20 December, 2008

on the road. . .

. . . to Frederick Maryland. . . . to see Lins.

--
Jonah Manning
S/V Araby


Online Journal: www.jonahmanning.name
Email - bellyofthewhale.gmail.com
Phone: +001 803 446-5529

31 Churchill Circle
Columbia, South Carolina, 29206
USA

Emergency contact:
Dibble Manning
phone: 001 - 803 - 787 - 4352
email:cmann1960@aol.com>
also check addresss in "to" column

19 December, 2008

a christmas snowstorm

I am currently enjoying a large dump of snow in the safety and comfort
of the Hillman House in Cuba N.Y. It is warm and happy and it will be
hard to leave. The weather should clear tomorrow and perhaps I will
be on my way home. . . but it will be hard to leave. And Stuart and
Chelsea come in tomorrow night. A shame to leave on the day of their
arrival.

We shall see.

16 December, 2008

I've got a job!.....Hurray

I'll be helping a man move from Texas to the Philippines. Then
helping him move his boat there from Miami. . . .if all goes well.

Happy Holidays to all.

I am currently in Montreal with my sister, Jean Elliott. I have heard
some great music, met some fine people, seen great snow, drove through
a massive storm, read a great book. I have revitalized myself. I
feel stronger every day. I have slept so soundly, deeply. My soul is
stirring again.

Soon I'll be heading south to N.Y., Maryland and then home. Then to
Florida to check this boat, then Mobile, then Texas for work....then
hopefully the Caribbean in spring.

09 December, 2008

Montreal

En route to Montreal to see my dear sister Jean Elliott. The weather
seems less than fare.

08 December, 2008

certified

I Passed. i am now a certified EMT!!!!!

Hopefully tomorrow I leave for Montreal to see my sister.

20 November, 2008

EMT progress

I am two thirds of the way to completing my EMT-Basic certification
with the completion of my practical exam two days ago. It was
stressful but exciting. I was uncertain as to whether or not I would
pass. It was an exhillerating feeling to walk out of there with a
PASS.
The class is finished. Now the practical. Only the National Registry
Written Exam remains. I hope to take it sometime next week.

11 November, 2008

Did some good redfshin' with the Mauldins and Mclain this weekend. . .
This was flower pickin' in New York for Stu and Chelsea's wedding.
Chelsea is stunning, eh?

03 November, 2008

Hate

I think Hal Turner is the most hate-filled person I have ever come in
contact with. It is amazing to me that you can legally (or at least
get away with) calling for the murder of people on the radio, and to
routinely threaten to beat people. If you are a right-winger, you
should take a strong and serious look at the people who vote along
side you and the hate that drives them.

30 October, 2008

Preparing for the Post-peak Oil World

Creating a Post-Peak Future Worth Living Into
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 29, 2008 - 10:06am
Topic: Sociology/Psychology
Tags: future, leader, original, peak oil, role [list all tags]
This is a guest post by André Angelantoni, known on TOD as aangel. He
is co-founder of PostPeakLiving.com and co-founder of Post Carbon
Marin, his community's effort to prepare for peak oil, and a former
executive coach and business consultant. He wrote this article to give
people one way to navigate through the forced transition to a post
peak world we are all going to experience.

The future most people are living into is beginning to disappear. The
financial crisis threw the first punch, but oil depletion will deliver
the knockout blow. The moment people realize that the society they
have known their whole life can no longer function the same way
without the energy provided by oil, it will become glaringly apparent
that the future will be very, very different. It's not just that we
will no longer have fresh food flown in from around the world. Some of
the fundamental assumptions held by people living in the rich
countries will no longer hold:
• many jobs that have never existed before will once again no
longer exist
• retirement, a phenomenon only a century old, will disappear
• accumulating "wealth" will be out of reach for most people
• most children will no longer be able to attend institutions
of higher education
• diseases and conditions that are easily treated now will
once again claim lives

Once a person has realized that these and many more futures will no
longer exist, they will ask themselves the following question: If the
future I've lived with my whole life will not longer occur, what will
my future be?
People will react in many different ways as they consider the
question of what their future will be. Some people will become
resigned and despondent, others will become resolute as they
concentrate on the job of making sure they and their family are
sheltered and adequately fed. Still others will become happier as they
leave the rat race and simplify their life. If you are considering
this question, hopefully you will realize that creating the future
rather than waiting for it to happen to you will give you a better
result. That's what this article is about.

Before continuing, I am going to outline a principle that is a part
of the coaching model I use. It is not the only model in the world,
but it has worked consistently for me and my clients.

Your Future Gives You Your Experience of Now
In this article, I will operate on the following principle:
The future a person lives into determines how they operate in and
experience the present.
This may seem counter-intuitive to you because there seems to be so
much evidence that it is the past that gives us our experience of now.
For example, don't we feel proud of our accomplishments — and didn't
those accomplishments happen in the past? Don't we suffer from events
— and aren't those events in the past?

To see that it's our future that gives us our experience of the
present, try this simple experiment. Imagine you are holding a lottery
ticket and are about to check the winning numbers. You might be
interested and cautiously optimistic. As you read the winning numbers
you realize that yours is the winning ticket. What is your experience
at the moment you realize you've won the jackpot?

If you are like most people, you will be surprised and ecstatic. But
has anything — in physical reality — changed in any way? No, it
hasn't. But the future you see before you has completely changed and
your happiness comes from a new future filled with a life of leisure
or travel or the finest things in life.

The same principle operates whenever a future changes. Whether it's
agreeing to marry someone, getting a new job or facing a serious
illness, in all these circumstances the future determines how you
operate in and experience the present.

What about those past events, the accomplishments and tragedies?
Don't they impact us in the present? They certainly do, but the impact
comes from how they have changed the future that we live into because
those events happened. I'll leave it as homework to the reader to
determine the future that is created when we experience an
accomplishment or tragedy.

People who panic when they learn of peak oil see a terrible future for
themselves and society. Although I didn't panic when I first learned
of peak oil, I did experience a feeling of dread. I looked into the
future and saw the possibility of social turmoil and hunger. This
seems to be a common reaction, and most people move through the
experience in hours or days as they gradually see that the gloomy
future is not inevitable.

Gloomy Futures Are Useful — To a Point
Gloomy futures are often conjured up by your brain without your
permission or guidance. Your brain is simply an associative machine
that took in the idea of oil depletion, recalled images from its past
(perhaps including a Mad Max movie), and plopped the result in your
mental lap. Although it may have you prepare in ways you wouldn't
normally, this gloomy future can also paralyze you and turn you into a
morose individual unable to experience the joy there is and will
always be available in life.

If you are unsatisfied with the future your brain invented for you,
you will have to create one yourself.

Quality of Life vs Standard of Living
We're almost ready to discuss how to create a future worth living
into. I'm going to make one more distinction that should help the
transition. With the loss of inexpensive and plentiful oil you are not
just confronting the loss of vacations in the Tropics. It will look
like the sudden loss of much more than that. But what is it you are
losing, exactly?

At this point it's valuable to get yourself clear on what you are
actually going to lose. If you don't stop your brain, it is likely to
say, "Everything!", send you down a dark tunnel and leave you there.
But you aren't going to lose everything; you aren't even going to lose
the most important things, as you'll soon see. That's because almost
every person tends to make one fundamental mistake (myself included
when I'm not paying attention).

We tend to confuse what economists call "standard of living" with
"quality of life." The two are not the same, no matter how many
vacation advertisements try to convince you otherwise. The standard of
living index measures the number of things a person can purchase or
possess. This is again useful only to a point. Beyond the very basics
of life, like food and shelter, we want things not for the things
themselves but for what they give us at an emotional level.

We want money to go on vacation so that we can have fun. But is it
necessary to leave town to have fun? We want to send our kids to
college so that they can "create a future for themselves." But what
does that mean? Are people who don't go to college incapable of
experiencing happiness in their life? If your children were healthy
and happy, wouldn't you have done your job as a parent? We know that
the poor can be happy and the rich can be (often desperately) unhappy.

Things and circumstances fool us into short-term happiness, and then
the happiness wears off and the cycle starts again. Have you noticed
as your income rose, your expectations rose with them? If you hadn't
noticed that, you're in the standard of living trap and you don't even
know it.

Creating a Future Worth Living Into
Now we're ready to look at futures worth living into. This future
won't be attached to things and circumstances or you'll never get out
of the trap. So, as you create your new future, remember to resist the
pull of equating being fulfilled with having things. Many people who
have been preparing for peak oil have found that their life has
dramatically improved as they have taken on new responsibilities and
learned new skills, like growing their own food, even as they started
to lower the number of luxuries in their life.

One of the most powerful ways I've found to create a fulfilling future
is to distinguish a role for yourself. Roles are powerful because they
establish a context to live in and are easy to remember. When we take
on a role, we automatically get access to all the properties that
define the role. For instance, if I say that I will take on the role
of being a loving husband, I don't have to memorize "The Ten Steps to
Being a Loving Husband." I will immediately have access to ways of
expressing that role I've heard about (like hiding love notes around
the house) and I will easily invent new ways to express the role with
just a bit of creativity.

You are undoubtedly playing all sorts of roles right now, and there
are thousands of roles you can play in post-peak oil world. Your job
is to create a new, fulfilling role for yourself. Here are a few basic
roles, starting with some roles you may want to avoid.
• The Victim. To play this role, you should complain that the
world isn't fair and that there isn't enough time to prepare. Talk
only about things that we will lose or how other people or groups are
better off than you. Unfortunately, this role isn't very attractive
and people will try to avoid you — but it is a valid role. I include
it so that you can recognize when you are playing the victim, discard
it, and choose a different role.
• The Drama Queen. Be a Drama Queen by saying, "We are so
screwed" or similar things after describing how you see the future
playing out. This can be a fun role to play, especially when
describing a Mad Max scenario in great detail. Most people will
eventually want you to talk about how they can actually prepare for
the future. The Drama Queen role can often be matched up with the
Victim role to great effect, but people tire of it quickly.
• The Bystander. To do a good job with this role, say "what
will happen will happen" whenever you hear about something terrible
happening, preferably in Spanish. This is actually a good role to keep
handy because often events will truly be out of your control, and
there is no need to get your knickers in a knot over them.
• The Leader. With this role, you see peak oil as an
opportunity to make a difference in your community and the world. You
can be a leader in thousands of ways, from starting a community garden
to inviting friends over to teach them a useful skill you know. The
only requirement to be a leader is that you create a future that
wasn't going to happen anyway. You don't need to know how to speak in
front of crowds and you don't need a commanding presence. All you need
is the commitment to create a future that wasn't going to happen
unless you became involved.
You can add these roles to any that you are currently playing
(parent, student, entertainer, etc.), and you can switch at any time.
Of course some roles will give you better results than others.

Being a leader can be an immensely fulfilling role and one I
wholeheartedly recommend, especially since we are going to need many
local leaders very soon. I'd like to see the leadership positions
filled with people who see it as way to serve the community rather
than to enrich themselves materially. But that doesn't mean you won't
get benefits by being a leader, and there should be some benefits. For
example, being a leader means that you will create your own support
network faster, and you will gain information about the world earlier
than others, allowing you to prepare better.

Many people shy away from being a leader because they think it is a
burden, but they have it backwards: the Leader role can be freeing
because small inconveniences stop being annoying — as a leader you'll
have bigger, more inspiring goals on your mind.

Conclusion
In this article, we looked at how your experience and actions in the
present are a function of the future you are living into. We also saw
that your brain will invent a gloomy future given no direction: To
have a fulfilling future to live into, you'll need to take charge.
Then we noted one of the most common mistakes people make: confusing
the economists' standard of living with quality of life. Last, we
looked at some roles that you might consider taking on, particularly
the Leader role.

Ultimately, the purpose of this article was to point out that many of
the roles you are playing now are no longer going to hold, and that
you will need to take charge. Take a moment and ask yourself, "What
kind of fulfilling role can I create for myself in a post peak world?"

Info on the North American Union and the Amero

http://www.amerocurrency.com/SPPprogram.html

the coming of the Amero

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1954933468700958565&hl=es

27 October, 2008

Did someone say "Martial Law?"""

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaG9d_4zij8&feature=related

Holy shit!
Who is Naomi Wolf??:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XgkeTanCGI

11 October, 2008

prayers

Pray for my friends and people all across this country--and indeed the
world--who are losing their jobs, their homes, and their retirements.
This is an unprecedented time in our lives.

Sympathy and compassion and solidarity for all

02 October, 2008

LIFE IS GOOD

Just thought I'd say that....to anyone who may be wondering. I would
not have said that two weeks ago perhaps....but I am saying it now.
Life is good. Much is in the works. Hope is a powerful thing.

27 September, 2008

Hmmm...

Did anyone ever watch Zeitgeist. . . . ?
. . . becoming more and more convincing. (If you aren't convinced,
start the movie at 1 hr14min for the section on the Fed and
international banking

26 September, 2008

End Times

A Note from Ron Paul
------------


Wednesday, September 24, 2008


Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant
media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders
are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty
that disaster is about to strike.
The events of the past week are no exception.
The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress' throat
is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes
a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again
bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people
a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will
have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said
the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist
than China! 'This is welfare for the rich,' he said. 'This is
socialism for the rich. It's bailing out the financiers, the banks,
the Wall Streeters.'
That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we're being
told it's unavoidable.
The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish
that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But
that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that
those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable
consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound,
Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve
System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the
culprit, in this mess!
• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700
billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700
billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.
• Financial institutions are 'designated as financial agents of the
Government.' This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.
• Then there's this: 'Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the
authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency
discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any
administrative agency.' Translation: the Secretary can buy up
whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it,
and be subject to no one in the process.
There goes your country.
Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this 'sadly
necessary.' Sad, yes. Necessary? Don't make me laugh.
Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the
American people. The two major party candidates for president
themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of
this kind - another example of the big choice we're supposedly
presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash
brewing, they're not quite sure what their views are. A sad display,
really.
Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end
of the political atrocities we'll witness in connection with the
crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a
Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven
percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call
them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for
anyone who supports this atrocity.
The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care
about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our
government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that
average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the
fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?
When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means
standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics
and the media?
Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we
are, and what kind of country we shall be.
In liberty,
Ron Paul

17 September, 2008

Well put

If ..I'm a little confused. Let me see if I have this straight.....


* If you grow up in Hawaii, raised by your grandparents, you're
exotic,different."

* Grow up in Alaska eating mooseburgers, a quintessential American
story.

"If your name is Barack you're a radical, unpatriotic Muslim.

* Name your kids Willow, Trig and Track, you're a maverick.

* Graduate from Harvard law School and you are unstable.

* Attend 5 different small colleges before graduating, you're well
grounded.

* If you spend 3 years as a brilliant community organizer, become the
first black President of the Harvard Law Review, create a voter registration
drive that registers 150,000 new voters, spend 12 years as a Constitutional
Law professor, spend 8 years as a State Senator representing a district
with over 750,000 people, become chairman of the state Senate's Health and
Human Services committee, spend 4 years in the United States Senate
representing a state of 13 million people while sponsoring 131 bills
and serving on
the Foreign Affairs, Environment and Public Works and Veteran's Affairs
committees, you don't have any real leadership experience.

* If your total resume is: local weather girl, 4 years on the city
council and 6 years as the mayor of a town with less than 7,000 people, 20
months as the governor of a state with only 650,000 people, then you're
qualified
to become the country's second highest ranking executive and next in line
behind a man in his eighth decade.

* If you have been married to the same woman for 19 years while raising
2 beautiful daughters, all within Protestant churches, you're not a real
Christian.

* If you cheated on your first wife with a rich heiress, and then left
your disfigured wife and married the heiress the next month, you're a true
Christian.

* If you teach responsible, age appropriate sex education, including
the proper use of birth control, you are eroding the fiber of society.

* If, while governor, you staunchly advocate abstinence only, with no
other option in sex education in your state's school system while your unwed
teen daughter ends up pregnant, you're very responsible.


* If your wife is a Harvard graduate lawyer who gave up a position in
a prestigious law firm to work for the betterment of her inner city
community, then gave that up to raise a family, your family's values don't
represent America's.

* If you're husband is nicknamed "First Dude", with at least one DWI
conviction and no college education, who didn't register to vote until
age 25 and once was a member of a group that advocated the secession of
Alaska from the USA, your family is extremely admirable.


OK, much clearer now.

31 August, 2008

scary.....

....but if you've paying attention, it is frighteningly, tragically real.

Of the 481 glitches so far discovered with electronic voting machines
in the Nov. 2 election, 436 favored Republicans, 44 favored Democrats,
and 1 favored a Libertarian.

04 August, 2008

NY vacation

Off to Stu and Chelsea's wedding. Yeehaw! Away. . . and a drive.
Should feel good to get some cooler air up there. Also a relief to
be away from home (what is left of it).

I'll be back in a week so hopefully I will only miss one EMT class.
Just hope there is no problems with the house while I'm away. So
close. . .

17 July, 2008

This is the answer to Howard Kunstler's "gloom and doom"

Speech starts at minute 2:20.





Speech by Al Gore:

There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment. The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk. And even more - if more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake.

I don't remember a time in our country when so many things seemed to be going so wrong simultaneously. Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, gasoline prices are increasing dramatically, and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced. Home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies and other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure. Distinguished senior business leaders are telling us that this is just the beginning unless we find the courage to make some major changes quickly.

The climate crisis, in particular, is getting a lot worse - much more quickly than predicted. Scientists with access to data from Navy submarines traversing underneath the North polar ice cap have warned that there is now a 75 percent chance that within five years the entire ice cap will completely disappear during the summer months. This will further increase the melting pressure on Greenland. According to experts, the Jakobshavn glacier, one of Greenland's largest, is moving at a faster rate than ever before, losing 20 million tons of ice every day, equivalent to the amount of water used every year by the residents of New York City.

Two major studies from military intelligence experts have warned our leaders about the dangerous national security implications of the climate crisis, including the possibility of hundreds of millions of climate refugees destabilizing nations around the world.

Just two days ago, 27 senior statesmen and retired military leaders warned of the national security threat from an "energy tsunami" that would be triggered by a loss of our access to foreign oil. Meanwhile, the war in Iraq continues, and now the war in Afghanistan appears to be getting worse.

And by the way, our weather sure is getting strange, isn't it? There seem to be more tornadoes than in living memory, longer droughts, bigger downpours and record floods. Unprecedented fires are burning in California and elsewhere in the American West. Higher temperatures lead to drier vegetation that makes kindling for mega-fires of the kind that have been raging in Canada, Greece, Russia, China, South America, Australia and Africa. Scientists in the Department of Geophysics and Planetary Science at Tel Aviv University tell us that for every one degree increase in temperature, lightning strikes will go up another 10 percent. And it is lightning, after all, that is principally responsible for igniting the conflagration in California today.

Like a lot of people, it seems to me that all these problems are bigger than any of the solutions that have thus far been proposed for them, and that's been worrying me.

I'm convinced that one reason we've seemed paralyzed in the face of these crises is our tendency to offer old solutions to each crisis separately - without taking the others into account. And these outdated proposals have not only been ineffective - they almost always make the other crises even worse.

Yet when we look at all three of these seemingly intractable challenges at the same time, we can see the common thread running through them, deeply ironic in its simplicity: our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels is at the core of all three of these challenges - the economic, environmental and national security crises.

We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change.

But if we grab hold of that common thread and pull it hard, all of these complex problems begin to unravel and we will find that we're holding the answer to all of them right in our hand.
The answer is to end our reliance on carbon-based fuels.

In my search for genuinely effective answers to the climate crisis, I have held a series of "solutions summits" with engineers, scientists, and CEOs. In those discussions, one thing has become abundantly clear: when you connect the dots, it turns out that the real solutions to the climate crisis are the very same measures needed to renew our economy and escape the trap of ever-rising energy prices. Moreover, they are also the very same solutions we need to guarantee our national security without having to go to war in the Persian Gulf.

What if we could use fuels that are not expensive, don't cause pollution and are abundantly available right here at home?

We have such fuels. Scientists have confirmed that enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year. Tapping just a small portion of this solar energy could provide all of the electricity America uses.

And enough wind power blows through the Midwest corridor every day to also meet 100 percent of US electricity demand. Geothermal energy, similarly, is capable of providing enormous supplies of electricity for America.

The quickest, cheapest and best way to start using all this renewable energy is in the production of electricity. In fact, we can start right now using solar power, wind power and geothermal power to make electricity for our homes and businesses.

But to make this exciting potential a reality, and truly solve our nation's problems, we need a new start.

That's why I'm proposing today a strategic initiative designed to free us from the crises that are holding us down and to regain control of our own destiny. It's not the only thing we need to do. But this strategic challenge is the lynchpin of a bold new strategy needed to re-power America.

Today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean carbon-free sources within 10 years.

This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative. It represents a challenge to all Americans - in every walk of life: to our political leaders, entrepreneurs, innovators, engineers, and to every citizen.

A few years ago, it would not have been possible to issue such a challenge. But here's what's changed: the sharp cost reductions now beginning to take place in solar, wind, and geothermal power - coupled with the recent dramatic price increases for oil and coal - have radically changed the economics of energy.

When I first went to Congress 32 years ago, I listened to experts testify that if oil ever got to $35 a barrel, then renewable sources of energy would become competitive. Well, today, the price of oil is over $135 per barrel. And sure enough, billions of dollars of new investment are flowing into the development of concentrated solar thermal, photovoltaics, windmills, geothermal plants, and a variety of ingenious new ways to improve our efficiency and conserve presently wasted energy.

And as the demand for renewable energy grows, the costs will continue to fall. Let me give you one revealing example: the price of the specialized silicon used to make solar cells was recently as high as $300 per kilogram. But the newest contracts have prices as low as $50 a kilogram.

You know, the same thing happened with computer chips - also made out of silicon. The price paid for the same performance came down by 50 percent every 18 months - year after year, and that's what's happened for 40 years in a row.

To those who argue that we do not yet have the technology to accomplish these results with renewable energy: I ask them to come with me to meet the entrepreneurs who will drive this revolution. I've seen what they are doing and I have no doubt that we can meet this challenge.

To those who say the costs are still too high: I ask them to consider whether the costs of oil and coal will ever stop increasing if we keep relying on quickly depleting energy sources to feed a rapidly growing demand all around the world. When demand for oil and coal increases, their price goes up. When demand for solar cells increases, the price often comes down.

When we send money to foreign countries to buy nearly 70 percent of the oil we use every day, they build new skyscrapers and we lose jobs. When we spend that money building solar arrays and windmills, we build competitive industries and gain jobs here at home.

Of course there are those who will tell us this can't be done. Some of the voices we hear are the defenders of the status quo - the ones with a vested interest in perpetuating the current system, no matter how high a price the rest of us will have to pay. But even those who reap the profits of the carbon age have to recognize the inevitability of its demise. As one OPEC oil minister observed, "The Stone Age didn't end because of a shortage of stones."

To those who say 10 years is not enough time, I respectfully ask them to consider what the world's scientists are telling us about the risks we face if we don't act in 10 years. The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis. When the use of oil and coal goes up, pollution goes up. When the use of solar, wind and geothermal increases, pollution comes down.

To those who say the challenge is not politically viable: I suggest they go before the American people and try to defend the status quo. Then bear witness to the people's appetite for change.

I for one do not believe our country can withstand 10 more years of the status quo. Our families cannot stand 10 more years of gas price increases. Our workers cannot stand 10 more years of job losses and outsourcing of factories. Our economy cannot stand 10 more years of sending $2 billion every 24 hours to foreign countries for oil. And our soldiers and their families cannot take another 10 years of repeated troop deployments to dangerous regions that just happen to have large oil supplies.

What could we do instead for the next 10 years? What should we do during the next 10 years? Some of our greatest accomplishments as a nation have resulted from commitments to reach a goal that fell well beyond the next election: the Marshall Plan, Social Security, the interstate highway system. But a political promise to do something 40 years from now is universally ignored because everyone knows that it's meaningless. Ten years is about the maximum time that we as a nation can hold a steady aim and hit our target.

When President John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to land a man on the moon and bring him back safely in 10 years, many people doubted we could accomplish that goal. But 8 years and 2 months later, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the moon.

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity. Our national electric grid is critical infrastructure, as vital to the health and security of our economy as our highways and telecommunication networks. Today, our grids are antiquated, fragile, and vulnerable to cascading failure. Power outages and defects in the current grid system cost US businesses more than $120 billion dollars a year. It has to be upgraded anyway.

We could further increase the value and efficiency of a Unified National Grid by helping our struggling auto giants switch to the manufacture of plug-in electric cars. An electric vehicle fleet would sharply reduce the cost of driving a car, reduce pollution, and increase the flexibility of our electricity grid.

At the same time, of course, we need to greatly improve our commitment to efficiency and conservation. That's the best investment we can make.

America's transition to renewable energy sources must also include adequate provisions to assist those Americans who would unfairly face hardship. For example, we must recognize those who have toiled in dangerous conditions to bring us our present energy supply. We should guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine for any coal miner displaced by impacts on the coal industry. Every single one of them.

Of course, we could and should speed up this transition by insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes. I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.

In order to foster international cooperation, it is also essential that the United States rejoin the global community and lead efforts to secure an international treaty at Copenhagen in December of next year that includes a cap on CO2 emissions and a global partnership that recognizes the necessity of addressing the threats of extreme poverty and disease as part of the world's agenda for solving the climate crisis.

Of course the greatest obstacle to meeting the challenge of 100 percent renewable electricity in 10 years may be the deep dysfunction of our politics and our self-governing system as it exists today. In recent years, our politics has tended toward incremental proposals made up of small policies designed to avoid offending special interests, alternating with occasional baby steps in the right direction. Our democracy has become sclerotic at a time when these crises require boldness.

It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for more oil ten years from now.

Am I the only one who finds it strange that our government so often adopts a so-called solution that has absolutely nothing to do with the problem it is supposed to address? When people rightly complain about higher gasoline prices, we propose to give more money to the oil companies and pretend that they're going to bring gasoline prices down. It will do nothing of the sort, and everyone knows it. If we keep going back to the same policies that have never ever worked in the past and have served only to produce the highest gasoline prices in history alongside the greatest oil company profits in history, nobody should be surprised if we get the same result over and over again. But the Congress may be poised to move in that direction anyway because some of them are being stampeded by lobbyists for special interests that know how to make the system work for them instead of the American people.

If you want to know the truth about gasoline prices, here it is: the exploding demand for oil, especially in places like China, is overwhelming the rate of new discoveries by so much that oil prices are almost certain to continue upward over time no matter what the oil companies promise. And politicians cannot bring gasoline prices down in the short term.

However, there actually is one extremely effective way to bring the costs of driving a car way down within a few short years. The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline.

Many Americans have begun to wonder whether or not we've simply lost our appetite for bold policy solutions. And folks who claim to know how our system works these days have told us we might as well forget about our political system doing anything bold, especially if it is contrary to the wishes of special interests. And I've got to admit, that sure seems to be the way things have been going. But I've begun to hear different voices in this country from people who are not only tired of baby steps and special interest politics, but are hungry for a new, different and bold approach.

We are on the eve of a presidential election. We are in the midst of an international climate treaty process that will conclude its work before the end of the first year of the new president's term. It is a great error to say that the United States must wait for others to join us in this matter. In fact, we must move first, because that is the key to getting others to follow; and because moving first is in our own national interest.

So I ask you to join with me to call on every candidate, at every level, to accept this challenge - for America to be running on 100 percent zero-carbon electricity in 10 years. It's time for us to move beyond empty rhetoric. We need to act now.

This is a generational moment. A moment when we decide our own path and our collective fate. I'm asking you - each of you - to join me and build this future. Please join the WE campaign at wecansolveit.org.We need you. And we need you now. We're committed to changing not just light bulbs, but laws. And laws will only change with leadership.

On July 16, 1969, the United States of America was finally ready to meet President Kennedy's challenge of landing Americans on the moon. I will never forget standing beside my father a few miles from the launch site, waiting for the giant Saturn 5 rocket to lift Apollo 11 into the sky. I was a young man, 21 years old, who had graduated from college a month before and was enlisting in the United States Army three weeks later.

I will never forget the inspiration of those minutes. The power and the vibration of the giant rocket's engines shook my entire body. As I watched the rocket rise, slowly at first and then with great speed, the sound was deafening. We craned our necks to follow its path until we were looking straight up into the air. And then four days later, I watched along with hundreds of millions of others around the world as Neil Armstrong took one small step to the surface of the moon and changed the history of the human race.

We must now lift our nation to reach another goal that will change history. Our entire civilization depends upon us now embarking on a new journey of exploration and discovery. Our success depends on our willingness as a people to undertake this journey and to complete it within 10 years. Once again, we have an opportunity to take a giant leap for humankind.

02 July, 2008

The Olden Days - pics I found on Facebook


This is Martine and her dad, Jim. They sail "Aguja" and we traveled together a'ways from San Diego all the way to New Zealand - which they are only just now leaving. They are currently in Tonga.
Martine, Jim, ????, a rare shot of Matt DiFranchesca, and Paul. This was in the Marquesas, but I don't know where.
This picture accompanies a most hilarious and thrilling story. Can you imagine how terrifying it would be to be in a small confined space--such as the cabin of a sailboat--with a large frightened bird--namely a pelican--which carries an unsheathed sword attached to its face?? It is not my story. I cannot tell it. Ask Laura from SeaCor, or Paul for that matter.

28 June, 2008

27 June, 2008

Great Story on the Mysterium Tremendum

This is a letter my friend Jason Price sent in to a group discussing
Sewanee ghost stories. I think this is an amazing story of how
mysterious, wonderful and unfathomable life can be.

-----

I was awarded a Watson Fellowship in 1998 to travel abroad during
1998-1999. My girlfriend (now wife), Kari Palmintier, graduated from
Sewanee in 1999 and worked at the Monteagle Assembly that summer. As
I had no strings attached and no job lined up upon returning from the
Watson, I decided to return to the mountain to be with Kari and to
enjoy some final days on the Mountain. As luck would have it, I was
able to house sit for Bran and Cindy Potter for several weeks in
July-August. It was a wonderful arrangement: eat all the food in the
freezer (I was king-of-the-scrounge in those days), water the plants,
and maybe cut the grass if I felt like it. Of course it was, and
still is, I presume, known that Bran's house is haunted. I already
knew this because I was a geology major, and those types of rumors
circulate among the fold. However, on his way out the door Bran
assured me that his was a friendly ghost and not to worry.

In early August, our good friend, Jamie Blythe (now Wood), c'99,
passed through Sewanee on her way to her family's cotton farm in
northern Alabama. Jamie had spent the last several months as a ranger
in Yosemite National Park and had done a good bit of rock climbing.
As Kari and I were planning our own voyage to Yosemite later that
fall, we picked her brain about great things to do there, including
some recommended climbing routes. There was one route in particular
that captivated her: the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral, a
beautiful multi-pitch (multiple rope lengths) climb that, at 5.10a,
was a challenge but very achievable. It was and is one of the
must-do's in the Valley. Jamie carried on about the quality of the
climb, and then stopped herself, "Wait, I've got the guidebook in my
truck." She returned with the guidebook, and as Kari, Jamie, and I
leafed through it, we came across a cut-off margin where the topo for
Middle Cathedral should have been. Cutting the page out of a
guidebook is a common strategy for climbers on big multi-pitch routes
because a single sheet of paper weighs a lot less than a 300 page
bound book. Jamie apologized that she didn't have the topo and
figured that she had left it with her climbing partner who was still
in Yosemite. Despite this, she raved about the route and told us that
we absolutely had to do the climb.

During that summer in Sewanee I worked two of the requisite jobs for a
Snowdenite: flipping burgers at Shenanigans and painting houses with
George Dick. I can honestly say that both have served me well, as I
can still make a mean spiced turkey melt, and I think of George every
time I wield a paintbrush. Given that both of these are somewhat
dirty jobs, I tended to wear a set of work clothes during the day that
I would change out of in the evening. A few days after Jamie left, it
was back to the grind, so I pulled on a pair of paint-daubed
houndstooth shorts that had been laying against the upstairs bedroom
wall for several days. Why I chose those shorts, I do not know,
except that they were already dirty so what was another few days of
paint and grease? When I pulled them on, I noticed a piece of paper
in the back pocket. I had hoped it was some cash that had escaped my
notice, but instead, I pulled out a folded up, thicker-than-usual,
shorter-than-usual, white piece of paper with black line work. Once I
unfolded it, I almost fell over when I saw that it was was Jamie's
topo of the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral! It was the right page
number, and I could see the relatively clean cut that had been made
with scissors from a leatherman or swiss army knife.

How?? Why? Who can say. There is no explanation for the skeptic.
Jamie did not believe that she had the topo; she did not go upstairs
to the room where my shorts were; I had had no access to the guidebook
since it was in Jamie's truck prior to her bringing it inside and us
mutually and coevally discovering the missing page. Not only that, I
did not wear those houndstooth shorts for at least a week spanning
Jamie's time in Sewanee.

I was not a big believer in ghosts until I lived for several weeks in
Bran Potter's house. Indeed, the Potter ghost was (is) a benevolent
ghost. That he could somehow magically deliver the lost page that had
gone off to Lord only knows where is incredible, extraordinary.

And, if you must know, I had too much trepidation about the whole
affair to attempt the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral! Some may
have taken the topo turning up in my pocket as an auspicious gift, one
that should have been capitalized upon at first opportunity. I, on
the other hand, had more of an ominous feeling--the route delivered by
the ghost. Perhaps I would join him in the ether-of-the-between if I
attempted the route. After all, I had just returned from a year in
the mountains and had known people who had been killed while climbing.
So, to this day, despite having climbed at least 40 days in Yosemite
Valley over the last 13 years on numerous classic routes, I _still_
have not climbed the East Buttress of Middle Cathedral.

good luck with your compilation,
Jason

22 June, 2008

Re: info - part 2

Arnie
Did you get both emails????

Well, as for me, I am busy handling my father's estate.  My brother Charles, whom you haven't met is handling most of the business end while I am managing selling the house and organizing the furniture to divide and then auction what is left.  The last two months I've been cleaning out closets and storerooms of junk and trying to find some sort of order to things.
Hopefully my end of the work will be over in three to five months.  If I can get the timing right, I'd like to hop a ride across the Atlantic to Europe, visit a couple of friends and then try a cross land trip to Hong Kong.  And then get back to the boat any way I can from there.

That is my tentative plan, but timing will be key, and timing is too hard to judge right now.

I've enjoyed being home more this time than any time I can remember.  I have a purpose.  I work hard.  And in my free time I help my brother Charles build a 4X4 truck out on the farm.  And last year I started playing guitar.  So I have things to do I enjoy.,  So really all is well enough.  It is very very stressful though.  Last week was one of the hardest of my life.  I've been lonely in some strange way.

But I am engulfed in what I am doing and don't want to be anywhere else for the time.

I read a book that has changed the way I am looking at the future though.  It is called "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler.  It deals a lot with the effects of Peak Oil on the next thirty years.   Very interesting.  I am thinking I may not sail for the next twenty years like I had wanted to.  Maybe I'll settle down a little sooner.  I want to immigrate to New Zealand and buy a little piece of land there.  Have a garden, some chickens, a couple of goats.  I used to live in a cabin in Montana and I've still never been happier than I was there.  Maybe I'll get back to it sooner than later.

I miss my boat and the life that we've shared at sea together.  But so much has changed for me.  My view on so much has shifted.  I hope sailing still provides the same intensity and direction and meaning that it did not so many days ago.  I miss so many of our friends; I miss our stories--I miss making stories, where now I tire of telling them over and over again.

This is where I need and want to be today.  But I still face the ever-challenging proposition of building a future for myself out of the dreams that now burn in my mind, and not with the residual ashes of the dreams of the past..


21 June, 2008

The beginnings of Oil War

. . . of course, it isn't a beginning (Iraq, ect.)--more an extension--but it is interesting to learn about militia groups working off stolen crude.  It will get worse from here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7467331.stm

20 June, 2008

story on typhoon Fengshen

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jNc-TGZJoP_fZz-QnaYlcOm-qq5Q

Araby gets hit with Typhoon

http://www.jma.go.jp/en/typh/0806.html

constant work of sailing

This is an excerpt from an email by some friends leaving New Zealand for Tonga this year.  I am going to highlight all the times they use the words "broke", "fix", "rebuild", and things of that nature.  Pretty funny--and a fine score to how sailing really is.

It was cold in New Zealand when we left.
We blew out the head sail just off the New Zealand coast. It took us 20 Day to get to Tonga, although we spent 5 days inside a reef about 300 miles south of here , as we had broken the auto pilot and the wind vane steering gear, The wind at the time was blowing with gusts up to 40 naughts,so the reef was a good place to be. although we broke the bow roller when we had to move to the other side of the reef as the wind clocked around to the south. I was able to make a good repair on that bow roller. it
is sill working, then we broke the chain in the windless , so that was another thing to fix. we tried to fix the wind vane with fiber glass , but it broke about half an hour after we left the reef.
I managed to get the electronics parts for the auto pilot from a German mister fix it , that has a shop here in Tonga, along with some
oratory about US politics , He was preaching to the quire, but it was entertaining.  When we were in New Zealand, Martine decided to rebuild the galley.

18 June, 2008

Water-fueled engine is a scam

Cool idea, but there are many-a-skeptic and no evidence.

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=56705

Looks like Fox News got played.

On Hope

This is an email sent to me by a friend (from another friend named "joey"). It says it better than I could, and I now don't have to bother trying.

-----------------------

We all know that something epochal hangs in the air.

Shrinking sea ice. Changing weather patterns. The price of oil has increased five fold since 2002. (Last week the US energy czar stated that recent spikes are a matter of supply and demand, meaning that peak oil is upon us.) In the face of population and economic pressures, commodity prices, especially food, are increasing rapidly. This threatens the world economy with dramatic recession, inflation, and harbors ill for the United States with its falling dollar. (What would America be like if a gallon of orange juice cost $15? What will America be like when the price of oil is $300 dollars a barrel and a gallon of gas costs $10?)

These things are happening whether or not we spend our time learning about them. They are also dramatically reshaping the world of our future and our children's future. Learning about this stuff is depressing, and as we increase our awareness of the challenges/potential catastrophes that await us, it is easy to become fearful and negative. To avoid these feelings, we usually choose to ignore what is happening beyond the scope of our daily lives. The problem with this is that it prevents us from accepting and confronting the fundamental realities that, to a great extent, determine to the context and content of daily life. Our individual denial is particularly pernicious when it leads to collective denial and, therefore, paralysis.

Much of the existent literature on issues such as peak oil, overpopulation and environmental challenges, including climate change, are either themselves pessimistic or can easily lead one to pessimism and cynicism. I do not think these reactions are inevitable or necessary because there are powerful reasons for hope. We have extremely advanced technology, the largest pool of knowledge any civilization has ever known, and the ability to disseminated it instantly to everyone we known through the Internet. With countless others I share the opinion that our assumptions about our own capacities and about what is possible are the greatest obstacles to human progress. While ignorance and inertia often dominate our lives, each of us knows that we also have the capacity to learn and grow and change. While most of history evidences the inability of groups to overcome their differences and unite, there are scattered instances when they have and, in doing so, achieved the 'impossible.' Humanity's heart can awaken, the mind can imagine solutions, and man's indomitable spirit can find a way. But we must act. We must learn about what lies beyond the scope of our lives. We must learn to connect the actions of our lives to larger patterns of cause and effect. We must change the ways we live as individuals. Over time small steps add up. The key is to focus on what we have learned and accomplished each day rather than being overwhelmed by all that we have left undone.


Attached is a PDF of a very short book (73 pgs.) entitled, Eating Fossil Fuels, which provides an excellent (and brief) overview of several issues at hand. I have also included the following links which are 20-30 minutes TED talks. Both are informative and incredibly inspirational.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/243 - Al Gore discussing climate change and collective paralysis.
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/11 - Jane Goodall discussing reasons for hope.

Lastly, my friend Tommy and I plan to disseminate more information of this kind to anyone who is interested. If you are, please respond to this email. If not, I won't bother you any more about the future.

Thank you for your time.




-----------------------------

I, Jonah, would like to add that the book, "The Long Emergency" by James Howard Kunstler is one of the most influencial books I have ever read. He is a skeptic certainly--but his analysis of the problems we face in the upcoming decades is fierce and honest. I, like Joey, hope for the middle ground, a reprieve from the seemingly inevitable train wreck that looms before us. If you don't understand what this train wreck is, then I suggest you read and then decide for yourself.

oil alternitive

17 June, 2008

Weekend in Mac'ville






see photos at: http://picasaweb.google.com/carolinepmauldin/25thBirthdayFestivities

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Message from Jonah:
nice mask
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06 June, 2008

Where I have been

The Last Walk


After Christmas, I sailed from Japan for the Philippines.

I took my boat up the coast of Cebu Island to Zeke’s boatyard. The rent was something like a dollar a day, and when I explained to Zeke that I would be there only a week or two, he said I could forget about rent, just pay his guys for handling the dock lines.

That was the plan.

I only wanted to repair my sails, paint the deck, and look at some means of alternate propulsion—like an outboard engine bracket. To the south of the Philippines is some to the most windless sea on earth.

But plans change. . .

I received an email from my sister saying that our father was diagnosed with leukemia. Being 80, he refused Chemo- and chose to die at home with his family. Even though my dad was always an extraordinarily healthy person, his illness somehow wasn’t a surprise to me. I don’t know why.

I told Zeke that I would perhaps not be leaving with my boat in a week or two, but would instead be leaving without my boat and could not be certain of the time of my return.

Zeke was more than accommodating. He assisted in helping me find the best tickets home. He assured me of the safety of Araby. We agreed that he would pay my friend Malou to swab the inside of my boat once every two weeks (for mould). (This would cost me a dollar.)

I spent a day in boat prep and left the following day. I flew to Portland, rented a car, picked up my brother Will and his two dogs and drove back to South Carolina in two days nonstop.

I find it rare to be in a place and in a time where there is no doubt. . . no doubt at all. . . that you are exactly where you should be, doing exactly the thing that you should do. So much is hidden from us in life that we must constantly wonder, ‘what if. . . ?’ To not have that question is special.

I’ve only felt so grounded in my life once before, and that was the time of the death of my mother.

And yet this time is so very different, nearly diametrically opposed in certain respects, to the last time:

My mom was young, my dad was old; my mom was in an accident, my dad had a disease; my mom’s time in the hospital was short, only two weeks; my father never went to the hospital, his time of dying was two months; my mom’s spirit blew out like a candle, my father’s lingered, savoring the time to make peace.

They felt very different to me. I rarely thought of my mother in this time unless my father mentioned her. If you haven’t experienced the dying process, it is interesting to learn the patterns carried on by those moving on. And it is surprising to learn how eerily universal the patterns and behavior can be.

Blondell is my ‘other’ mother. She has raised me since I was born. She has been caregiver to the passing of both of her parents in the last two years.

She said this: “When they start talking to the dead, it won’t be long.”

Blonny was my guide through this process. And Susan Ueling, the hospice nurse, who was more wonderful than I can possibly explain. They taught me what to expect and what to be aware of, what would matter down the road.

He ate. He occasionally had company. He was weak and slowly grew weaker. First he would sit in his chair for much of the day, but after a month, he more and more rarely moved from the bed.

He ate well. Friends and family brought food daily. It was a tough (but wonderful) job for me to eat the myriads of leftovers. He woke every morning thinking he was four miles from home. “I think we’ll go home today,” he’d say. Then he’d laugh at how impossible his mind was. “I’m confused. I’ve never been so confused.” Everyday.

As the weeks passed he spent more and more time in some degree of delirium. And his body slowly withered with his mind. He was still determined to go to the bathroom on his own and this was the greatest risk to his health. We had to set up a baby monitor in his room and listened to it intently for the squeaking of his chair or the rustling of his bed. If he was confused he may choose to ignore his walker.

My mandate was to keep him home, to keep him safe. To let him fall and injure himself was my greatest concern. He was in little pain and was sparsely medicated. He was comfortable, well fed, and surrounded by family. A fall could ruin that.

For the last two months of my father’s life I slept in the bed next to him. He would regularly get up twice in the night to pee, but he was also most confused in the night, and had a mild propensity for nocturnal ventures.

Before I came home, my sister found him in the kitchen wearing a suit at three a.m. He scolded her, “why aren’t you ready? We’ll be late for the dance.” Another time he was found, well dressed, sitting in a chair waiting peacefully.

“Dad, what are you doing?” he was asked.

“What time is it?”

“It 2:30 am, dad.”

“Damn, I was supposed to be dead half an hour ago.”

We tried to log his more memorable saying in a small notebook.

On a sailboat, you become accustomed to sleeping lightly or waking up to any change of sound. Therefore, the night watch was mostly mine. As the weeks passed, I was more regularly called Burwell at night. Burwell is my dad’s dead brother.

He was an incredible patient from start to finish. He never would tell you when he wanted to get up, but he was always kind, always accepting of the care we gave him. He’d take his pills without a fuss, he’d let me bathe him, clean him, change him, all the control we find so difficult to release. My dad died gracefully.

There were luminous moments. He was living mostly in dream and memory. One morning I asked him about his favorite pony—polo being his undying passion. He took me through years of polo and Argentine ponies named, Pistol, Vanessa, Poker Chip, and of course, the one that got away. And how his face would light up in the telling. . .

One morning he woke up and said, “I was not aware that I owned the whole world.”

Other times he’d wake up and ask to call Leila, or my mother, Bootsie. Both are long passed away.

Or ask me to call Jeff and tell him that he was very sorry but they’d have to reschedule and play 18 holes next week.

I’ve never spent more time with my father. I’ve never felt closer to my father, never had the opportunity to give so much back to him. He’s always provided so much for me. He told his girlfriend that he was afraid to die alone. Our whole family was determined not to let him.

After nearly two months of slow decline, he woke one morning markedly different. He hardly opened his eyes; he could only mumble. At this point he had already declined to such a place that we guessed his time to be within two weeks. I had the day off of work and was going to the farm to bury my brother’s truck in a pond and then see if we could excavate it. My sister Mary Locke was with Dad.

When we returned we were amazed at his change. His lips had become so chapped that they cracked against his teeth and bled. He was unable to drink water.

That same day, a friend came from out of town to see her grandmother (who wasn't well) and invited me over for a dinner party. I went.

At the party was a family friend named Becky who had just lost her husband to cancer in the last few months. We sat alone and talked for an hour. It was amazing time and I felt so grateful for it. It instilled in me the sanctity of this time of life. . . and death.

“Do all you can do, now. You never want to think, ‘if only I had done more,’” she said.

Later that night my brother Will called and said I may want to come home. I hugged my friend’s goodbye and drove home.

Dad was really struggling to breathe now. For the first time, he was fighting. He swung between being too hot and sweating, and the chills. Mary Locke had to cover him with towels to catch the perspiration and was changing them regularly.

It was amazing to see how fast he had declined. Susan Ueling said to administer morphine each hour. It was more for our comfort that his, however. He had less than two days now.

I relieved Mary Locke and, the tv being on already, thought I might watch a movie. I flipped a few channels and then realized that the room had gone quiet. I looked at my Old Man and he was breathing quietly. I quickly turned off the tv and swung around to sit next to him Indian-style on the bed. I held his hand and told him that it was okay (Beckie McCutchen had said this was so important). “It’s okay Dad. You can let go. We’ll be fine. If I could, I’d walk down that path with you, but I can’t. It’s only for you. My time’s not come.”

His breathing was so soft. And then it stopped.

I smiled. . . amazed. There it was. He was gone.

And then he took a deep long breath again. . . and once more started breathing softly. I laughed to myself and told Dad that he had tricked me; I had thought he had taken the last walk.

. . . and then he stopped breathing once more.

I wasn’t going to be so easily fooled this time, however. I waited, quietly holding his hand. Once again he breathed deeply. . . he took a few peaceful shallow breaths. . . and was still once more.

And those were the last breaths he ever took.

I figured I’d wait to be sure. Death apparently wasn’t so black and white as I had thought. He had no pulse that I could find. I could hear nothing from his lungs. After ten minutes I called my sister and brother. It was 12:45am.

An hour later Susan Ueling came over and we dressed him and called the morgue. They agreed to come in the morning for his body, after the family could have a chance to view him. I cleaned up all the medical things, all walkers, wheel chairs, oxygen tanks, towels, ect. I made his room look like it always had.

He was wearing his white slacks, black belt, and a pink Brooks Brothers shirt (and his bedroom slippers).

My dad took a nap every single day after his lunch. Dressed and laying in his bed, he looked just like he was napping.

25 May, 2008

with Heidi and me at graduation

 
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at the farm

 
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Shooting in Argentina

 
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The End

 

Chappelle Heath Manning, 80, of Columbia died Sunday.  He was born January 22, 1928, the eldest son of Katharine Heath Manning Perry and Burwell Deas Manning of Columbia.   He attended Episcopal High School and the University of Virginia and served in the United States Marine Corps during World War II.  Upon his return from  military service, he began his career in real estate and was the founder of the Manning Company.  He was instrumental in the development of Lake Katharine, Dutch Square Mall, WildeWood, and Woodcreek Farms.  He also founded Palmetto Utilities, Inc. which was instrumental in the growth of northeast Richland County. 

He served in the South Carolina House of Representatives in the early 1960s.

 

An avid horseman, Mr. Manning served as President of the Columbia Polo Association and was Chairman of the US Polo Association Handicap Committee and Training Foundation for many years.  He was the owner of Lugoff Farms where he spent countless hours hunting and watching ducks with his family. 

 

Mr. Manning was an active member of numerous clubs and civic organizations in Columbia, Camden and Aiken. 

 

He is predeceased by a sister Leila Manning Cart, a brother Burwell Deas Manning, Jr., his wife Mary Elizabeth Holliday Manning, and a son Chappelle Heath Manning, Jr. He is survived by children Jean Elliott Manning, Mary Locke Manning Oliphant (Murray), Dibble R. Manning (Carla), John L. Manning, Joseph William Holliday Manning and Charles Tennant Heath Manning.   He is also survived by grandchildren, Chappelle Heath Manning, III; Baker Patterson Manning; Martha Louis Patterson Manning; Mary Hunter Chamberlain; Alexander Pierce Manning; Preston Clarke Manning; and Samuel August Manning.  

 

The funeral will be held at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Tuesday at 2:00 pm.  The family will receive visitors at Mr. Manning's home at 128 Holliday Road afterwards.  In lieu of flowers, the family requests that memorials be made to Palmetto Health and Hospice or the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral Foundation.

17 May, 2008

Molly on Infant Swimming

Here's a letter from my friend Molly Nemeth:

Hey Everyone!
 As some of you know, our kids Lilly and Lucas took
some very special swim lessons last fall with ISR
(Infant Swim Resource).  The TODAY SHOW did a segment
on the the program they took, and it is amazing.  I
believe the method truly can save lives.  I have sent
this to all of you in hopes that it could help you or
someone you know.  Pass it on.  ~Molly
Here is the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/24609121#24609121


May 14: A program for infants 6 months and older aims
to protect them from drowning by teaching them
swimming skills. NBC's Amy Robach reports from Coral
Gables , Fla.

Here is our instructor's information:
Karen Baker
Certified ISR Instructor, Murfreesboro, TN
615-394-2952
www.infantswim.com

You can find an instructor in your area by going to
www.infantswim.com

I hope this helps everyone, pass it on...
Molly

09 May, 2008

Another Carp. . . .and bigger

Wagon Wheel



This is a sample of some of the music we played last weekend down at Mcclellenville.
If this link won't play, then click on the title.

Tropical cyclone

Araby just missed getting smacked by a tropical cyclone.  Check it out:
http://www.solar.ifa.hawaii.edu/Tropical/

500 miles ENE of Cebu City

02 May, 2008

dog trough

 
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hard night on the homestead

Pops took some falls last night.  Emotionally draining time, for sure.  He's not hurt but he is much weaker and simple won't adjust.  So. . . our protocol will have to shift.  No more walking to the bathroom. 
Anyway, I am off to charleston for a breather.  I'll be back on Sunday.  Rocking chairs, sweet tea, guitars and salty air do a man good.

01 May, 2008

carpe diem indeed

 


At last, the carp is landed. The weight was simply shocking. Every bit of seventy pounds. Frankly, it was hard to hold up with two arms. It's girth was gi-normous. Will shot it with a bow and and arrow, the arrow trailing a line to a reel mounted on the bow. We've been working on this carp for a couple weeks now.
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30 April, 2008

The Endless Animal

This is hard to believe, but, theoretically, a jellyfish could live forever. It can change back and forth from maturity to a polyp state. But individuals have never been tracked properly and there is no way of determining one's age. Shocking. Click the title bar for the article.

The Marvel of Trees

It is almost a marvel that trees should live to become the oldest of living things. Fastened in one place, their struggle is incessant and severe. From the moment a baby tree is born -- from the instant it casts its tiny shadow upon the ground -- until death, it is in danger from insects and animals. It cannot move to avoid danger. It cannot run away to escape enemies. Fixed in one spot, almost helpless, it must endure flood and drought, fire and storm, insects and earthquakes, or die.
-- Enos Mills, The Story of the Thousand Year Pine

the Oldest and the Biggest

Are you interested in lists? For whatever reason I am. I like to know what the biggest, oldest, smallest, farthest, coldest ,tallest, fastest. . . I don't read Guiness or anything, but sometimes I wish I had one around.

For instance, years ago, when I studied dendrology (trees) I learned some interesting things about the natural world. Example: What do you think the oldest living thing is?? (I used to whip this one out at bars and parties and stuff. I've never gotten a correct answer, as far as I knew, according to my information. One guy came close once.)
Anyway, isn't it an interesting question? It brings in the the scope of the world, everything (living). Don't you think that somehow the answer to this question would make the world more beautiful, more amazing and unfathomable?? I think this why I love random, arcane facts--they make the world more magnificent, the breadth of life more limitless.

What about the largest living organism???. . . huh. What does the world look like to you? What is truly huge in your estimation. . . and how does that stack up to 'huge' in our greater human mind?

What is also interesting is that nether of these questions have one single answer--it isn't black and white. What exactly is "one single organism"?? What does "old' mean"? Who cares. . . lets answer all the varieties.


Are you interested??????

I decided to go to the internet and check what I thought I knew. According to Wikipedia, I was close, close enough. I at least made both lists, with several variation as well. I just had a few places wrong, and a few years on the age thing. Here they are:

Largest living organism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Largest_organism


Oldest living organism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oldest_organism


Strangely, yesterday I was interested to determine the largest city in the U.S. I had always thought it was L.A. Someone this weekend had said it was N.Y. So I checked and found that, indeed, NY was the larger, but its population was WAY lower than I would have thought. (Gauging population, again, is apparently a very realitive thing.) So then I did a search for "world's largest cities" and was shocked to find that I was fairly off the mark on these facts as well, at least sort of.

I've always thought that the largest cities in the world were Mexico City and Sao Paulo at around 20 million, and LA and Bejing close behind with 18. I suppose I was pretty close on the numbers, but that there are other areas, such as Seoul and Tokyo that are even bigger. Tokyo is estimated at 32 million!! Come on! How can that not be an astounding realization? We have created a city with 32 million people! There is a city in the world with 32 million people in it! I had never dreamed of such a thing. My world just grew a few clicks. My sense of wonder has been expanded.

As a side note, it was amazing to see the population densities of these cities. Some, like LA and NY are relatively low, but with sprawling size; where others, like Karachi, Calcutta, and Manilla, are compact and overflowing. Again, these arcane little tid-bits of data add a splattering of color to an otherwise blank map, if we havent' been to Calcutta.

I am growing to love wikipedia_