquifers drained, there will come a reckoning. The cycle of abundance will eventually decline into a cycle of shortages.
I have to wonder if nature set this all up as a way to weed out the animals that are inclined to overbreed and overgraze.
One point needs to be made. Women have all of the power in what eventually must transpire. Men can not be depended on to limit population numbers. First, males of the species are far too arrogant. They see big numbers as a survival strategy. More people like me… mean I am more likely to win. And men are unlikely to release that thinking easily. Short term thinkers, men.
Some recent numbers suggest the population is declining in industrialized nations. Governments are filling the gaps with immigrants, people who are much more likely to live in poverty and still produce large families. The cycle continues.
So these are the thoughts running through my head. I would like to think there is a solution, but babies are so cute, aren’t they?
If you follow the logic to its inevitable conclusion, you may see that we are getting ever closer to a tipping point. Overabundance, poverty, biological predisposition to high percentages of female births leading to more female births, diminishing resources like good soil and easily acquired water… and the very human proclivity to put off what can be avoided until there is a crisis. Imagine the entire world as one big Easter Island…
Inevitable extinction.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
February 17, 2017
12 Movies About Time Travel
©2017 Kari Carlisle
Because of its popularity as a subject, hundreds of movies have been made that feature time travel. Here are a dozen of my faves:
Time BanditsAnything made by Terry Gilliam automatically goes to the top of my list.
Time After TimeMalcomb McDowell perfectly portrays H.G. Wells discovering the wonders of the future, i.e. his future. That French fries still exist. And I love anything with Mary Steenburgen in it.
SleeperTechnically not a time travel movie if you want to nitpick, it’s still hysterical to watch Woody Allen wake up far into the future to find sex in a pod.
Star TrekThe 2009 reboot – an alternate universe set in motion by a black hole time travelling pissed off Romulan. Fabulous casting of favorite old characters.
Blast from the PastOkay, nitpickers – not technically a time travel movie, but Brendan Fraser is adorable and HOT as a man born in a nuclear fallout shelter, trapped in the culture of the fifties, and emerging as an adult in the nineties. I may as well give a nod here to Fraser’s work in Encino Man, too. The cheese is old and moldy.
Groundhog DayThough mostly funny, this one does get a little dark and really makes you think – what would you do if you were stuck living the same day over and over?
Planet of the ApesThe original with Charlton Heston, despite all the well-done remakes, is still my favorite.
Back to the FutureAll three movies in the franchise are fun, especially the third. Mary Steenburgen.
Land of the LostThis was a blast from my own past, an homage to one of my childhood TV shows. Sleestack!
Terminator Two: Judgment DayBadass Sarah Connor: inspiring.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent AdventureSilly but fun. Be excellent to each other.
Peggy Sue Got MarriedClassic “wish I could go back to high school knowing what I know now” tale.
What are your favorite time travel movies?
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To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
Because of its popularity as a subject, hundreds of movies have been made that feature time travel. Here are a dozen of my faves:
Time BanditsAnything made by Terry Gilliam automatically goes to the top of my list.
Time After TimeMalcomb McDowell perfectly portrays H.G. Wells discovering the wonders of the future, i.e. his future. That French fries still exist. And I love anything with Mary Steenburgen in it.
SleeperTechnically not a time travel movie if you want to nitpick, it’s still hysterical to watch Woody Allen wake up far into the future to find sex in a pod.
Star TrekThe 2009 reboot – an alternate universe set in motion by a black hole time travelling pissed off Romulan. Fabulous casting of favorite old characters.
Blast from the PastOkay, nitpickers – not technically a time travel movie, but Brendan Fraser is adorable and HOT as a man born in a nuclear fallout shelter, trapped in the culture of the fifties, and emerging as an adult in the nineties. I may as well give a nod here to Fraser’s work in Encino Man, too. The cheese is old and moldy.
Groundhog DayThough mostly funny, this one does get a little dark and really makes you think – what would you do if you were stuck living the same day over and over?
Planet of the ApesThe original with Charlton Heston, despite all the well-done remakes, is still my favorite.
Back to the FutureAll three movies in the franchise are fun, especially the third. Mary Steenburgen.
Land of the LostThis was a blast from my own past, an homage to one of my childhood TV shows. Sleestack!
Terminator Two: Judgment DayBadass Sarah Connor: inspiring.
Bill & Ted’s Excellent AdventureSilly but fun. Be excellent to each other.
Peggy Sue Got MarriedClassic “wish I could go back to high school knowing what I know now” tale.
What are your favorite time travel movies?
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www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
How to Time Travel
©2017 Kari Carlisle
What is it about time travel stories that so intrigues us?
Is it the dream of going back in time to change how things turn out for the better? Stop the Titanic, or give your young self advice. Or maybe it’s to go back in history to see what really happened. How were the pyramids at Giza really built? Find out who killed JFK.
Maybe you’d rather see the future. How do you turn out? Does society reach utopia? Or the feared dystopia? Or for purely selfish reasons, i.e. find out which teams win or next week’s lottery numbers.
Perhaps in both cases, past and future, it’s the drama, and sometimes the comedy, of the clash of cultures. Ultimately, I think we enjoy the idea of time travel for the pure escapism of it.
On Big Bang Theory, when Sheldon and Leonard write their Roommate Agreement, and Sheldon includes a clause that requires them to return to that moment if either of them ever builds a time machine, and they pause to see if they really did… we all hope for a moment that their future selves would appear and are equally disappointed as they are when nothing happens. There’s something ingrained in us that wishes we could travel through time.
I time travel on a regular basis. Usually to the past, but sometimes to the future. And it is always a learning experience.
I know you don’t believe me, but keep reading…
I’ll admit, the actual time travel is in my mind, but if you consider quantum mechanics, it’s very real. Though I can’t change our timeline or strike it rich on the first Sunday of February, time travel is still worth doing and is an amazing experience. And I’m creating no time travel paradoxes!
So ‘when’ do I go? The time I travel to most often is 1906-1930 in Ganado, Arizona. I’m there five days a week, operating Hubbell Trading Post, the oldest continuously operated trading post in the southwest. J.L. Hubbell established the post in 1876, but it wasn’t until 1906 that the trading post and the 160 acres it sits on were fully formed as the homestead you can see today.
Hubbell Trading Post is now a National Historic Site, and my mission is to keep the post running much as it did back in Hubbell’s day. Though Mr. Hubbell passed in 1930, his family continued to operate the trading post until the mid-sixties and then sold it to the National Park Service to keep it going. To this day, the post still has an Indian Trader, and visitors can witness Navajo rug weavers and other artists bring in their items to sell.
Recently, I’ve started going back much further in time. To the renaissance. If you’ve been to a renaissance festival, you know it’s fun to watch the jousting, eat a turkey leg, and basically watch the people, almost like you’re driving through a wild animal park. Like an immersive zoo. It isn’t until you actually work in a renaissance festival that you really get a true sense of renaissance life. Being required to dress, act and speak the part makes you so much more than an observer.
I just joined the Greyhound Guild, a nonprofit organization that participates in renaissance festivals and similar events to promote greyhound adoption. My two adopted greyhounds, Simon and River, recently joined me at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. River couldn’t handle the stress of time travel, okay she couldn’t handle the cannon fire, drums, and all the other scary noises, so hubby had to come and get her. But Simon handled time travel blithely. He pretty much slept all day while literally hundreds of people petted him. Heaven.
In 2017, I’m a jeans and t-shirt girl. In the renaissance, I’m in merchant class dress, and I’ve had to learn how to walk without stepping on my dress or snagging it on just about everything. I drink out of a metal tankard. I cannot use contractions. Yea, I must only eat out of a wooden bowl. Nay, I must not grow my fingernails long or wear makeup or sunglasses. Fine, I don’t do those things in 2017.
I have fun in the past. The future is a little more tricky. We don’t have National Futuristic Sites. The closest thing to a Future Festival I suppose would be a sci-fi convention. But they don’t really celebrate the future, just fictional accounts that usually take place in the future. The fact is we don’t know the future, so how do I time travel there?
Like my excursions to the past, I am not a mere observer. I am a participant. That is the key. I can watch and read fictional accounts of the future, but until I participate in their shaping, I can only pretend to be there. Can only imagine what might happen.
As a writer and editor, I can participate in the shaping of stories about our future. As the editor for author C. Henry Martens, I have the unique position to not only check punctuation and grammar but to help Martens set the tone and direction of his apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories. These stories are so realistic, some reviewers have commented that they could be unfolding now.
I have begun to write some of my own short stories as well. Like much of sci-fi, these are cautionary tales of technologies now being developed and {gasp} used. We’ve seen so many fictional technologies brought to reality, it’s becoming more challenging to imagine new ones – let me rephrase that – fictional technologies are becoming more sophisticated than they used to be. And dangerous to our existence as humans.
And who knows, maybe someday we will actually be able to travel through time. Right now it is only possible in fiction, in our imaginations. But scientists have discovered gravitational waves....
It’s fun to time travel into the future, but it’s also more scary than the past. We know how the past ends.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
What is it about time travel stories that so intrigues us?
Is it the dream of going back in time to change how things turn out for the better? Stop the Titanic, or give your young self advice. Or maybe it’s to go back in history to see what really happened. How were the pyramids at Giza really built? Find out who killed JFK.
Maybe you’d rather see the future. How do you turn out? Does society reach utopia? Or the feared dystopia? Or for purely selfish reasons, i.e. find out which teams win or next week’s lottery numbers.
Perhaps in both cases, past and future, it’s the drama, and sometimes the comedy, of the clash of cultures. Ultimately, I think we enjoy the idea of time travel for the pure escapism of it.
On Big Bang Theory, when Sheldon and Leonard write their Roommate Agreement, and Sheldon includes a clause that requires them to return to that moment if either of them ever builds a time machine, and they pause to see if they really did… we all hope for a moment that their future selves would appear and are equally disappointed as they are when nothing happens. There’s something ingrained in us that wishes we could travel through time.
I time travel on a regular basis. Usually to the past, but sometimes to the future. And it is always a learning experience.
I know you don’t believe me, but keep reading…
I’ll admit, the actual time travel is in my mind, but if you consider quantum mechanics, it’s very real. Though I can’t change our timeline or strike it rich on the first Sunday of February, time travel is still worth doing and is an amazing experience. And I’m creating no time travel paradoxes!
So ‘when’ do I go? The time I travel to most often is 1906-1930 in Ganado, Arizona. I’m there five days a week, operating Hubbell Trading Post, the oldest continuously operated trading post in the southwest. J.L. Hubbell established the post in 1876, but it wasn’t until 1906 that the trading post and the 160 acres it sits on were fully formed as the homestead you can see today.
Hubbell Trading Post is now a National Historic Site, and my mission is to keep the post running much as it did back in Hubbell’s day. Though Mr. Hubbell passed in 1930, his family continued to operate the trading post until the mid-sixties and then sold it to the National Park Service to keep it going. To this day, the post still has an Indian Trader, and visitors can witness Navajo rug weavers and other artists bring in their items to sell.
Recently, I’ve started going back much further in time. To the renaissance. If you’ve been to a renaissance festival, you know it’s fun to watch the jousting, eat a turkey leg, and basically watch the people, almost like you’re driving through a wild animal park. Like an immersive zoo. It isn’t until you actually work in a renaissance festival that you really get a true sense of renaissance life. Being required to dress, act and speak the part makes you so much more than an observer.
I just joined the Greyhound Guild, a nonprofit organization that participates in renaissance festivals and similar events to promote greyhound adoption. My two adopted greyhounds, Simon and River, recently joined me at the Arizona Renaissance Festival. River couldn’t handle the stress of time travel, okay she couldn’t handle the cannon fire, drums, and all the other scary noises, so hubby had to come and get her. But Simon handled time travel blithely. He pretty much slept all day while literally hundreds of people petted him. Heaven.
In 2017, I’m a jeans and t-shirt girl. In the renaissance, I’m in merchant class dress, and I’ve had to learn how to walk without stepping on my dress or snagging it on just about everything. I drink out of a metal tankard. I cannot use contractions. Yea, I must only eat out of a wooden bowl. Nay, I must not grow my fingernails long or wear makeup or sunglasses. Fine, I don’t do those things in 2017.
I have fun in the past. The future is a little more tricky. We don’t have National Futuristic Sites. The closest thing to a Future Festival I suppose would be a sci-fi convention. But they don’t really celebrate the future, just fictional accounts that usually take place in the future. The fact is we don’t know the future, so how do I time travel there?
Like my excursions to the past, I am not a mere observer. I am a participant. That is the key. I can watch and read fictional accounts of the future, but until I participate in their shaping, I can only pretend to be there. Can only imagine what might happen.
As a writer and editor, I can participate in the shaping of stories about our future. As the editor for author C. Henry Martens, I have the unique position to not only check punctuation and grammar but to help Martens set the tone and direction of his apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic stories. These stories are so realistic, some reviewers have commented that they could be unfolding now.
I have begun to write some of my own short stories as well. Like much of sci-fi, these are cautionary tales of technologies now being developed and {gasp} used. We’ve seen so many fictional technologies brought to reality, it’s becoming more challenging to imagine new ones – let me rephrase that – fictional technologies are becoming more sophisticated than they used to be. And dangerous to our existence as humans.
And who knows, maybe someday we will actually be able to travel through time. Right now it is only possible in fiction, in our imaginations. But scientists have discovered gravitational waves....
It’s fun to time travel into the future, but it’s also more scary than the past. We know how the past ends.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
February 10, 2017
Livestock: From Here to There
©2017 C. Henry Martens
Have you ever watched animals being chased down a freeway by a fleet of police cars? Boy, those guys sure like to rodeo, don’t they?
The problem is they don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing. Their strategy seems to be “Wear them out and don’t worry about the consequences.” Sometimes it seems like the people trying to help are so caught up in the excitement that they *want* some kind of calamity to happen.
I have seen cars sliding sideways on grass in city parks, officers drug on their knees on asphalt, and animals exhausted and injured for no reason other than people being too excited and uninformed to do a simple job right.
A few rules to getting animals to go where you want them.Know where you want them to go.Understand that domestic animals are still wild animals when being chased.Animals will always take the path of least resistance… until you piss them off.Chasing an animal is usually the least efficient way to catch them.
Domestic livestock, cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, even chickens, are herd animals. That means they travel as a group. A herd always has a leader. With an established herd there will be an animal that leads the way, more or less. This is a good thing. The leader keeps the herd from panicking and keeps the herd centered on a path. If you can control where the leader goes, you can control where the herd goes. In a newly formed herd, the fastest way to make the leader of the herd the most dangerous individual is to push the herd into a panic.
You may have heard a phrase associated with animals in the wild, “Fight or flight.” This is a survival mechanism in wild animals that keeps them alive. Domesticated species have the same survival instincts. A wild animal may kill itself by leaping from a cliff before it allows a human being to touch it. Ol’ Bossy may turn around and gore you instead. Animals conditioned to be around people may see you as less threatening. But in most natural situations, as long as you maintain a “comfort zone,” an animal will neither run away nor attack. Note that I said “most.” There is always the possibility that an animal is abused, panicked, injured, or otherwise crazy to the point they will become a man-eater. Ol’ Bossy, under the right conditions, will seek you out and stomp the dog shit out of you.
How do you establish where a comfort zone is? Well, different zones for different individuals. If you see an animal grazing and you approach it slowly and casually (that means naturally, not as though you are stalking it), the animal will lift its head to investigate you. If it hasn’t been startled, it may decide to lower its head to graze again. Once it is aware of you, it will decide to move as you invade its comfort zone. Some animals will not move until you slap it on the rear end. Others will take off any time you are in sight. The easy ones are always going to be the ones that are calm. That is why you try to avoid chasing them.
Herd animals always take the path of least resistance. They are trying to avoid you. This is why you need to have some idea of where you want them to end up. Livestock flows like water, moving downhill more often than up, moving toward open spaces or underbrush depending on what they see as an advantage. Animals that aren’t handled often may see a gate as a trap, so they will avoid it unless they have the time to see a large open space beyond the gate. Another good reason to not push too hard. Spooked animals will blow right past an open gate into a lush pasture if they think you are trying to get them to step through. If they think it is their idea… bingo!
Speaking of gates… Do you know anything about building a corral to manage animals? Gates are often placed right in the middle of a fence by amateurs. Anyone who knows animals understands that a funnel is a great way to control the direction of animals. Well-designed corrals have gates in corners, and the gates are hinged at the side away from the corner. Why? Because as animals pass through, you can shut the gate on those you wish to separate and keep inside the enclosure. Oddly, I have seen beautiful corrals built to contain animals that are inside them, but they are often lacking a corner of fence that will direct animals inside as a funnel.
I was stopped in heavy traffic one day, a long line of stopped cars ahead of me. Well beyond where I was, I could see the head of a panicked horse as it was being chased between cars, one way and the next, several people acting the part of saviors for the spooked animal by chasing it. Someone was going to get hurt. The horse reared up and planted its hooves on the hood of a car when a well-meaning person opened their door suddenly in front of it. As I watched I noticed that the shoulder of the road widened ahead of me and would be attractive to the horse as it neared me. I also noticed a gate opening into an enclosed yard directly to my right. I climbed out of my car and opened the gate toward the traffic, standing as far from the opening as I could, and as the people waved their arms expecting the animals to come to them calmly, the horse bolted toward me and flowed into the opening presented to it. I closed the gate.
One of the most common mistakes in moving animals is expecting them to enter a small space willingly. Most animals are smart enough to understand the concept of a trap. Crowd them, and they will run right over you. If you can contain a terrified animal in a larger space, allowing it some time to calm down and think, often it will be more manageable and predictable.
The most common way to move large numbers from one place to another is by invading their space from the opposite side of where you want them to go. If you have a gate to the south that you want them to pass through, you will position yourself away from the gate to the north. It’s always nice to have some assistance, and those people will flank the animals to the sides closer to the rear. If you have a really good leader in the bunch, an animal that knows where to go, you can crowd them so they move faster. If the animals are new to what is happening, take it slow and let them find their own way. Especially crucial is the point where they suddenly understand they are being boxed into a corner. Suddenly the leader will stop and begin to act nervous. If pressed it may make a break for it and you will be chasing them from a far corner and wasting your time. When you see the leaders in the bunch hesitate, stop and let them find the opening.
Understanding body language is critical. A grazing animal is comfortable. If it starts to move away, it is aware of you, even if it is still grazing. If an animal’s head suddenly rises and it looks in your direction, you startled it. If you don’t want it to stampede, don’t move. Anticipate animals breaking to the side as you approach a tight place. Pay attention to the leaders. Be ready to head off a sudden break by moving into a place where they will have to challenge their own comfort zone. Move at a comfortable pace for the leaders. All of this applies to individual animals as well. The only difference is that a lone animal is always more likely to panic.
One of the things I am always amazed at with professionals, ranchers and farmers with years, even decades, under their belts, is that they herd their animals. They jump on their ATV or rarely a horse, take the high dollar dog with them, and chase their livestock around until they, the dog, and the animals are exhausted. Sometimes the smart ones understand the psychology of herding and they have animals that know what is expected, each generation learning from the last, and they have an easier time. But there is a better way.
A couple of months ago the neighbor’s goats got out. The road they were on is fairly busy, and I watched with some delight as the neighbor and his family chased the goats for close to half an hour, here and there and everywhere, except where they were wanted. They weren’t any closer to containing the goats at the end of their effort as at the beginning. Finally, as I saw the neighbor’s face get ever more red and his kids and wife taking ever more abuse, I had pity on them. I went to the shed and got a metal bucket, filled the bottom with just a skiff of grain so I could shake it and make some noise without spilling, and I went out and led the goats into their fence. I was almost trampled in the process, because the goats were so excited and competitive to get the grain.
I cannot think of a single domestic animal of decent genetics concerning their domesticity that won’t come to a grain bucket. If you have a herd of a hundred animals and you are worried about the cost, all you have to know is that you only need to teach the leaders to come to grain. They will bring the whole bunch along with them. If it takes a half hour to herd a bunch from a pasture and into a corral, I will guarantee you that I can have them in the corral in ten minutes and never step a foot into the pasture. This works for all domestic animals. I have called two thousand pound Chianina cows from the depths of the Arkansas backwoods hollows from a quarter of a mile away. From places you would never believe they would hear you. It is an amazing sight to see these huge pale animals cavorting around like calves as they break from cover and race to get a half a pail of grain.
Some livestock owners know this happens when they feed their cattle, horses, or sheep in the winter. The animals gather at the sound of the approaching truck or its horn and crowd the gate so you have to worry about them getting out… until you realize they will be following the truck even though the gate is wide open. Those same people will not use the horn on their truck to call their animals in the summer. I prefer using my voice to call my animals. I have had many agricultural people laugh at me when I call my animals in. Fine by me. Who’s the smart one? They spend high dollars for bulls that will calm their cattle down so they are easy to handle… and then teach the cattle to panic at the sight of a man in their vicinity. Kinda make ya wonder, don’t it?
Another thing I wonder about is the police chasing animals in their cars instead of containing them in some back yard while they wait for a trailer. Cars get damaged, policemen get injured, and animals are never well off. And who pays for the damages? A little common sense, please.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
Have you ever watched animals being chased down a freeway by a fleet of police cars? Boy, those guys sure like to rodeo, don’t they?
The problem is they don’t have the foggiest idea what they are doing. Their strategy seems to be “Wear them out and don’t worry about the consequences.” Sometimes it seems like the people trying to help are so caught up in the excitement that they *want* some kind of calamity to happen.
I have seen cars sliding sideways on grass in city parks, officers drug on their knees on asphalt, and animals exhausted and injured for no reason other than people being too excited and uninformed to do a simple job right.
A few rules to getting animals to go where you want them.Know where you want them to go.Understand that domestic animals are still wild animals when being chased.Animals will always take the path of least resistance… until you piss them off.Chasing an animal is usually the least efficient way to catch them.
Domestic livestock, cattle, horses, sheep, hogs, even chickens, are herd animals. That means they travel as a group. A herd always has a leader. With an established herd there will be an animal that leads the way, more or less. This is a good thing. The leader keeps the herd from panicking and keeps the herd centered on a path. If you can control where the leader goes, you can control where the herd goes. In a newly formed herd, the fastest way to make the leader of the herd the most dangerous individual is to push the herd into a panic.
You may have heard a phrase associated with animals in the wild, “Fight or flight.” This is a survival mechanism in wild animals that keeps them alive. Domesticated species have the same survival instincts. A wild animal may kill itself by leaping from a cliff before it allows a human being to touch it. Ol’ Bossy may turn around and gore you instead. Animals conditioned to be around people may see you as less threatening. But in most natural situations, as long as you maintain a “comfort zone,” an animal will neither run away nor attack. Note that I said “most.” There is always the possibility that an animal is abused, panicked, injured, or otherwise crazy to the point they will become a man-eater. Ol’ Bossy, under the right conditions, will seek you out and stomp the dog shit out of you.
How do you establish where a comfort zone is? Well, different zones for different individuals. If you see an animal grazing and you approach it slowly and casually (that means naturally, not as though you are stalking it), the animal will lift its head to investigate you. If it hasn’t been startled, it may decide to lower its head to graze again. Once it is aware of you, it will decide to move as you invade its comfort zone. Some animals will not move until you slap it on the rear end. Others will take off any time you are in sight. The easy ones are always going to be the ones that are calm. That is why you try to avoid chasing them.
Herd animals always take the path of least resistance. They are trying to avoid you. This is why you need to have some idea of where you want them to end up. Livestock flows like water, moving downhill more often than up, moving toward open spaces or underbrush depending on what they see as an advantage. Animals that aren’t handled often may see a gate as a trap, so they will avoid it unless they have the time to see a large open space beyond the gate. Another good reason to not push too hard. Spooked animals will blow right past an open gate into a lush pasture if they think you are trying to get them to step through. If they think it is their idea… bingo!
Speaking of gates… Do you know anything about building a corral to manage animals? Gates are often placed right in the middle of a fence by amateurs. Anyone who knows animals understands that a funnel is a great way to control the direction of animals. Well-designed corrals have gates in corners, and the gates are hinged at the side away from the corner. Why? Because as animals pass through, you can shut the gate on those you wish to separate and keep inside the enclosure. Oddly, I have seen beautiful corrals built to contain animals that are inside them, but they are often lacking a corner of fence that will direct animals inside as a funnel.
I was stopped in heavy traffic one day, a long line of stopped cars ahead of me. Well beyond where I was, I could see the head of a panicked horse as it was being chased between cars, one way and the next, several people acting the part of saviors for the spooked animal by chasing it. Someone was going to get hurt. The horse reared up and planted its hooves on the hood of a car when a well-meaning person opened their door suddenly in front of it. As I watched I noticed that the shoulder of the road widened ahead of me and would be attractive to the horse as it neared me. I also noticed a gate opening into an enclosed yard directly to my right. I climbed out of my car and opened the gate toward the traffic, standing as far from the opening as I could, and as the people waved their arms expecting the animals to come to them calmly, the horse bolted toward me and flowed into the opening presented to it. I closed the gate.
One of the most common mistakes in moving animals is expecting them to enter a small space willingly. Most animals are smart enough to understand the concept of a trap. Crowd them, and they will run right over you. If you can contain a terrified animal in a larger space, allowing it some time to calm down and think, often it will be more manageable and predictable.
The most common way to move large numbers from one place to another is by invading their space from the opposite side of where you want them to go. If you have a gate to the south that you want them to pass through, you will position yourself away from the gate to the north. It’s always nice to have some assistance, and those people will flank the animals to the sides closer to the rear. If you have a really good leader in the bunch, an animal that knows where to go, you can crowd them so they move faster. If the animals are new to what is happening, take it slow and let them find their own way. Especially crucial is the point where they suddenly understand they are being boxed into a corner. Suddenly the leader will stop and begin to act nervous. If pressed it may make a break for it and you will be chasing them from a far corner and wasting your time. When you see the leaders in the bunch hesitate, stop and let them find the opening.
Understanding body language is critical. A grazing animal is comfortable. If it starts to move away, it is aware of you, even if it is still grazing. If an animal’s head suddenly rises and it looks in your direction, you startled it. If you don’t want it to stampede, don’t move. Anticipate animals breaking to the side as you approach a tight place. Pay attention to the leaders. Be ready to head off a sudden break by moving into a place where they will have to challenge their own comfort zone. Move at a comfortable pace for the leaders. All of this applies to individual animals as well. The only difference is that a lone animal is always more likely to panic.
One of the things I am always amazed at with professionals, ranchers and farmers with years, even decades, under their belts, is that they herd their animals. They jump on their ATV or rarely a horse, take the high dollar dog with them, and chase their livestock around until they, the dog, and the animals are exhausted. Sometimes the smart ones understand the psychology of herding and they have animals that know what is expected, each generation learning from the last, and they have an easier time. But there is a better way.
A couple of months ago the neighbor’s goats got out. The road they were on is fairly busy, and I watched with some delight as the neighbor and his family chased the goats for close to half an hour, here and there and everywhere, except where they were wanted. They weren’t any closer to containing the goats at the end of their effort as at the beginning. Finally, as I saw the neighbor’s face get ever more red and his kids and wife taking ever more abuse, I had pity on them. I went to the shed and got a metal bucket, filled the bottom with just a skiff of grain so I could shake it and make some noise without spilling, and I went out and led the goats into their fence. I was almost trampled in the process, because the goats were so excited and competitive to get the grain.
I cannot think of a single domestic animal of decent genetics concerning their domesticity that won’t come to a grain bucket. If you have a herd of a hundred animals and you are worried about the cost, all you have to know is that you only need to teach the leaders to come to grain. They will bring the whole bunch along with them. If it takes a half hour to herd a bunch from a pasture and into a corral, I will guarantee you that I can have them in the corral in ten minutes and never step a foot into the pasture. This works for all domestic animals. I have called two thousand pound Chianina cows from the depths of the Arkansas backwoods hollows from a quarter of a mile away. From places you would never believe they would hear you. It is an amazing sight to see these huge pale animals cavorting around like calves as they break from cover and race to get a half a pail of grain.
Some livestock owners know this happens when they feed their cattle, horses, or sheep in the winter. The animals gather at the sound of the approaching truck or its horn and crowd the gate so you have to worry about them getting out… until you realize they will be following the truck even though the gate is wide open. Those same people will not use the horn on their truck to call their animals in the summer. I prefer using my voice to call my animals. I have had many agricultural people laugh at me when I call my animals in. Fine by me. Who’s the smart one? They spend high dollars for bulls that will calm their cattle down so they are easy to handle… and then teach the cattle to panic at the sight of a man in their vicinity. Kinda make ya wonder, don’t it?
Another thing I wonder about is the police chasing animals in their cars instead of containing them in some back yard while they wait for a trailer. Cars get damaged, policemen get injured, and animals are never well off. And who pays for the damages? A little common sense, please.
Click here to receive the Apocalypse Observer Newsletter in your inbox
www.readmota.com
To comment, scroll down and type in your comment. Under Comment As, you can select Anonymous or Name/URL (you don't need to enter a URL). Then hit Publish.
