What is Mountaineering?

I have lost and searched for this so many times I'm sick of it! Wanted to post this in one place so I at least can find it again! My favorite narration on what climbing is. Also, at the bottom I've posted my favorite poem about the joy that comes from adventure! Enjoy!


He is your neighbor. She is the smiling woman behind the receptionist's desk at your dentist office. He's the man who built your house. Who are these people? 

On weekends they vanish down the highway, watching the cluttered cities grow small in rearview mirrors. Phone calls are answered by machines and voice mail. Several times a year, they disappear for weeks at a time. 

What are they doing? 

Midweek finds them sorting through an amazing collection of gadgets, checking guide books, calculating mileage, travel time, and trail head elevations. By Friday afternoon, (sometimes Thursday when they can sneak an extra day off from work) they are headed out of town. If someone is waving goodbye, the parting remark is usually "See you later -- Got a mountain to climb." 

What is mountain climbing? 

To people who are peripheral to the sport, it is many things -- It is the intense eyes of the man with the ice-encrusted beard and lethal-looking ice axes in his hands; it is reckless risk-taking; bold adventure; suffering; it is an industry that shouts in bright colors from outdoor magazines that if you buy THIS product or eat THIS energy bar you will be in the center, looking out at the world through those intense eyes, that you will know what it all means to go to the remote and desperate heights of the earth where humans were not meant to survive. 

But those that are packing their gear on Wednesday nights are not packing the latest ice axes on the market. They are not wearing the brightest, newest high altitude nylon wind suits. Their waterproof or Goretex may have many patches. Their packs are battered, their boots worn and scuffed. Most have been quietly pursuing their passion for high places for many years, since long before media attention, superb high-tech gear, and the need for adventure in an increasingly pre-packaged society brought mountain climbing into the mainstream. 

Real climbers have day jobs. 

To them the activity is all-absorbing; a passion, a way of life from which they look at the world. 

Their method is simple: they seek the remote, the unattainable. They are enchanted with the improbable. 

To just set down on a summit via helicopter or 4wd SUV misses the point. Theirs is the journey, and the journey owns them. 

What calls them? A land as alien as the surface of the moon. Look close. Closer still... There! do you see it? In the crevice, amidst a pull of gravity as lethal as a gunshot, grows a flower. Across the jumbled, creaking freight-train blocks of a tumultuous glacier's icefall, bubbles a streamlet as pure as the first day of the world. Their boot prints, sometimes the first these places have seen since the dawn of time, vanish like the whisper of a thought forgotten, in those far places where time is measured only by the pulse of the seasons, the shifting of the constellations through the millenia. 

They range from sandwich-in-a-paper-bag-toting peak baggers to hard-core wall rats festooned with ironmongery, to parka-shrouded cloudwalkers of the 8,000-meter peaks. They are the grandmothers, students, school teachers, doctors and engineers, who have discovered a reality outside of the clocks, ceilings, schedules and planning of this world. 

Summit day usually begins some time on the late night side of morning, shouldering a battered pack, crunching crampons across snow or balancing catfooted across teetering granite blocks by headlamp in the darkness. For others it begins in a sleeping bag cocoon suspended above a gulf of emptiness on a nylon-and-aluminum-framed portaledge, lighting a tiny bedside hanging stove for coffee, dangling above two thousand feet of air amid an incredible tangle of ropes, gear, and supplies, before the first light of day begins to rinse the sky of stars. The same sunrise finds them all. 

They seek those moments when time stands still. 

The catalysts are as varied as the individuals who pursue this path: a meteor shower; a night sky so star-filled that it snatches your breath; another rise of the sun over distant mountains vast and untouchable; dodging a rock careening crazily down a gully; a desperate icy struggle through whiteout and ground blizzard down to the safety of camp after an unsuccessful summit attempt; standing atop a mountain with a friend, the whole world at your feet, a blinding sun blazing out of a flawless sky, taking the time to watch that sun dip below the horizon even though camp is still many miles and many thousands of feet distant; Stumbling over boulders and through brush in the darkness; watching the starlight and the storm wrest for posession of the night sky, seated on a narrow ledge beside your rope-mate with only the clothes on your back for shelter, shivering the night away, knowing that, sometime in a distant place you cannot now touch, the world will once again grow bright, the sun will rise, and you will look out on the infant day with new eyes. 

The twinkling lights of the city grow closer as your car speeds away from the mountain. Soon, you will drop off your ropemate, the two of you will shake hands or hug, and the trip will be over. But not the journey. 

Some at work may notice it, think the intense look a scar from desperate struggles in the sky. But your partner knows. It is the look of someone looking inward, remembering, savoring. And when you get home from work that first evening back on the flatlands, you will not so much unpack, as re-arrange, evaluate, inspect, and start re-packing your gear for the next trip, the next exploration of a region as vast and unknown as the star-filled sky. 


Brutus of Wyde, Old Climbers' Home 
September 15, 2000

https://vimeo.com/59873102

A Different Christmas

Dear friends and family,

As some of you may already know, I recently got back from a 2 ½ month stay in a small Ghanaian village called Abomosu. What a trip! I ate fufu, hiked to beautiful waterfalls, and most importantly, worked hard to help the people in the community.

For those of you know that don’t know much about what I was doing there I was working with a microfinance program. Our goal was to educate willing people on basic business principles and then give small business loans to individuals that had good business ideas. Over time, those individuals will pay back their loans with interest, we will extend new loans and the amount of money we have to lend out (and consequently the number of people we can help) will increase as time goes on.

One of the most common questions many of you have asked me about my stay in Ghana is “what is it like over there?” You know it is different but you’re not quite sure how. It has always been kind of hard for me to answer that question. In my two trips that I’ve taken to Ghana I’ve spent a total of 5 ½ months there. If you’d asked me during my first few weeks in the country what was different I would have mentioned the food, the lack of regular electricity, air conditioning, potable water, etc. But as you live there and get used to those things you kind of start to forget about them (well, mostly…). Obviously I would have mentioned the extreme poverty as well. While most people in Ghana do manage to get enough to eat every day thanks to their incredibly productive farms, the average income for a poor farmer is still less than $100 a year. Most of them live in mud huts and most of them walk to get water from the village well.

The longer I stayed there one subtle difference that I hadn’t noticed at first seemed to stand out more than all of the others. Let me tell you a story to try and illustrate it:

When I was in high school, high school was definitely the lowest priority on my list. I went to school but most of my time was spent focusing on rock climbing, playing soccer, etc. Still, miraculously, I managed to get a pretty decent education. At the insistence of my parents and the high school faculty I signed up to take the dreaded ACT college placement test. Did I study? Of course not. The first time I took it I got a 23. The second time I got a 25 (the max score is 36. I was the first one in my family to get below a 30). As you know, 25 is not an especially good score. My 3.2 GPA I graduated high school with was not great either.

The really amazing thing was that as little as I cared about education in high school I was still accepted into two great colleges. When I got there my priorities changed I ended up graduating Cum Laude with a 3.81 GPA. Upon graduation I had several different great job offers making more money than I could possibly know what to do with (well, besides blowing it all on really nice mountain biking gear…).

Now let me tell you a story about David. When I got to Ghana the second time I was asked to teach the 16-18 year old young men at the church I was attending. David was one of these young men. He is one of the smartest people I have ever met. He speaks his local language (Twi) and English beautifully. His favorite thing to do by far is to learn. He would rather study than play soccer or anything else he could be doing. David is 16 years old and recently took his examination to get accepted to high school. The exam is out of 50 points. A good score on the exam is below 30. A great score is below 20. David got a 13. With such an amazing score he was accepted to good high schools all over Ghana.

(David is the one in the light blue shirt)
The problem was David’s family didn’t have the money to send him to any of the high schools. When I met David he was preparing to give up his dreams of becoming a journalist and become a coconut farmer with his dad instead.

The contrast between David’s story and mine is so stark it’s incredible. I cared nothing about high school and walked away with a wonderful college education paid for largely by scholarships. David’s greatest ambition in life is to go to school and work hard studying but instead he was on a path to spend his whole life working in the jungle tending coconut trees and selling their fruit on the street.

That for me is the biggest difference between America and Ghana: the opportunities available in each place. We really are opportunity rich and they are opportunity impoverished.

(Desmond)

In October some friends and I did something very small to try and alter at least a bit of this dichotomy. We each paid $250 to get David and one of his friends named Desmond into high school. They are currently attending Kwabeng Senior High School and doing great.

Now, is this the very best way to fight poverty in Ghana? In the world? That’s an open discussion that I would love have with any of you. All I know is that for two really bright kids a comparatively small amount of money from my pocket made a really big difference in their lives.

Anyway, I want to invite all of you to make a similar difference in some other great kids’ lives. In addition to David and Desmond there are ten other great guys I’ve identified in the village I was living in that could really benefit from your help this Christmas. Rather than getting into the details of how your donations could take place let me just put my contact information  here and you go ahead and get in touch with me if you’re interested: email me at [email protected] or call me at 435-705-8297.

Thanks guys,

Supe Lillywhite

Why Voting in the National Election Doesn’t Make You a Patriot

And a response to the statement, “if you don’t vote you have no right to complain.” 

As election day approaches Alexis De Tocqueville’s perspicacious observation of America is once again being proved true; said he, "Long before the appointed day arrives, the election becomes the greatest, and one might say the only, affair occupying men's minds. ... The President, for his part, is absorbed in the task of defending himself before the majority. ... As the election draws near, intrigues grow more active and agitation is more lively and widespread. The citizens divide up (and the) whole nation gets into a feverish state."

With the advent of Facebook and other social media this is more true than ever. People that generally pay no attention to politics whatsoever now find time to post on their walls regarding the “importance of the election” and to forcefully voice their opinions on how they think it should turn out. One of my friends wisely posted on his wall, “Funny how everyone is sooo into politics for a few months during an election, just like they are sooo into swimming for a few months during an Olympic year. You passion whores!”

Besides just Facebook, political conversation and passion is at an increased pitch in every part of our lives. I recently became acquainted with seven new Americans through my work that I spend a substantial amount of time with each day (all quality people that I am very blessed to work with). As quickly as our second or third day together the question had already been raised, “So, who is everyone voting for?”

It was at this point that I got into trouble. When it was my turn to respond I dropped the equivalent of a conversational bomb shell by simply saying that I wasn’t voting this time around. The chorus of scandalized disapproval was as fervent as it was united. In the flood of well-meaning remonstrations that followed this commonly heard saying was often repeated: “Well, just remember, if you don’t vote you have no right to complain!”
That saying, and the underlying assumptions that go along with it provide the genesis of my ramblings today. 

For some reason in our society today it has become a commonly accepted belief that the simple act of voting makes you a patriotic citizen of the United States, and that failing to vote makes you an ignoramus, a shirker and certainly deprives you of the liberty of political free speech. Personally, I feel quite differently about the matter. In my opinion, the simple fact that you vote does not make you a patriot (and in fact I feel that when many people vote they are acting unpatriotically) and that not voting in many instances is a patriotic act in its own right. Please allow me to explain this belief and a few of my reasons for choosing not to vote this year. 

First of all, maybe let me provide a bit of context based on my own failed voting history. Eight years ago as a brand new voter I went to the polls and cast my vote in favor of George Bush. I wasn’t terribly informed but I believed that a vote for Bush meant fighting terror, making the world a safer place, etc., etc. And, I was a republican so I was supposed to vote republican, right? Since that time I’ve matured enough to realize that my vote condoned the continuation of the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars which have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Middle Easterners and thousands of US soldiers. And is the world a safer, better place because of those wars? Now, I am not saying that a John Kerry presidency would have been any better but I am saying that I was entirely ignorant of the potential consequences of my decision when as an eighteen year old I cast my first vote strictly based on party lines and party talking points.

Story number two. Four years ago I considered myself much wiser and more informed. After all, I had reached the ripe old age of twenty-two! I remember how frustrated I was that neither candidate for the presidency that year really stood for what I believed in. Making my choice was much harder. But, in the end, I subscribed to a popular method for making my decision: I voted for the man that I felt like was “the lesser of two evils.”

It is my opinion that a substantial number of voters each year vote following using the two methods I described in my stories to guide their decisions. Either they vote on party lines because obviously the democrats/republicans (pick your party here!) are the good guys, or they vote for the candidate they feel is the lesser of two evils. I seriously wonder how many people actually think the man running for office in their particular party is the best man for the job and clearly intends to work for the things that are most important to them? Again, I think a lot of people either don’t think about it at all or just figure that the person they’re voting for “is at least better than the other guy!” I’m sorry, but if this is the way our leaders are chosen in America it just doesn’t instill a lot of confidence in me.

Voting primarily based on party lines with no real enthusiasm for or knowledge about the man you are voting for does not seem like an exercise in patriotism to me. Rather, it seems like robotic submission or blind stupidity. Voting for the lesser of two evils, while more understandable than the previous option, seems like trying to get away with the most limited participation possible in a system you have no faith in. But, to the people that really believe that Barack Obama or Mitt Romney is absolutely the best man for the job and represents your views 100%, kudos! Your vote is truly an act of faithful patriotism. I just don’t feel even close to that way about either candidate.

I think what bothers me most about voting in America today is what takes place after election day. Far too often it seems like people go into an election with their minds too firmly made up about what they will do once the election is over. If their guy wins they are fully determined to spend the next four years supporting him “no matter what!” They will defend him against every attack and criticism no matter how stupid or blatantly partisan his policies are. On the other hand, if their guy doesn’t win they are equally determined to spend the next four years tearing down his opponent “no matter what!” It doesn’t matter how much good the man may do for the country, he will always be scorned because he was not their choice. The hypocrisy would almost be funny if it weren’t so sad. If their guy is in office and something goes wrong in the country or in their life they say, “Thank goodness we have our guy is in office to take of such a big problem!” And, “At least so-and-so isn’t in office, think how much worse it would have been then!” If their guy isn’t in office they burst out, “If our guy was in none of this ever would have happened! Clearly this is evidence of the other guy’s incompetence and not simply one of those things that just happens in life!”

To tell you the truth, this charade is too exhausting for me to participate in. Remembering who to blame, who zealously to defend against all sane reasoning, who to demonize and who to idolize is too much for me. I see people work themselves into a frenzy every four years and shout with rapturous delight “if our guy is elected it’s going to revolutionize the country! Jobs will abound, taxes will be reduced and free iPhones will fall from the sky in cushioned velvet boxes!” They shout it, they text it and they tweet it. Somehow, two years after the elections are over not much has really changed.

Which is why I have arrived at my own formula for deciding if I’ll vote and who I’ll vote for. Here it is for your consideration:

If there is someone that I really believe represents what I believe and would work to shape the country into the type of place I want to live in, and if I really believe that person has a chance of being elected, I’ll vote for them and work hard to see that they are elected. But, regardless of whether there is someone I want to vote for or not, I am going to work on my own to make America a better place. I guess that is maybe what people don’t get. I don’t want to complain about the government. I think that complaining in general is a waste of time that drains the body and soul of precious energy that could be used to better yourself and the world around you. Just think about it. Think of what the brilliant minds of Rush Limbaugh, Alan Combs, etc. could have accomplished in life if they hadn’t chosen to spend their lives complaining about politics on the radio. Have they really contributed anything of value to this world?

Maybe I am just too lazy to spend any time getting hyped up about politics and complaining about it afterwards. I don’t know. I think my real problem is that I am too arrogant. I firmly believe that whichever party is in power I, and Americans like me will be able to solve America’s most pressing problems outside of the political arena. At times this may be easier or harder for us to do depending on who is in power but I am still going to make America and the world a better place regardless. The simple fact is, my destiny and the destiny of America are in my hands, God’s hands, the hands of Americans like me that will keep working hard no matter what. So, forgive me if I don’t want to waste time voting for someone I don’t believe in, complaining about someone because I didn’t vote for them, and want to use my time taking action beyond the log-jammed realm of Washington to make America a better place instead.

Supe Lillywhite

Notes:

I wonder how many of the people that are so patriotic around national elections actually vote in their local elections. The reality is that since the elimination of the draft, the choices of your local leaders will affect your lives much more than the actions of national leaders will.

The profound skepticism in national government I have voiced here does not mean I believe there is no hope for effective national government. Please read this previous post for my recommendations on reforming the national government if you’re interested. http://supelillywhite.blogspot.com/2011/07/elected-office.html

Today’s Climate Change Scientists, Tomorrow’s “I Told You So” Prophets.

The mobilization of the American people to solve a national crisis during World War II was an unprecedented and phenomenal occurrence. Never before or since have the American people sacrificed so many daily comforts in order to overcome a national threat. The story is moving and is justifiably looked to for inspiration for solving today’s problems. Accordingly, it is fair to ask, what was it that caused Americans to act together with such unanimity and purpose? What would it take to get them to act in such a manner again? And, could those efforts be duplicated and spread on an international scale?

Not surprisingly, it was no small impetus that pushed individual Americans to sacrifice for the greater good of the nation. For years World War II was developing in Europe and Eastern Asia and for years it was being fought in those places without Americans making any sort of sacrifice. Why not? Because as desperate and real as WWII was abroad, it was not yet desperate and real in the US.

That all changed with Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor, far more than any attack on Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, or any of the Pacific Islands brought home the reality that Americans could be harmed by the Japanese and Germans. American soldiers and citizens actually died during the attack! Clearly it was a sign of what was yet to come if America remained indifferent. Pushed by the dramatic clarification Pearl Harbor brought, change came to America. As US soldiers marched off to war, parents, grandparents and younger siblings faced the undeniable reality for the first time that their loved ones might die, and that if their beloved soldiers failed, they themselves might be at risk. Suddenly sacrifice became very desirable. Indeed, it ceased to be a sacrifice at all and rather became many daily acts of self-preservation from a very real, “clear and present danger.”

Just as WWII is instructive in teaching us what it took to get people to sacrifice for the greater good, it is also instructive in teaching us about what it would take to get people to do so again. The obvious answer is that it would take another impetus as immediate, as desperate and as seemingly real as the attack on Pearl Harbor. After all, Hitler’s rise and the rise of Japanese aggression were not done in a corner. They were big news for years and years. Why didn’t Americans act on them earlier, before they got so far out of hand? The reasons are numerous and varied: they include the hope that appeasement would work, that somebody else would deal with it and the imagination that the problem could never reach them (protected as they were by two vast oceans). All of these reasons, and others, turned out to be wrong, but the lesson we learn about human behavior is that up until the moment some danger becomes undeniably real and threatens the end of our expected form of life as we know it right now, people will continue to ignore it.

We learn yet another lesson from World War II. As destructive and widespread as its effects were, not every nation in the world chose to involve itself. Although Canada and South Africa did send soldiers to the fray even though they were not directly involved, they were the exception rather than the rule. Many other countries, unless they were directly threatened by one power or another, chose not to get involved. And, can we really blame them? Who would want to feed their youth to the machine guns and poison gas if they didn’t have to? And, could you really expect the Guatemalan government to boat soldiers over to Europe when its entire population lived below the poverty line?

What does all of this have to with climate change in the world today? A lot. Climate scientists often fail to remember that although their models are great at capturing changes that have happened in the world’s climate over the past 200 years, and might be scarily prescient at predicting what will happen to the world’s climate in the future, those models don’t assess or predict the human response. That is the realm of historians and sociologists, and our case study of World War II is a perfect example of what it will take for humanity to stir itself to action in regards to climate change. Winston Churchill correctly predicted the danger Hitler posed to the world but nobody listened until German tanks rolled into Poland. It will be the same with climate scientists: their predictions will come true, but the citizens of the world will not take action on them till those predictions are undeniably proven in their individual minds and their forms of life as they know it are threatened with a serious risk of extinction.

In this arena, climate scientists are faced with three challenges common to prophets of destruction. First, many people view climate change as a hoax and see climate scientists as false prophets. Those scientists can welcome themselves into the company of Isaiah and Jeremiah, if that’s any consolation. Second, many people believe that while climate change may be taking place, it won’t be that bad. To paraphrase one religion’s book of scripture, they think, “Eat, drink, and be merry … and if it so be that we are guilty, [climate change] will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of [some new climate]” (2 Nephi 28: 8). Finally, there are those that believe that although climate change is indeed happening, its affects will be mitigated by technological developments that combat the effects of climate change without targeting its causes. After all, Holland has been pumping water out of its lowlands for years. All we need is more pumps…

Predictably, climate scientists are enraged by such thinking. They rightly point out that climate change is happening, that its effects will be very bad and that no technological developments can mitigate its effects if the causes aren’t targeted. They rightly prophesy the widespread destruction threatening the globe if no action is taken to reduce the continued production of greenhouse gasses.

What is truly aggravating, however, is that climate scientists continue to think that their self-righteous campaign of crying, “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!” will actually work. While Chicken Little is actually right this time, and the sky will fall if nothing is done about climate change, the people they’re yelling it to won’t believe them until it is too late. Just as Americans and every one else didn’t engage in WWII until there was no possibility of denying the danger that was at their doorsteps, the world’s population won’t act on reversing the effects of climate change until it is too late to turn back the natural processes we’ve started. To paraphrase scripture again for our purposes, “as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of [the effects of climate change be.] For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the [the effects of climate change be] (Matthew 24: 37-39).

As gloomy as this picture is, it sadly represents the truth. What is to be done then? Should climate scientists, like Jeremiah, Ecclesiastes and John the Revelator sadly predict and then detail the destruction of their people? And maybe buy some real estate above 5,000 feet? If all they want to do is play the part of the “I told you so” prophets, the answer is yes.

On the other hand, if they really would like to save the world, there is a way. It would require them to abandon the role of martyrs and to engage in a lot of hard work, but it is possible and scientists can lead the way. And, they can also benefit more than they can possibly imagine if they choose to adopt this strategy rather than the former.

The scientists’ salvation of the world would have to take place in three steps.

Step one: scientists have to unite. Yes, as we’ve heard a billion times before, all credible scientists believe in climate change, but as of yet they still haven’t united behind one plan to fight against it. Some say we ought to do one thing and some say another. While many of their debates on what the best course of action is are credible they fail to recognize that while they’re debating the world is just getting warmer. It makes one wonder if they’ve forgotten the saying, “the worst action is inaction.” Whatever scientists may disagree on, they have to agree to act together and to start acting together soon!

Step two: scientists have to abandon their “convince the world campaign.” The way scientists are going about trying to tell people that the world is coming to an end right now is a marketer’s worst nightmare. One day one scientist is talking on this talk show, the next another is testifying before congress, and the next day a professor is going off on a tangent in his university course. There is absolutely no consistency! There is absolutely no clearly defined target audience! There is absolutely no clearly defined message trying to be delivered to a clearly defined target audience! And, perhaps worst of all, the scientists talk in such technical terms that are so incomprehensible to the average person they’re trying to convince that people either can’t understand it or they’re unwilling to try. As one of my marketing professors would say, the climate scientists have forgotten that you have to convince people with kitchen logic (i.e. something an average housewife could understand) and not with technical terminology.

If scientists, with their limited manpower and resources really want to save the world from the effects of climate change, they’ll have to identify a target audience they think are the most important people in the world that they need to convince, they’ll have to deliver a clearly defined and consistent message to that target audience, and they’ll have to make sure that message is delivered in understandable, convincing terminology.

Step three: scientists have to come up with and execute a plan that makes reversing the effects of climate change “easy and simple.” A full discussion of what “easy and simple” means can be found in a previous article of mine entitled Easy and Normal: What Food, Literacy, Transportation and Social Networking have to do with Healthcare in America (available at http://supelillywhite.blogspot.com/2011/09/easy-and-normal-what-food-literacy.html ). For now, however, a simple example will have to suffice.

50 years ago, the idea that someday every American could have access to a computer that would allow them to type and edit documents, send electronic mail, shop without moving from their homes and do the host of other things our computers do now days would have been unbelievable. Now, it is such a part of our reality that the idea of such things not being available is laughable! What happened to make the change? Well, first I’ll tell you what didn’t happen. Computer specialists did not go out and tell everybody that we all needed to come together to build computers, they did not try to convince congress that building computers was the most pressing task they could possibly involve themselves in, and they did not harass and belittle anybody that thought it was worthwhile to concentrate on things other than computers. Instead, they took the computers of yesteryear from enormous, building-filling machines that were little more than glorified calculators, and progressively worked on them until they fit in a small building, in a house, in a room and finally in the palm of our hands. Those specialists took something that seemed impossible to attain and attained it in less than 50 years! And, best of all, they made using computers, something that before only the specialists themselves could master, and made it so my three year old nephew can navigate one with ease. Today the thought of not using a computer to do so many of our daily, routine tasks is ludicrous because they are so much simpler and easier to use than the alternatives.

Now, if a group of unaffiliated computer specialists working with no set goals could realize so much in 50 years, what could a group of highly trained, highly intelligent, united and motivated climate scientists accomplish if they wanted to? General Motors, Ford and other companies really have no motivation to make clean running cars. They, like all other publicly owned companies, are fixated on achieving high quarterly profits, which are best obtained by producing what works. Even though inventing and producing green cars might save the world, R&D costs and retooling factories would erode the profits of next quarter.

Climate scientists, on the other hand, could target the right people to help them in their quest and then build green cars together. And, if they set their goals on making green cars so easy to use and so cheap to buy, and not to simply attain a quarterly profit, sooner rather than later they would reach their goals. Also, as soon as they demonstrated that it was possible to produce green cars and other green technologies that would turn the tide on greenhouse gas emissions, and that it was possible to do so for less money and better efficiency than older technologies, every other company on Earth would follow suit. Soon, it would be so easy, simple and cheap to use green technology that nobody would think of doing otherwise.

Are any of you climate scientists out there shaking your heads? Does this sound like too much work? Does it sound like you’re unfairly being singled out? Are you upset that it is suddenly your job to save the world? Poor babies. But, just remember, you’re trying to save the world right now anyway and it’s not working. And, the way you’re going about it right now won’t ever work before it’s too late. So, the choice is yours: you can either choose to be tomorrow’s “I told you so” prophets that watch the world crumble with everyone else, or you can choose to dedicate your life to helping create and produce the technologies that will save humanity and the world. Just remember that although people still read Isaiah, they prefer the prophet Moses that led people to the promised land.

Supe Lillywhite

PS. Did I mention that although climate scientists that embrace the course of action I propose don’t get to say I told you so, they do herald in a technological revolution and become the leaders of industrial tomorrow? Something to think about.

Response to the Gray-Haired Brigade

Does it ever make you angry when old people try to blame you for the problems of today without acknowledging that they caused them?

Below is a lengthy chain-email I received blaming me for screwing up America. After that is my response. While mine doesn't exactly represent my thoughts it did feel good to write. They are both fairly long, but if your in the mood for a stupid argument you might enjoy them!

Letter #1
Grey-Haired Brigade

They like to refer to us as senior citizens, old fogies, geezers, and in some cases dinosaurs. Some of us are "Baby Boomers" getting ready to retire. Others have been retired for some time. We walk a little slower these days and our eyes and hearing are not what they once were. We have worked hard, raised our children, worshiped our God and grown old together. Yes, we are the ones some refer to as being over the hill, and that is probably true. But before writing us off completely, there are a few things that need to be taken into consideration.

In school we studied English, history, math, and science which enabled us to lead America into the technological age. Most of us remember what outhouses were, many of us with firsthand experience. We remember the days of telephone party-lines, 25 cent gasoline, and milk and ice being delivered to our homes. For those of you who don't know what an icebox is, today they are electric and referred to as refrigerators. A few even remember when cars were started with a crank. Yes, we lived those days.

We are probably considered old fashioned and out-dated by many. But there are a few things you need to remember before completely writing us off. We won World War II, fought in Korea and Viet Nam. We can quote The Pledge of Allegiance, and know where to place our hand while doing so. We wore the uniform of our country with pride and lost many friends on the battlefield. We didn't fight for the Socialist States of America, we fought for the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave." We wore different uniforms but carried the same flag. We know the words to the Star Spangled Banner, America, and America the Beautiful by heart, and you may even see some tears running down our cheeks as we sing. We have lived what many of you have only read about in history books and we feel no obligation to apologize to anyone for America.

Yes, we are old and slow these days but rest assured, we have at least one good fight left in us. We have loved this country, fought for it, and died for it, and now we are going to save it. It is our country and nobody is going to take it away from us. We took oaths to defend America against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that is an oath we plan to keep. There are those who want to destroy this land we love but, like our founders, there is no way we are going to remain silent.

It was mostly the young people of this nation who elected Obama and the Democratic Congress. You fell for the "Hope and Change" which in reality was nothing but "Hype and Lies." You have tasted socialism and seen evil face to face, and have found you don't like it after all. You make a lot of noise, but most are all too interested in their careers or "Climbing the Social Ladder" to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting. Many of those who fell for the "Great Lie" in 2008 are now having buyer's remorse. With all the education we gave you, you didn't have sense enough to see through the lies and instead drank the 'Cool-Aid.' Now you're paying the price and complaining about it. No jobs, lost mortgages, higher taxes, and less freedom. This is what you voted for and this is what you got. We entrusted you with the Torch of Liberty and you traded it for a paycheck and a fancy house.

Well, don't worry youngsters, the Grey-Haired Brigade is here, and in 2012 we are going to take back our nation. We may drive a little slower than you would like but we get where we're going, and in 2012 we're going to the polls by the millions. This land does not belong to the man in the White House nor to the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It belongs to "We the People" and "We the People" plan to reclaim our land and our freedom. We hope this time you will do a better job of preserving it and passing it along to our grandchildren. So the next time you have the chance to say the Pledge of Allegiance, Stand up, put your hand over your heart, honor our country, and thank God for the old geezers of the "Grey-Haired Brigade."

Author, Anon. Grey-Haired Brigade Member

Footnote:

This is spot on. I am another Gray-Haired Geezer signing on. I will circulate this to other Gray-Haired Geezers all over this once great county. Can you feel the ground shaking??? It's not an earthquake, it is a STAMPEDE.

Letter #2

Grey-Haired Brigade,

I call BS. Let’s examine your “few things that need to be taken into consideration” one by one, shall we?

First of all, congratulations on having studied English, history, math and science and leading America into the technological age.

My generation now studies English and foreign languages.

My generation, instead of learning history from quaint, biased books written by authors exclusively from our own race, reads and writes history books that are rigorously researched and peer reviewed by scholars from all over the world. If we don’t know as much general history as you, it is simply because we have learned that the superficial lens of history that your generation viewed the world through inexorably led to poor, ill-informed decisions. Instead, we choose to specialize our knowledge of history and then come together with a collection of in depth research to base our decisions on.

My generation, while we are dependent on calculators for doing things like simple arithmetic, uses those calculators to push the limits of math further than ever before. And, while we are impressed that you studied math by counting spiders in your outhouses, even our dumbest high school students have at least a basic knowledge of calculus.

My generation studies science too! In fact, one of the biggest things we study is how to reverse the alarming trend of anthropogenic caused climate change your generation’s application of science started … thanks!

Congratulations, also, on remembering what outhouses are and on struggling to live through the days of iceboxes. Thanks to your generation’s reckless pursuit of the consumer goods you despise us for having grown up with it is likely that my generation will get to use those same antiques again soon! Or haven’t you heard that our generation will enjoy a lower standard of living than yours did, precisely because your generation obtained those evil commodities by paying for them with money you didn’t have and outsourcing their production (and our jobs along with them) overseas?

I’ll admit that I cannot congratulate you on the qualities you praise yourself for having as a consequence of being old fashioned and outdated. For instance, you fail to mention that your generation caused World War II by not properly resolving World War I. And, do you really expect us to praise you for your divided, confused and ultimately failed conquests of Korea and Viet Nam? The fact that you lost many friends on the battlefield is a result of your generation electing leaders that felt it was more important to police the world than it was to preserve the lives of their youth.

Should I be impressed that you can quote the pledge of allegiance while placing your hand over your heart? I’m pretty sure we could train a parrot to do the same (if parrots had hands, that is). What would have been more impressive is if you would have taught that pledge to your hippy children from the 60s and 70s that were burning the very flag you were paying allegiance to. Great parenting!

You didn’t fight for the Socialist States of America? Puh-lease! Who was your president during the majority of World War II? Who did you allow to pass legislation in the 60’s? We didn’t create Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. FDR and LBJ were your presidents! Whether you fought for socialism or not, you voted for it or didn’t speak out strongly enough against it when it was in its infancy in America.

We might feel inclined to look on you with pride when tears run down your cheeks as you sing our country’s hymns until we remember that you are crying for what your generation gave up and the ruined country you are passing on to us, your grandchildren. Also, we’ve heard you say over and over again that you won’t apologize for America abroad. Fine. We want the apologies made to us for leaving us with your mess to clean up while you scooter around your nursing homes in your jazzy chairs.

YOU are going to save this country? About time! You’ve been screwing it up for the past 80 years!

You’re right in that it was mostly the young people of this nation that elected Obama and the Democratic Congress. But, what choice did we have? After eight years of putting up with the president you elected that took our nation from a budget surplus to a budget deficit, continued the ruinous housing policies of Bill Clinton that crashed our economy, killed thousands of our brothers and sisters fighting on foreign soil under the pretext of a lie and ruined the American reputation in general can you really blame us for wanting some change? Any change? And, may we please remind you, disastrous as our election of Barack Obama has been, he was raised by your generation, not ours!

We “make a lot of noise, but most [of us] are all too interested in [our] careers or "Climbing the Social Ladder" to be involved in such mundane things as patriotism and voting,” eh? Perhaps that is because despite all the noise we make we can’t get rid of the idiots you lot have been electing to office year after year after year. Barney Frank? Orrin Hatch? John Kerry? John McCain? Your generation has done a great job at electing real winners! And as for climbing the social ladder, what social ladder are you talking about? Your generation dismantled that ladder long ago by outsourcing first manufacturing jobs, next engineering jobs and now technological jobs overseas. Why? So you could afford refrigerators built by cheap foreign labor with the money you receive from your pensions and Social Security, two other things we won’t ever have. The reason we attend university for so long is so we can compete for the few good jobs that are left in this country or so we can put off for as long as possible the day that we have to take the menial service jobs you’ve left us with (tending bar or washing your filthy butts in your nursing homes). Some social ladder.

What worries me most, however, is not your ridiculous and demonstrably false tirade about how you’ve saved the country time and time again, but rather the fact that you say your generation is going to try and save it again! PLEASE DON’T! Haven’t you done enough damage already? Or haven’t you realized that Nancy Pelosi (age 71) and Harry Reid (age 72) are both the products of your generation? If you’ve been saving the country for so long, why haven’t you ever gotten rid of them before now?

And how are you going to save the country? By electing Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney? Like that would be a huge change from the George Bush’s of the past … In the meantime, you’ll keep on ignoring Ron Paul because he doesn’t want to waste trillions of dollars playing policeman all over the globe.

So, Gray-Haired Geezer, please don’t stampede to the polls with your walker and your equally delusional friends. As noble as you think your sentiments are, we know they aren’t true. You’ll keep on voting to extend Social Security, to keep Medicaid around so I can subsidize the continuation of your artificially preserved life and you’ll keep sending back the same losers you’ve been sending to congress for the past 50 years. And, you’ll either cause an accident on your way to the polls or drive so slow getting there that you’ll prevent five members of my generation from getting to the ballot box on time to cast their more informed votes.

Author, Anon. Youth Fix-It Brigade Member.

PS. Sorry for any errors in my post. I'll have more time to proofread my posts when I retire to a nursing home...

Abomosu Video

Here it is finally. I'm not going to lie, even after working on it for several hours the finished product still made me want to cry like a little girl cuz I miss it so much. Hope you enjoy!

Supe Lillywhite

Easy and Normal: What Food, Literacy, Transportation and Social Networking have to do with Healthcare in America

Americans, it seems, have forgotten their past and their present. They have forgotten what made them successful at solving problems and what continues to make them successful at solving problems. I am not talking about virtue, honor or any of those other high minded values politicians and ourselves like to gush about in public ceremonies. On the contrary, I'm talking about a habit Americans have espoused for centuries and continue in many to espouse today that is absurdly simple and brilliantly effective. It is the tendency Americans have to find the easiest way to do something they want to do, and the tendency they have to make doing it normal. I think four simple examples will suffice to illustrate my point.

Let's talk about food to start with. For much of America's history, and indeed for much of the world still today, obtaining enough food to eat on a daily basis was and is a very difficult thing to do. In fact, in many countries people don't get enough to eat and even starve to death because it is so difficult to get enough calories to sustain them. That is hardly the case in America. If anything, we have a surplus of daily bread. The reason why is long ago Americans made it easy and normal to get enough food to eat on a daily basis. By using fertilizers, tractors and other modern farming techniques, they made it so everybody in America can get food fairly easily. And, everybody in America got into the habit of eating enough food everyday and looking at doing the opposite as something crazy. Now, the idea of not eating at least three meals a day in America is seen as ludicrous; it's easy and it's normal. Remember, that was not the case for much of our history and is still not the case for much of the world today.

America did the same thing with literacy. Just 100-150 years ago it was not normal for everyone to know how to read in America. It certainly isn't normal for everyone in the world today to know how to read and write. But today, here in the states, our literacy rate is probably close to 100%. Why? Because a while ago we made it easy and normal to be literate. This time we used public schools. Public schools made it so easy and so normal to become literate that pretty soon everybody was.

Quick and efficient means of transportation underwent the same change in America. Before, America was like every place else in the world. Transportation was difficult and costly. It was rare to go on a journey of a hundred miles and even stranger to go a thousand. Not so today. Starting with canals, moving to steamboats and railroads, and then to automobiles, airplanes and subways we've made it easy and normal to travel far distances at a fast pace. It's so normal, in fact, that people that walk more than a few blocks are now considered the strange ones in society.

My last example of things America has made easy and normal is social media. Back in the day it was difficult to stay in touch with your friends. When America was founded, if you left England for America you were pretty much saying goodbye to your old friends for forever. Sending letters was too expensive and too unreliable to bother about maintaining the relationship. Even with the advent of the telephone, many people didn't bother to maintain hundreds of their friendships because it took too long to call that many friends on a regular basis. Facebook has changed all of that entirely. Although you might not have a deep, soul searching conversation with your friends on a real often through facebook, it is so simple and easy to send them a short message or check out what they are doing with their lives that almost everybody does it. In fact, for the three years that I resisted joining facebook I was seen as a freak for not maintaining my friendships because it was so easy and normal to do.

Now, with four examples under our belts, we should be able to see that Americans are very good at making things they want to do so easy and normal to do that everybody does them. But for some crazy reason, we seem to think it is impossible to make it easy and normal for everyone to get in and stay in shape! Well, I'm here to tell you that if we could make it easy and normal for everybody in America to get enough to eat, to read and write, to use fast and efficient transportation, and to stay in touch with their friends, we can make it easy and normal for everybody to live and enjoy a healthy lifestyle!

One way to do it is to keep going down the road of fear and unbelief that we are currently headed down. As long as Americans continue to believe that we can't solve our own problems and that government has to solve them for us, everybody will be in great shape before you know it. Why? Because our economy will stagnate to the point that we all have to become subsistence farmers again. I know of few workout plans better than subsistence farming to keep someone in good shape.

That being said, for all you die hard conservatives out there, it's not enough to just shout that the government needs to get out of our lives at the top of your lungs. You have to provide and implement solutions for the problems the government is trying to solve! And, if you don't want the government to step in, you have to provide solutions that are far reaching enough that they will help everybody, just like the solutions to food, literacy, transportation and social networking did. And “giving the consumer more choice and purchasing power,” as the latest idiotic Republican plan proposed to do, is not the far reaching solution that would work. Think for just one second: you're wanting to give more choices and purchasing power to the same morons that chose to never exercise and purchased twinkies instead of vegetables for the past 50 years. More options and more purchasing power will not help these people.

But that doesn't mean these people are beyond help. They just need a solution like these solutions we've used in the past. When we made it normal and easy for everyone to get three square meals a day, we didn't do it by teaching every American to farm more efficiently. Nope. We built huge farms ran by machinery that made food so cheap everyone could afford to buy it. Same thing with literacy. We didn't place good teaching materials in every home in America and trusts parents to educate their kids. Nope. We built schools that kids had to attend and were forced to learn how to read. Even social networking. We didn't send out manuals that showed people how to program their own social networking site. Some guy built the site himself and made it so easy to use that everybody could use it. Giving consumers more power to purchase something they don't understand and have consistently shown they don't desire isn't going to solve our problem. Again, we have to come up with a solution that is so easy everybody can do it and so effective it will become the norm in a very short time period.

As for me, I believe there are easy solutions to our healthcare problems that could become normal in a very soon. Want to hear them? Read these two articles and let me know what your thoughts are on them!