View from the Mountain

Keeping People From Being People

One of the nice things about weather is that we all agree that we cannot control weather. Mother nature also moves to her own plans. When the pollen is turning the water yellow, all we can do is complain. Weather ends up being a safe topic.  While I might have an opinion about the weather, it likely will not cost me any friends. 

I can do a post, Hello From Emerald Isle, announcing the beginning of the beach season and few people will get mad at me when the weather turns cold.  However, when we start to debate how much or how little we need to control human actions, mostly the gloves come off and we see a definite hardening of the mind.  Most people do not want to be limited in what they can do even if it puts other people at risk. 

As we went through the last weekend of March, 2013, we got an unsettling reminder of just how hard it is to get people to act sensibly.  There was an accident involving 95 vehicles on Fancy Gap.  I have written about Fancy Gap many times including a recent post, One Last Trip Down Fancy Gap From SW Virginia, in December of 2012.

According to a report in the April 3, 2012, Roanoke Times, the warning lights on Fancy Gap were activated at 5:45 AM on Sunday morning.  The accident happened at 1:15 PM.  Apparently there were people driving down the mountain at 75-80 MPH in the fog.

Now I have been on Fancy Gap Mountain when the fog lights were flashing but there was no fog so I can understand a little skepticism on flashing lights.  However, I have never even in good clear weather driven down that mountain at 75-80 MPH.  I might get up to 75 MPH when I am on a stretch of flat, empty highway with a speed limit of 70 MPH, but the idea of going down mountainous, crooked Fancy Gap at that speed just does not make any sense.

Perhaps I just have good common sense or maybe past experience helps.  I have been driving up Fancy Gap since 1965.  If you know the history of the area that date was well before Interstate 77 made its way up the mountain.  I have lived on mountains a good portion of my life so I also have a good idea how fast fog can steal your vision.

By the time you get more than five decades on you, you are well past that stage of your life when you think that you are invincible.  I have taken some pretty amazing calculated risks in my life, like flying to the barrens of Newfoundland in October, 1973, for some camping with my new wife. You can read the full story of that in my A Taste for the Wild, Canada's Maritimes. 

We survived that trip to Newfoundland because in spite of appearances, I knew what I was doing.  Unfortunately, driving down Fancy Gap in the fog at 75-80 MPH shows that you do not know what are doing. It is certainly not a calculated risk.  It is more likely a death wish.

I am not a big believer in government regulating every part of my life, but I am a fan of reasonable speed limits.  The problem is that most speed limits aren't enforced reasonably.  I cannot even count the number of times that I have been along the stretch of I77 where this recent accident happened, but I have never seen a speeder pulled off even at the bottom of the mountain.  There are plenty of speeders pulled off near milepost 10 close to Hillsville but after that you never see a speeder caught until well into North Carolina.

It is not just Virginia that practices random speeder control.  Here along the Crystal Coast, we get to risk our lives on the Cedar Point racetrack.  Though the posted speed limit is 45 MPH, it is not unusual for people to drive at 60-70 MPH while weaving from lane to lane to get around people driving only 50 MPH.  I am surprised we have not seen more accidents, but I suspect it is only a matter of time.

Since speed limits, random policing, and flashing warning lights cannot control human behavior maybe a little logic will work.  I picked up an amazing bit of knowledge in a manager's traffic safety training course at Apple.  Learning that high speed over a short distance matters little in overall trip time actually might even be the only piece of useful knowledge that I ever got in an Apple manager training course.

Let us assume you are on a trip that is going to take five hours of driving time. In that five hours of driving is the six miles of Fancy Gap.  If you drive down Fancy Gap at 60 miles per hour, it will take six minutes.  If you choose to drive down at 80 miles per hour, it will take only four and one half minutes.  You wil save a grand total of one and one half minutes by choosing the higher speed.  That is one half of one percent of your total travel time. Is loosing your life and killing other people worth shaving one half a percent or one and one half minutes off your total travel time.

On a wet road it takes almost two and one half football fields for a vehicle to stop if it is traveling at 80 MPH. There is no way you can see that far in fog.

There is no way around it, driving at 80 MPH in the dense fog on Fancy Gap is plain stupid.  I think a little truth in advertising might be in order.  Perhaps a sign with "Idiots Driving At 80 MPH In The Fog Caused An Accident That Killed Three People on April 1, 2013.  Ninety-five Cars Were Involved."

 

Watching from the back deck, Memorial Day, May 31, 2010

It only took me a few days to realize that my goal of writing about the news everyday is just too much for a hobby.  My new goal is to do a couple of posts a week.  We will see how that goes.

With today being Memorial Day, I am actually at my desk instead of out on the water.  We were out yesterday morning and from our quiet anchorage counted over sixty boats in area where we might normally see half a dozen in three hours.  I suspect it will be even worse today.  

I just watched a strange boat leave inlet.  I did not think the guy was going to get the boat out of here, there was a lot of turmoil in the water, but the good news is that we might not need to dredge in the fall.

1. Though I only have details that I have seen on Facebook, my thoughts go out to the family of the surfer who died yesterday while saving four other people from a rip current on Emerald Isle.  While the ocean might look calm, it is no swimming pool. When I went for a beach walk late in the day yesterday, the currents looked pretty strong.
2. The Gulf oil spill is still on my list.  As I see our waters and beaches crowded with tourists, one can only think how different it must be on the Gulf beaches. This Washington Post article, Holiday weekend is ominous sign of hard times to come for Louisiana beach town, starts to touch on the pain and devastation that will come to the region.  On top of that, oysters are going to be hard to come by this summer.
3. The weather never ceases to amaze me.  Yesterday Edmonton was reporting some wet snow, and Toronto issued a heat warning as temperatures hit 88F.  In fact large parts of Canada have had a much colder May than normal.  Here on the North Carolina coast, we are being told to gear up for a busier than usual hurricane season.  We are warm, and the water is warming early, but we are also very dry and in need of rain.
4. I saw a report which talked about the benefits of mandatory voting.  The most surprising thing in the report was that Australia already has mandatory voting.  I think voting works a lot better than just shouting down people with different ideas that yours.
5. Finally I have to share some thoughts on Memorial Day.  As I negotiated the minefield of the local Food Lion Grocery Store on Emerald Isle yesterday evening, I had to wonder if any of the people in such a rush are enjoying much of anything.  It used to be that people (myself included) went on vacation and eventually decompressed enough to enjoy themselves.  I am not sure that is happening any more.  People do not have time for two weeks of vacation.  They take a few days and never manage to unwind.  It makes for crazy parking lots and some dangerous waterways. I hate to see people wound up like a spring all the time.  It certainly causes problems.

Watching from the back deck, May 26, 2010

I used to write almost daily posts with commentary on the news. I stopped when changes in our lives required more time be channeled to other activities. 

Recently it occurred to me that every day I go through a commentary on the news with close friends. An edited version of that might be a nice starting point for a regular blog post.

It ends up being an indirect look at the news and often focuses on details which rarely make it to the front page.

I spend a lot of time on our back decks whether I am in Roanoke or on the coast of North Carolina,  The one in Roanoke overlooks the town of Roanoke while our Carteret County home has a view of the White Oak River.

Both places tend to prepare my mind for a critical look at the days' event.  I don't have an agenda other than to understand what is going on around me. So here is my first shot at commenting on the top five things that interest me each day.

1. The number one thing on my mind and that of many Americans is the Gulf Oil Spill.  A while back I heard the assertion that the well was not equipped with a remote control shut off valve.  This morning I decided to search again for an article that could shed some light on the situation.  I found one in the WSJ article, Leaking Oil Well Lacked Safeguard Device.  It turns out that in 2003 lobbyists convinced the regulatory folks that they did not need this switch.  We will never know whether the switch would stopped the oil, but it is interesting to note that some companies use the switch even without being required.  It is not unusual that government regulators are something like foxes guarding the hen house.
2. Next I caught a very interesting article by Dana Milbank in the Washington Post.  The article, Through oil-fouled water, big government looks better and better, was published May 4th, but I did not see it until doing some research on the oil blowout.  It is amusing that all the little government conservatives now want to the federal government to step up and rescue them.  You cannot have it both ways, you cannot have a small government which all of sudden becomes big when you need it.  I get the biggest kick out of the suggestion that the military fix the problem.  When I did a search for deep sea submersibles, all the results coming up were very old.  I wonder if research for that was cut in the last decade.
3. And this is my last thought on the oil spill.  I saw some information suggesting that Sarah Palin thinks Obama is in the back pocket of the oil industry because of campaign donations.  That one brought a good chuckle to me.  It just happened that my Happy Valley friend, Russ, sent me a link to a Ruth Marcus article, Sarah Palin's fact-free commentary on Paul and BP.  It turns out the Palin-McCain campaign got $2.4M compared to Obama's $900K.  I guess we know now who got the most money from big oil.  Then there is Haliburton which I wish would just go away.
4. I came across an interesting Canadian article, STOP THE UNILINGUAPHOBIA!.  This brings back memories of a fight I had with the minister of education in the province of New Brunswick when we were farming in late seventies and early eighties.  It was clear even then that if you wanted a really good government job in Canada, you needed to be bi-lingual even if you never ran into someone who spoke your second language.  When they announced that the local school where our daughter attended was going to drop some of the French language training,  we organized the community and started fighting the government's (school board's) decision. We ended up debating the issues in letters to the editor in the local paper.  Eventually the minister of education said we should not expect a good education if we lived in the country instead of the city.  That was the end of his career as minister of education.  I know that the school board with help from the provincial government agreed to do some modernization at the local school to help with the language training.  Whether they followed through or not is another question.  I joined Apple Computer not longer after, and we moved away.
5. If you judge from the commercials on television, Apple is serious about the iPad becoming the next thing we cannot live without.  Having worked at Apple for nearly twenty years, I am always a little leery when Steve decides that I need something.  It usually means it is incompatible with what I had before, and I have to buy all new stuff and applications.  While it might look good on the surface, there are always trade-offs when you buy Apple equipment, just ask the iPhone users who are suffering with AT&T service.  Anyway, I was pleased to see this iPad alternative, the Pandigital Novel, pop up yesterday.  It is smaller and less expensive than the iPad and comes with software that gives it easy access to Barnes & Noble's large number of ebooks.  It is built on the Android operating system, comes with a mini-USB port, and is full color.  The price point of $199 is very attractive.  If I am going to buy a gadget that I don't need, getting a cheaper ones saves some money.  I have some more thoughts on the iPad in this article, Some iPad Feedback.

That is it for today from the Crystal Coast where the driveway is still wet and the clouds are still hanging with us, but tomorrow looks great. I am ready for another beach walk and some serious fishing.

If time permits, I will try another run at another post like tomorrow. Fishing could get me to skip a day. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Fortunately American Idol is about to end for the year so I will not have to demonstrate my lack of musical analysis.  I will say that last night I voted three times for Crystal Bowersock. That covers my wife and I and one for good measure.  I think Crystal's performance last night was deserving of a win.

Honest I didn't know they were agents in training

I saw the story,  Dragonfly or Insect Spy? Scientists at Work on Robobugs, in today's Washington Post.

It didn't worry me a lot since I figure the Dragonflies that I know are not going to be easily convinced to take part in anything very far away from the marshes even with genetic engineering.

However, when I happened on the Santa Fe New Mexican version of the story, they had a side bar showing how a tomato hornworm moth could be used as a spy.  Now those evil worms will do anything.

First off, I didn't know they turned into very ugly, giant moths since I kill them before they have a chance to turn into anything but an addition to Davy Jones' locker.

My war with the hornworms is well documented, I even did a post about making them walk the plank.

After all they were attacking my tomato plants. I caught them in the act of destroying foliage and even eating tomatoes right alongside the Fiddler crabs.

It was war.  I would wait for the sun to go down and get them as they got active.  I even had a few pre-dawn raids to capture their young.

Had I not taken out a hundred of these monsters, my tomato crop would have been non-existent.

After all standing between a Southerner and his tomato sandwiches is considered an act of war.

Still I had to come up with a creative way to get rid of them since using poison that close to the water that goes into the White Oak River was out of the question.

I came up with a simple solution.  I just clipped off the tomato stem they were clinging to and heaved it off the dock into the waters of Raymond's Gut.

That way they at least got to take their last meal with them.

I really did not mean to harm our national security.  I had no idea the hornworms were working for Homeland Security.

I would be glad to leave them alone if they would leave my tomato plants alone.

You would think the government could at least provide their agents with some food so my tomatoes would be safe.

You don't suppose those electronic bugs can survive in a Jumping Mullet?  They  have been acting a little suspicious this summer. It could be the steady diet of genetically altered hornworm spies.

The realization rushing towards us

For a long time I have avoided posts with any political commentary. 

Writing a blog about politics just wasn't what I wanted to spend my time doing.

I actually became very disillusioned with politicians in my job as director of federal sales back in 2002-2004.

It really shook my core beliefs when the representative who was also the head of the committee for government reform started sending me invitations for $1,500 breakfast meetings and even more expensive evening meals. 

Paying for access to an elected politician was and is repugnant to me.  I guess I was just blissfully unaware of how access and money had become interwoven with life inside the beltway.

I finally came to the conclusion that not just one party was to blame, but it was our political system.

While the system is a problem, there are groups who are upholding their roles in ways that often add to the finest if sometimes misguided traditions of America.

I have tremendous respect for our soldiers.  We see them all the time when we are on the coast where our new home is within earshot of their mortar ranges.

They are so young, it breaks my heart to know that there are being put in positions which are so dangerous and which unfortunately can do little to alter the inevitable outcome of this unfortunate and completely unnecessary war.

I still read all the editorials from the national and local papers. I am often moved by them, but I am a realist.  Few people read the papers today.

Many don't care about the facts and are happy with Fox news sound bites.

I am often surprised at how outspoken the Jacksonville, NC paper is on the topic of the war.  There is no question, that the paper supports the soldiers, since Jacksonville is the home of the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune.  There are, however, plenty of questions about the war and its conduct.

On a regular basis we see notices of Marines from the area who have been killed.  As a friend of mine noted recently, it is with frightening regularity that we all see stories of five or six or more soldiers killed.

Yesterday I came across an article in the Washington Post, "I Lost My Son to a War I Oppose. We Were Both Doing Our Duty."  It brought home to me the realization that our system of government is in far more trouble than most people understand.

It is mostly because politicians don't care about solutions to the real problems we face.  They care about money and being elected.  Everything else is secondary. 

The highest goal they have is the providing the appearance of some action. Whether or not it is a desirable action to solve a real problem is irrelevant as long as it meets the first two goals of helping them be elected and/or bringing in more money.

Even with 72% of Americans saying the war is being mishandled, and 61% saying we should never gone into Iraq little has changed.

We elect our representatives to make decisions for us, so they don't necessarily have to jump to every poll, but these numbers aren't new and they are reflective of the recent election.

The author of the Post article, Andrew J. Bacevich, had this to say.

Not for a second did I expect my own efforts to make a difference... I genuinely believed that if the people spoke, our leaders in Washington would listen and respond.

This, I can now see, was an illusion.

The people have spoken, and nothing of substance has changed. The November 2006 midterm elections signified an unambiguous repudiation of the policies that landed us in our present predicament. But half a year later, the war continues, with no end in sight. Indeed, by sending more troops to Iraq (and by extending the tours of those, like my son, who were already there), Bush has signaled his complete disregard for what was once quaintly referred to as "the will of the people."

To be fair, responsibility for the war's continuation now rests no less with the Democrats who control Congress than with the president and his party.

I have no solution to our problem of a government that can authorize an unnecessary war, not hold those accountable that did it, and refuse to get us on a path to get out of what has clearly become a civil war and a training ground for terrorists. 

On top of that it has cost the US much of the goodwill that had been built up over the years and billions of dollars that could have solved real problems.

I am even more worried about there being a party out there where 54% of the members still approve of the war.  Of course their waning influence can be seen in the disappearing impact their opinions have on national polls. 

The fact is that they are well on the way to being sentenced to the wilderness for the foreseeable future.

Still we have seen little indication that the alternative is any better.  Are our politicians so out of touch with the reality of the world that they don't understand what is happening? 

Like the waves in the picture I included with the post, the answer is rushing towards us.  The politicians are not in or of our world.  They have healthcare, their sons and daughters rarely go to war, and their future employment or retirement is secured by the world of lobbyists and big money.

With that realization that our world is different, a government of the people, for the people, and by the people is in fundamental danger if not already gone.

As this scary article, "Average salaries lower than past generation's," starts to hit home with the continued daily deaths in Iraq, just maybe things will get to the point that we the people will wake up and force change.

That's my political commentary for the year. I am ready for alternative to stand up.  I will jump on the boat, but it is not my role to use this blog as a regular podium for political change.

I am going back to writing reviews on Chinese restaurants, occasionally rattling Apple's gilded cage, worrying about my tomatoes, mowing my yard, wondering how warm the surf is, and whether the fish are biting.

I will also be selling a little real estate if people ever figure out the secret of the beaches of the Crystal Coast.

Long live the Pirate Republic of Carteret.  That's the best that I can do on this Memorial Day besides hang out the flag and pray for us all.