tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-191919802024-03-07T18:44:13.529-05:00Titanic BugleIn April 1912, the great ship Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the icy Atlantic, taking with her 1500 souls. Among the lost was PW Fletcher, the bugler, whose job it was to sound the alarm in case of disaster. This blog picks up where PW left off many years ago with notes sounding the alarm about what we humans are doing to this planet, particularly the animals. Many today act as if they believe, as did the Titanic's owners, that even God cannot sink us. We're not too sure.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19191980.post-27054652474795998072012-06-06T15:03:00.002-04:002012-06-06T15:08:24.467-04:00100 years ago today<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">The
long-awaited commemoration of the centenary of the 1912 sinking of the Titanic
has come and gone. But what most people do not know –and few will commemorate-
is that the forces of Nature that created the Titanic disaster were minor
compared to what happened 52 days later on the opposite side of North America
in an isolated, volcano-strewn valley on the Alaskan Peninsula. Just as that
valley struggled to escape the clutches of a harsh winter, the earth began to
tremble. Then, on June 6th, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Katmai</st1:placename></st1:place>, one of five
active volcanoes in the area, awakened. What followed next would become the
20th Century’s largest volcanic eruption on Earth and the sixth largest ever.
The display of Nature there was far more remarkable than the Titanic not only
because of its pyroclastics, but because not a single human died, although many
animals were not so fortunate. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Over
the next three days, three cubic miles of hot ash and lava spewed forth, but
not from <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename w:st="on">Katmai</st1:placename></st1:place>. The eruption, 30 times more
powerful than the 1980 eruption of <st1:place w:st="on">Mount St. Helens</st1:place>,
actually drew on three volcanic systems, and instead of Katmai’s blowing its
top, it caved in and the eruption blew out a vent created by a weakness in the
valley floor six miles distant. Afterwards, what remained was a pile of rubble
300 feet high and almost a mile in circumference (later named Novarupta), a
40-square mile formerly lush valley now blanketed with ash 700 feet deep in
places, and a shorter Mt. Katmai.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">The
explosion was heard in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Juneau</st1:city></st1:place>,
750 miles away. In nearby <st1:place w:st="on">Kodiak Island</st1:place>, day
suddenly turned to night; residents, under a foot of ash, could not see a
lantern in front of them for days. Clothes left outside in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Vancouver</st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st="on">Canada</st1:country-region></st1:place><span style="color: navy;">, </span>disintegrated from the acidic fall. A massive ash
cloud passed over <st1:state w:st="on">Virginia</st1:state> June 10<sup>th</sup>,
and later <st1:place w:st="on">Africa</st1:place>. A haze darkened the sky over
most of the Northern Hemisphere for days.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">It was
not until 1916 that Robert Griggs, a botanist with the National Geographic
Society, led an expedition into the valley to see what had happened. There he
discovered a two-mile wide caldera in <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype> <st1:placename w:st="on">Katmai</st1:placename></st1:place>,
so he assumed that to be the source of the eruption. (Only in the 1950s was the
source found to be Novarupta.) Later, as Griggs peeked over a high ridge, he
saw a valley filled with thousands of smoking fumaroles, vents formed by snow
evaporating beneath the still-hot ash. The name he gave the apocalyptic scene,
the <st1:place w:st="on">Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes</st1:place>, remains to
this day, although the fumaroles have long since ceased smoking. The only puffs
of smoke seen today are at Novarupta, if you climb it and look hard enough. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Unlike
<st1:place w:st="on">Mount St. Helens</st1:place>, where the surrounding area
recovered within a few years, the Katmai valley still has a long way to go;
recovery is evident only on its fringes. Today, it still resembles a moonscape,
but when seen through sunglasses reveals a spectacular Kaleidoscope of colors,
the result of the various minerals from the several volcanic systems involved
in the eruption. Williwaws, sudden, violent windstorms, intensified by gravity
and armored by the whipped ash, move down from the cold mountains to the sea at
velocities of up to 100 miles an hour, reducing visibility -and personal
stability- to near zero. The few hardy backpackers who each year venture into
the valley retreat to its edges at night to seek refuge, but the options are
few due to a century of ash blown up slopes 1000 feet from the pre-1912 valley
floor, obliterating the coves. Non-human life in the valley is rare; what
creatures do venture onto the valley floor risk becoming confused and trapped
(as I once did, temporarily, during one of my four hikes in the valley in the
1990s) by the impassable, deep chasms formed by underground rivers of snowmelt
off the glaciers on the nearby volcanoes cutting through the ash from the
bottom up. The main river through the valley was appropriately named <i>Lethe </i>by
Griggs, inspired by one of the rivers in the underworld of Greek mythology, the
"river of forgetfulness”. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">Past
visitors to the valley have included NASA astronauts who rehearsed there in the
1960s for the moon landings because of its resemblance to the moon. The best
known visitor was Timothy Treadwell, the subject of Werner Herzog’s 2005 film, <i>Grizzly
Man</i>. Timothy and his girlfriend, Vicky Scott, met their tragic deaths in
Katmai in 2003 during an encounter with an idiosyncratic –or hungry- brown bear
just a few miles from where I pitched my tent in the 1990s.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">A
journey today to Katmai –now a national park- is not especially difficult, but
it is a strenuous one once you get there. A comfortable jet ride to <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Anchorage</st1:city></st1:place>, a smaller plane
to King Salmon, a float plane to Brooks Camp, and finally a school bus ride
along a 23-mile dirt and gravel road takes you to the edge of the valley.
Although most visitors return later in the day, Novarupta is a two-day hike
away. To climb what is left of <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:placetype w:st="on">Mt.</st1:placetype>
<st1:placename w:st="on">Katmai</st1:placename></st1:place> takes another few
days. So, six days after mingling with a bustling urban crowd, you could be
standing alone on top of Novarupta, with no one around for miles, surrounded by
the purest silence and natural beauty one could possibly experience, unless, of
course, you happen to encounter a williwaw, a hungry grizzly bear, or the next
eruption. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: 11pt; line-height: 150%;">I long
planned to return to Katmai this year for the centenary of the eruption, to
stand atop Novarupta and toast Nature. But other priorities now in my life will
keep me away. Nevertheless, with the memory of my four journeys to Katmai
indelibly imprinted on my mind, I shall offer that toast from home, and forever
relish that pure silence amidst such awesome splendor created by Nature’s
sometimes violent forces, knowing that she is not always against us, especially
when we learn how to live with her.</span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19191980.post-55835074859756515032012-05-17T12:56:00.002-04:002012-05-17T12:56:13.398-04:00Letter to Mayor of Clovis NM about Diesel the dog<br />
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Honorable David Lansford <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Mayor<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">City Hall<br />
321 N Connelly<br />
<st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Clovis</st1:city>, <st1:state w:st="on">NM</st1:state>
<st1:postalcode w:st="on">88101</st1:postalcode></st1:place><br />
(575)769-7828 FAX: 575-763-9227<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">Dear Mayor Lansford:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I am writing to you in response to what
I have read about the recent tragedy in your city involving the dog Diesel, who
has been condemned to death. I know I am intruding on your time, but in this
age when we were all so instantaneously connected, I believe that if we know
about and feel for something, we have an ethical duty to speak up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I do not know the facts involving the
hapless Diesel’s fate other than what I have read on the Internet, and so I
will not pretend to know them. But even if the worse of what I have read is
true, what I have to offer is even more relevant. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 13pt;">I will defer to others better prepared than
I to offer the legal arguments to spare Diesel his death, e.g., he is only a
dog doing what dogs do, this was an Act of God, etc. What I have to offer
really has nothing to do with pleading for his life for his sake. It concerns
compassion for those </span><span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">people who would blame themselves for an accident, an act of
God; compassion for those who are involved in the killing chain after the
accident, and compassion for those in your city and around the world who know
of Diesel’s fate, but are helpless to do anything, and suffer as the result.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">As for my first argument, we humans are unique in the animal
kingdom in that we instinctively at first blame someone else (e.g., the dog)
for our own acts, even accidents. Sooner or later, we will realize our own
mistakes, even though they were accidents. If the dog is dead, we have no one
left to blame, and so that guilt will be locked up inside of us forever. But if
the dog lives, one day, for whatever it is worth, we will forgive the dog, and
that very act will start the healing process for us to forgive ourselves, maybe
for our mistakes, but more importantly for being human. And with the dog dead,
we are then burdened by two layers of guilt. I have lived through this myself,
so I know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">As for the second argument, I actually feel compassion for
those people in our municipalities assigned the job of killing innocent
creatures simply for their natural behavior. (This is why some even mistreat
the hapless condemned animals, i.e., to give themselves justification for their
acts: “look at the dog now: he/she is vicious,” they always seem to say, like
reading from a script.) This pattern of the entire chain of events leading to
the killing, starting with our “Dangerous Dog Acts” or discriminatory
breed-specific legislation and ending with the dog’s death, reinforces the
pathways in their brains to seek vengeance instead of truth and justice,
pathways that apply to everything in their lives, and not just their 9-5 jobs
of killing dogs simply for doing what dogs do. I realize that they act in the
interest of public safety, but surely there are better pathways in our acts and
brains to achieve that and fairness, too. I admire Supreme Court Justice Robert
Alito simply because he understands these things about our being custodians of
animals and is not afraid to find some reason in the law to show compassion,
often as a lone dissenter, in all the animal-related cases going to the court.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">As for my third argument, if Diesel is killed, some in your
city, and even more beyond, will feel satisfaction that punishment has been
served. If that is the case, they are the ones to be pitied, not Diesel. But many,
many more in your city and far beyond will suffer as the result, helpless
bystanders in a multiple tragedy. I really don’t think that the good citizens
of your city want that. Most of us have never been to <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Clovis</st1:place></st1:city>, maybe even never heard of it. Do you
really want the first impression of people about <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:city w:st="on">Clovis</st1:city></st1:place> to be one of vengeance instead of justice,
punishment instead of forgiveness, death instead of life? I do not think so.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">That is all I can offer. I wish there was more to say to save
Diesel and the many other animals we humans treat as property instead of
living, feeling creatures whose lives have as much meaning to them as our lives
have to us.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">On behalf of Diesel and those humans who would benefit by
sparing his life, thank you for reading this letter.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; background-position: initial initial; background-repeat: initial initial; font-size: 13pt;">Sincerely,</span><span style="font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Courier New";"><o:p></o:p></span></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19191980.post-42341282560969304922012-04-13T17:27:00.000-04:002012-04-14T23:39:49.696-04:00P.W. Fletcher<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 20pt;">100
years ago, at 11:40 p.m., April 14<sup>th</sup>, the great ship Titanic struck
an iceberg off the coast of <st1:state w:st="on">Newfoundland</st1:state>, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Canada</st1:place></st1:country-region>, and sank
to the bottom of the ocean four hours later, taking with her 1500 souls. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 20pt;">Among
those who perished was the Titanic’s bugler, P.W. Fletcher, 26 years old, of Shoaling
Hampshire, <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">England</st1:place></st1:country-region>,
whose body was never recovered or identified. Fletcher was hired as the ship’s
bugler, to sound the alarm in case of disaster, as was required by the Board of
Trade, which regulated ocean-going vessels. However, because the ship’s owners,
The White Star Line, expected no disasters, they also gave him the job of announcing
meals to the first class passengers by tapping out the tune, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juLLn63maXY">“Roast Beef of Old England,”</a>
on his bugle, with the passengers trailing behind him to the dining room as
they would the Pied Piper. On the night of the disaster, Fletcher’s bugle calls
were never heard, giving rise to speculation that he was at the time sleeping
in his berth near the ship’s hull that was ripped open by the iceberg, killing
him instantly. Unlike the hapless members of the famous band, who were not crew
members but private contractors, Fletcher’s wife was able to collect the
insurance taken out on the crew members.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 20pt;">The
Titanic has long stood as a symbol of man’s hubris against nature, even God, and
the consequences of that relying on that hubris. Although I am sure many of
them would have preferred a different outcome, those 1500 hapless souls who went
to their deaths in those icy waters off the coast of Canada, probably have done
more good for humankind that most other humans who walked the planet.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGWylN0b88">Here’s a bugle tune to memorialize
those souls. P.W. Fletcher could have
done just as well, I’m sure.</a></span><span style="font-size: 20pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0