What is CISPA?

Under the guise of cyber-security, CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) is a bill that would grant corporations the power to share our emails, Facebook messages, and other sensitive online data with the government – all without a warrant.

CISPA would kill online privacy as we know it – nullifying the laws that require big corporations to keep our information private from government agencies like the National Security Agency.

Those corporations wouldn’t have to notify you that they have done this and you wouldn’t be able to take legal action against them if they made a mistake when sharing your information.

While strong information security is critical to privacy and civil liberties, CISPA does almost nothing to prevent this.

All it does is give the government access to your information.

We beat CISPA last year when hundreds of thousands of Americans signed online petitions to let lawmakers know that our online privacy rights are not negotiable.

But this bill is back and politicians who want the government to be able to read your emails and see what you purchase online are hoping you won’t speak out this time.

Together we can beat CISPA again!

We will be back soon…

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/stop-cispa-cyber-intelligence-sharing-and-protection-act/19sQhBpy

The post What is CISPA appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

CISPA Blackout Should I Default on My Student Loan?

The post CISPA Blackout appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

What is CISPA

My daughter, a current Bostonian, who was about a quarter mile away from the Boston Marathon finish line on Monday, and who lives 1.5 miles from the scene of today’s police shoot-out, sent me an article by Dennis Lehane in the NY Times, and a clip of the Colbert Report.  The message was the same in both of them: “You messed with the wrong city.”  I resonated with both the article and the clip, and I wanted to talk about how I believe Boston is going to react, long term,  in the face of acts of mass violence.

Lehane took pains to explain that the feeling “You messed with the wrong city” wasn’t macho sentiment, it was just fact.  We have no tolerance for this kind of “crap.”  Life is tough enough, without this on top of it.  It is a collective sentiment, and it didn’t at all surprise me that the city is in total lock down right now.

Instead, it made me feel homesick.

Bostonians don’t much care if they have to face massive imposition to restore a sense of “order” from “chaos.”  Living there, they have to re-impose order all the time. For example, we’d have to put chairs in our shoveled out parking spaces in Dorchester to have someplace to park our cars when we’d return home in the evening.  And we accepted the fact that, once in a while, we’d have to put up with “an idiot” who moved that “friggin’ chair,” in order to steal our parking space.

Bostonians in Dorchester will wait hours by the window, watching (patiently or not), for that person, (“that idiot” ), the one who moved said chair, to come back to that “friggin car.”  Then, even if they are a typically non-violent type, they dutifully get their coat, hat, and boots on, and scramble down three flights of stairs, to tell “that idiot” that moving that chair  was a very bad move on their part, and should not be repeated.  And it is said in a distinctly unfriendly tone.  Or more impactfully, a menacing tone.  Because some things are worth getting pissed about.

Locking down the city is no different.  If The Mayor has to knock on every friggin’ door and check under every single friggin’ bed, just do it.  When you are dealing with “an idiot,” you do what has to be done.

Why they did this crime is not the point. “Some idiot” thought it was a good idea to bomb the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and now Bostonians have to do whatever it takes, tolerate any inconvenience, to catch them.  Where city officials elsewhere would carefully weigh the “cost-benefit analysis,” take the pulse of the polis, The Mayor in Boston knows how we feel.

In Beantown, we say “Screw that, Mr. Mayor, just get it done.”

Shooting The Bird.

When my brother learned of my plans to move from a perfectly safe Doomstead, back into the city, he gave me some sage advice: “You know when you’re driving here, you’re going to have to practice giving people ‘the finger’ instead of ’the wave’.“  I knew what he meant. When you live in Mayberry, you wave at people when you drive by. When you live in Boston, he’s reminding me that you have to keep “the idiots” in line by shooting them “the finger.”

New Yorkers’ honk, which to a Bostonian, is a crude and impersonal act, that will make them “an idiot,” in the mind of the average Bostonian. Why annoy everyone, just because of one idiot?

In Boston, we do it this way: We drive like a maniac for the opportunity to lock eyes with the offending driver, and then, only then, with contempt in our eyes, do we shoot them “the bird.”  It is personal.  It says: “I want you to know, that I  know, that you’re an idiot.”  Confrontational driving in Boston is defensive driving.  Almost a civic duty.

Bostonians don’t expect city officials to do magic.  But we do expect them to control “the idiots” when things get out of hand. We know that it just isn’t sensible to ask The Mayor to keep the snow plows from dumping snow in our driveways every time they pass. We accept the fact that we have to pay outrageous rents, and sit in endless traffic.  And we have to deal with draconian measures, however invasive, to deal with “idiots” who do “crazy” things.

Collectively we say: “Get it done, Mr. Mayor, then get on with it.”

Clang the Pans, Call the Landlord, and then get on with it.

I heard they “shut down” Boston today. I wasn’t the least bit disturbed by any potential infringement to civil liberties. I thought of it more like what used to happen to me in San Francisco, when the apartment had to be sprayed for a chronic infestation of cockroaches.

There comes a time, if you live in a row house in the Haight Asbury, that you have to clang a pan at night, before turning on the kitchen light, to spare yourself the sight of cockroaches darting to escape the brightness.

Then you know that it is time to call the landlord and invite them to come spray poison.

You know the cockroaches return a short time after the poison gets sprayed.  You have to live with them, and they with you.  But you don’t think it is wise to spray every single day to claim utter and total victory. We accepted that cockroaches come with living in a highly desirable location.  But there are limits as to what we will tolerate as a solution to these types of problems.

If, in a year from now, you want to inspect my handbag before I get on the Red Line each morning, “the people” and their elected officials are going to have “problems” with that, and The Mayor knows it.

We  don’t care what Homeland Security tells him to do. He’s The Mayor.  It is his city.  If he doesn’t want to be “an idiot,”  he’ll say “no” to putting up thousands of government surveillance cameras like they have in London (Boston has a lot fewer). Let private companies keep their’s, but don’t expect tax payers to fund the government doing it. Next thing you know, they’ll mail us traffic tickets, like they do in London, without even requiring a cop to eyeball us.  And  worse yet, for some of us, we won’t be able to get anyone to “fix” the ticket.

No thanks.  Keep those cameras out of Boston.

Which brings me to my final point: Every place that deals with acts of violence on a random or massive scale is going to deal with this outrage somewhat differently. I’d like to think “Now I know how Israeli’s must feel,”  but that’s just B.S.  I don’t.  And Israelis are going to deal with this kind of violence differently than the Afghan’s, who had US bombs dropped on them “in retaliation” for 9/11, but even people in the US, never mind Afghan peasants, don’t understand how those two are linked.

As someone who grew up in Boston, I heard a news reporter call the people enjoying the Boston Marathon “civilians,” and I got really angry. When you begin to refer to people as “civilians,” you split the world into two halves: “civilians” and “military,” and in doing so, imply a whole new way of life…a battle ground, instead of a city.  And battle grounds need surveillance. It’s a way of living, psychologically that I reject with every fiber of my being.

Bostonians aren’t “civilians,” and we should refuse to live in a war-zone. We should refuse to live with chronic surveillance as part of “normal life.” If you have cockroaches, you have to spray once in a while, but not every day. The risk to one’s health spraying all the time is worse than the cockroaches.  In the case of surveillance, it is psychological health and democratic health, but the point is still the same.

If you have to pull out strands of my hair to test for bomb debris, today, just do it.  If you have to close down the city, and fill it with bomb sniffing dogs, by all means.

Then get on with it.

But if your plan is to, from this day forward, infringe on my civil liberties “in case” some kid thinks terrifying a city tomorrow will prove something, you’re an idiot, and I would expect Bostonians to resist you, every step of the way.

Bostonians are people who anticipate a degree of hardship and injustice. They expect a certain level of inconvenience and trouble. And they realize that it isn’t possible for law enforcement to keep every kid, with an ax to grind, from creating terror and chaos.  And when some kid commits such a heinous act, it is very, very personal.

You messed with my city.

You put your car in my shoveled out parking space.

You Moved. My. Chair.

Therefore, you are “an idiot” (or, after 20 years of schooling, you learn to say “you are mentally ill”…) and you have to be dealt with.  And The Mayor will see to it that you are caught.

And when you ARE caught, let the rest of us just get on with it.  Let us grieve, mourn, heal, but don’t use it as an excuse to be “an idiot” and monitor our daily lives.

Because things in Beantown are so very, very personal.  And so is our desire to get on with life without infringement.

The post Boston Marathon Bombing and Civil Liberties: “You messed with the wrong city…” appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

Needing Motor City Mojo Courtship, Cooperation & Negotiation: What Darwin Got Wrong about Human Emotions Cop’s Wife Sleeping with the “Bad Guys”

I read your help-letter from the lesbian couple looking to relocate.  My partner and I moved from Sacramento to Nevada County almost two years ago.  It was very scary but it was a wonderful choice.  We are super happy here.  I would love to be put in touch with the writer.  You can give her my email address.

At the time we were living in Sacramento. After California’s Proposition 8, the voter initiative to ban marriage equality, had passed in California in 2008, Sacramento had somewhat become a hub for LGBTIQ activism. I belonged to several queer activist groups, many LGBTIQ-associated activity groups and was the Entertainment Manager for Sacramento’s Gay Pride. I had many interests but the majority of my friends were other queers. That’s one of the great things about being queer in a metropolitan area. It doesn’t matter what you are interested in—hiking, biking, reading, singing, riding motorcycles—there is likely an organized group of gays willing to get together for that purpose.

But life wasn’t all bike rides and book clubs. By the end of 2010, things were looking grim. I worked in social services and the agency was talking about mass lay-offs. My partner was commuting to her job in the Sierra Foothills an hour and a half each way and gas prices were nearly $5/gallon. Crime in downtown Sacramento had become the norm. There was no place to garden. I tried to get to know my neighbors but no one was interested in forming friendships. I felt isolated in a city of half a million people.

For many in the LGBTIQ community, the previous couple of years had been marked with episodes of depression and despair. The passing of Proposition 8 was devastating to people all over the country. For many in the gay community, especially for those under the age of 40, the passing of Prop 8 was the first experience in being viscerally aware of what it feels like to be a marginalized population. Between 2008 and 2010 I had lost three friends to suicide. The passing of Prop 8 gave license to gay bashers all over America to be more outward with their views. When I worked on the campaign to defeat Prop 8 I had been spat on, cursed at and chased. Once Prop 8 passed, nothing changed. I was frightened. I was scared for my friends, for our lives and for our mental health. The gay community was deeply important to me because the gay community was my ally.

But now I had a new problem on my hands: peak oil. And by the spring of 2011 my frustration had deepened. Like many people who have recently found out about peak oil, I felt like Cassandra of Greek mythology trying to get people to understand this very important issue and having almost no one take me seriously. My partner and I tried to bring our concerns up to our friends, to try and form a lifeboat network, but our friends were keen to “extend and pretend,” as James Howard Kunstler calls it.

In March of 2011 my partner and I started talking seriously about a change. We didn’t really want to give up city life. We loved walking to get coffee on Sunday mornings. I enjoyed running around Sacramento’s McKinley park. We took advantage of the city’s many book stores. We loved the great variety of fruit trees along Sacramento’s midtown streets. Sacramento was out home. But we wanted out of the city. We sat down and brainstormed what we really wanted, what was really important to us: local food, neighbors that talked to each other, skills sharing, community, family, organic farms, friendship. The list went on.

Then we did the math. If I were to be laid off and were getting unemployment benefits, we would break even if we moved closer to my partner’s work and saved on gas. So we did the thing that most peak oil veterans say not to do: we moved.

In May of 2011 I was laid-off and we moved to an organic farm in Nevada County. We helped take care of the crops and the chickens in exchange for living in a tiny cottage on the property. It was very hard work and an incredible learning experience.

When we interviewed for the new place I was incredibly nervous. Rural America isn’t exactly known for its gay-friendly atmosphere. When I answered the Craigslist ad, I had made sure that it was pretty clear that we were lesbians. I didn’t want there to be any surprises. But it turned out to be a non-issue.

It was pretty much a non-issue all over Nevada County. I had only had one incident where someone said something and he didn’t even say anything to me. He commented to our landlord that he was uncomfortable with gay people. That was it.

It was August before I met another queer person in Nevada County. PFLAG had a booth at the county fair. I knew that there was a chapter of PFLAG in Nevada County but I didn’t go out of my way to check it out because PFLAG stands for “Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.” I was a lesbian. Not a parent of one.

But by then it almost didn’t matter. I had found a community and that community didn’t care or didn’t notice that my partner and I were a couple of homos.

Almost a year ago we moved deeper into the foothills, to the other side of Nevada County. We now live in our own rental in a community of nine units on five acres of property. We have our own backyard mini-farm and share an organic garden. We are so glad we moved.

If you are a member of the LGBTIQ community and thinking of relocating because you want a community focused on localism, resiliency, and post-petroleum living, I say go for it! But before moving, try to become fully informed. Research nearby rural communities. Check to see if they have an organization like Nevada County’s APPLE, the Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy. Browse the Transition Town website for local transition towns. Once you’ve established that your prospective new community is preparing for a post-industrial world, check to see if they have any services or organizations for the LGBTIQ community. See if there is a county or town gay and lesbian facebook page. Try and contact someone in the area and start pen-palling. In states that have had a vote on the gay marriage issue, it is likely public record how each county voted. Here is a map of California’s 2004 Prop 8 vote: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-2008election-prop8prop22,0,333635.htmlstory

Relocating can be really hard. It took us about a year before we felt like we were really a part of the community. It can often be hard to break into the social scene in places with a small-town legacy. The best advice that I could give is to volunteer. Volunteer at the food bank, volunteer with local organizations, volunteer at the schools. I’ve found that most communities are like the gay community: if you embrace it, it will embrace you back.

Original article found here.

The post Mike Ruppert on the Third Date appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

PO Cosmopolitan Living Smaller Happier Life Thank you for the mention and attention… A Queer Eye for a Post Peak Life

Just had a barely awake chat with KMO over at the C-Realm Podcast’s special programming called “The Vault.”  I was sleepy, as it was the day after Christmas, and DH and I did a crazy stint of driving, after we put our dino-dog-puppies to bed, then shot over to see my sister and extended family.

It was a great holiday.

The Shopping Gene?

My sister, who has an incredible talent for picking out clothes for me, chose a fantastic hat as my gift.  For those of you who know hats, it is impossible to pick out a hat for someone.  Not for my sister, though.  It looks smashing, if I do say so myself.

Biology did not evenly distribute the shopping gene in my family.  DH was proud of me, as I made my yearly sociological research into the wild mall during the holiday season a week ago.  I didn’t freak out, as I normally do, after an hour and say, panicked “I gutta get out of here.”  Instead, I walked diligently up and down, on both levels, people watching, store merchandise examining, and taking in the mood of the sales clerks.  Ya, folks, we’re in collapse.  At least where I live.

My sister, on the other hand, is an avid shopper, and really could make her living as a professional shopper, if she didn’t have this pesky nursing degree she uses quite well.  She loves the stores, the lights, the colors, the merchandise.  And she can pick out clothes for me I couldn’t imagine wearing.  She leaves me in the dressing room, and brings things into me where I can’t refuse to try it on.  The results always surprise me.  I never would have chosen that.  My daughter, by the way, inherited her shopping gene…

The MS Scare

And shortly before we went to my families for the holidays, I weighed myself for poops and giggles.  I’m not one for “dieting,” but I am invested in my health, and had a scare this past summer that my doctor thought could be MS (it wasn’t).  So thanks to this website, a dear-reader-friend send me this video, and something in me clicked.  I had been researching nutrition a lot this past 6 months anyway, and learning just how hard it is to get all of your nourishment without a lot of careful focus on what you eat.   The biggest problem is the volume you have to eat to get all of the nutrients.  And the variety of foods you have to eat.  And the cooking.

George Mateljan

This guy is a friggin genius.  His website is really fabulous.  I know quite a bit about nutrition, having studied it, and read Nutrition Action Newsletter by the Center for Science in the Public Interests magazine for decades, so I know that Mr. Mateljan has really combined practicality with rigid scientific standards…and of course I just agree with his food philosophy, which helps.  Another nutritionally knowledgeable gal I love to read is Nicole Foss from the Automatic Earth, in her private writings on Facebook.

What’s you ‘food philosophy’?

Do you know what I mean about ‘food philosophy?’

Take eggs.  There was a time when everyone said “Eggs are bad for you.”  I never bought that crappola.  Eggs?  You mean those things that cave people picked up and ate walking along in the springtime?  Those eggs?  Rubbish.  And, of course, after consolidating the egg industry into a few players, the word went out that eggs are excellent for you, now.  A great food.  And all the good stuff is in the yolk.  So to have a deep and complete understanding of food is very complex.  Knowing a little bit can make you dangerous to yourself.

But then, I took Mr. Mateljan’s website, and the simple idea of 9 cups of fruits/veggies a day, kefir grains and raw milk, and a LOT of a secret ingredient I’ll wait to reveal at the end of this post, and, well, I’m a new person.  After a month, the clothes just fit better, so I weighed myself.  I lost 20 lbs.  Now, being a big gal, you may not say “Holy Mackerel  Peak Shrink, you are THIN!” (unless you are delusional), but that’s not the point, or even the best news.

Not only did I lose that weight without trying, I just stopped the meds I take for S.A.D., because, heck, I just felt great.

Not good.  Not okay.  Not “well, it is winter and I have “Seasonal Affective Disorder,”  kind of “okay.” No.

I … FELT… GREAT.

I still do.

So okay, I’ve read how you should eat well.  Who on this green Earth hasn’t?  And I ate pretty well, considering the stuff the average American consumes.  But 9 cups of veggies/fruit?  Nah, I didn’t eat that good.  Or at least, not until now.

And I just cut out the only sugar I had straight up daily, which was in my coffee or tea, and put cinnamon in it instead.  It tastes sweet.

But I’ve noticed a lot of other differences too, like what I’m craving.  I’m doing all the cooking in the house, because while DH is a great cook, he can’t imagine how to cram in 9 cups of veggies a day.  And what I’m craving are the veggies.  I’m really craving them.  You might think I’d get sick of them, but maybe I’m missing some basic nutrient that veggies are meeting.  I could care less about the meat, but give me the extra greens.

But as I said before, you can’t really eat all that food and still have a ton of meat, or grains, or sweets for that matter.  There is literally no room in one’s stomach for it.

Farewell to Wet Cats and Hello to Song and Dance Numbers

Now, DH will also tell  you that S.A.D. is a sucky thing for a spouse to have. Imagine  an angry wet cat that you half towel-dried, and you have me most winters.  The meds were the towel.  You could tell when S.A.D. was settling in, because I stopped singing.  No made-up songs, sung passionately to the dogs, no spontaneous lyric- switching tunes.  No quick fast ‘song and dance number,’ while calling the dogs in from outside.  Only, perhaps, an occasional Johnny Cash song that would bring me to tears, that even I knew was silly to cry about.

Now the song and dance numbers are part of my everyday life again.  And the dogs love it.  (DH loves it, too.)

Belly Laughs

But what is really striking is to hear myself on the radio belly-laughing with KMO.  Nothing fake about it.  I was really laughing, having a great time with KMO, and  you can hear it on that show.  And we started a “pre-interview” conversation about sex and sexually explicit videos, which was also interesting, and ended up talking about nutrition and my new diet.  Turns out KMO has a new diet too.  That talk he and I had was BEFORE the interview, but he obviously liked it enough to use it as is, and put the “real” interview on at a later time.

Now how this all relates to Peak Oil, is this:  There is no way I’m going to put up enough kale and spinach and broccoli and cauliflower, never mind strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, etc to keep even one person in 9 cups a day.  Not where I live, and not with my farming skills.  I take a giant bag of kale or spinach and DH and I eat half of it in one sitting.  Half!  Ya, I could eat the frozen stuff, and will, but could I put up enough for an entire winter?  Perhaps veggie glama-gals Sharon Astyk or Kathy Harrison can, but not me.  And there is talk of a winter CSA in my town, but I don’t know that it’s happening yet.

Kefir

In San Francisco, when I lived there, we pronounced  it “Kee-fur,” but that is so not hip now.  You pronounce it like this. (Can you get over a Youtube video to pronounce a word?)

However you say it, I hate buying yogurt because I resent the plastic it comes in.  So I discovered the Kefir Lady, and she sent me out this huge grain of kefir.  Making kefir is so, OMIGOD…simple.  I can’t believe they have so much literature on it, but, after all, people like to do things “right.”

Here are the Directions:

(1) Put kefir in a glass jar with milk and cover it with cloth to keep the bugs out.  Leave it on your counter.

(2) Taste it the next day and see if you like it.  If you do, drain out the grain, put fruit in it, or just drink it plain. (I happen to know for a fact that DH sneaks Odo’s Oil in my smoothies, to keep the Omega-3′s up…)  If you don’t like the taste, leave it on the counter another 6 hours then taste it again.  OR make a second batch and taste it earlier.

(3) Put the grain in milk and repeat the process.

Okay, you can’t put it in dead milk, which is “ultra-pasteurized.” But it still will grow in pretty crappy milk, just not so fast.  My kefir is fed the best milk, and soon we’ll have people bragging about the milk they feed their kefir, like they do about what they feed their dog.

Real milk, when it “turns,” still is good for you.  Dead milk is putrid and should be tossed.  So kefir is alive, and according to Wiki  is “bacteria and yeasts in a matrix of proteins, lipids, and sugars, and this symbiotic matrix forms “grains” that resemble cauliflower.”  If you can’t drink cows milk, it grows in sheep or goats milk, and if you can’t drink milk, you can probably still drink kefir, because the grain eats all the stuff that probably gives you cramps.  (I’m not a medical doctor, so read up on it…)  But if you don’t want to drink milk there is water kefir too.  Or soy milk, rice milk, or coconut milk.  And when you just can’t stand the thought of kefir anymore, put it in the refrigerator or freezer, and it will stop growing, or slow down dramatically.

Homemade Kefir is Best (of course)

As I have learned, after falling pretty far down the Rabbit Hole, is that almost anything you make yourself is better for you than the stuff you buy, and “homemade” kefir is no exception.  I can’t give you the numbers, but the homemade stuff has a ton more bacterial and yeast than the store bought stuff, which is, by the way, very expensive considering the three steps to making it I detailed above, and the fact that the kefir grain keeps growing, so you can give it to your friends.  Or sell it back to the Kefir Lady.  Apparently the store kefir has to count how many critters they put in there to be sure there is a respectable amount.  While on your kitchen counter, the critters just grow, not caring whether you measure them or not.

Are they GOOD Critters?

Now for the squeamish reader, these are GOOD critters, that once they hit your intestines, actually work to drive the BAD critters out of your intestines.  I’ve also read they are helpful to those who have ADHD, because apparently leaky gut is common in those with ADHD.  Kefir slows the digestion, so you are actually digesting more of your food.  Again, don’t quote me.

Dystopian Visions Brought on by Happiness

But all of this leads me to horrible visions of a nation or world who has turned to psychotropic drugs when our kids–who are eating school pizza, soda and hot pockets and calling it food– can’t concentrate, are allergic to everything, are sick constantly, and can’t pay attention.  And are grouchy and irritable, like wet cats.  So we throw a towel on them and call it “science.”  Believe me, in that state, I was grateful for the towel.

But to me, my friends, this is the dystopian world we live in, more frightening than zombies.  And instead of family meals, prepared with real food, 67% of us don’t eat together, and half of the rest have the TV on when we do.  That leaves 17% of a nation eating together in conversation.  I’m ranting now, so I’ll stop.

Final Secret

So, count me happy.  A happy, kefir eating, 9 cups a day-er, with one more secret to share:

Herring.

Okay, I probably pushed you too far, but ya, herring.  It is that little fish that is really plentiful, because all the big fish stocks that used to eat it are depleted. Herring is very high in the long-chain Omega-3 fatty acids EPA and DHA, and if you ask me, it also induces a hypomanic high, which is psychologist talk for it makes you really happy.

Of course you also want to eat small herring and kippers, to keep your level of toxins to a minimum.  But even if you take 3-4 times the recreational dose of herring, rest assured you’ll have the Omega 3′s fighting the cancerous processes you’ll be digesting.  Some think, like breast milk, the benefits outweigh the risks.  So I eat it almost every day.  For breakfast.

So if you are wondering whether a change in diet might do you some good, as you slug away at your larder all winter, my vote is YES!  Hit the sauerkraut hard,  harvest the kale and Brussels sprouts as late as possible, and freeze those berries.  And if all else fails, go to the market and stock up.

You might be happier you did.

The post With Visions of Sugar-Plums Dancing in My Head appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

Visions of the New Suburban Lifestyle Wrapping One’s Head Around the Hopelessness & Hope of Peak Oil Raleigh, NC Mom Wonders How She’ll Pull Through. Is it all in her head?

“[T]here are about 40,000 or 50,000 students studying geology in China today at the university level. Maybe more, but I do not want to give you a number that is too high.”

That’s about 25 times the students studying in the US (and about half the US graduates are foreign nationals).

For every geologist in the US, we have about 50-100 lawyers, King estimates.

What about the population difference?  China has 4 times our population, but 50 times the number of geologists.

First year salaries:

Lawyers: $38,118 – $91,256

Petroleum Geologists: $44,385 – $106,436

(payscale.com)

Benefits

And geologists get longer vacation times and better bonuses, too.

Educational Requirements

Sixty-three percent of geologist have B.A degrees.

Match that to a doctoral degree you’d need for law.

Demand

The US Bureau of labor statistics predicts a 21% increase in need for geologists, vs 10% for lawyers by 2020.  We have a lot of retiring petroleum geologists with an average number of years in the biz averaging 19.  And their pay went up 13% last year.  Faster salary increases were seen for women.

It’s also a great profession for single women looking for men.  It’s a field that’s 90% men.

Supervision

And hate your boss?  According to Oil on My Shoes,

“Good geologists need virtually no supervision, once they are told what the objectives of the company are.”

Job Satisfaction

And the same site reports 0ne poll that found that geologists ranked #2 in job satisfaction out of all professions.

“After meeting hundreds of geologists over the years, I can say that people who fall into geology naturally (as most do) are extremely satisfied with their profession.”

So what’s the education?

B.S. in Geology OR make up the following course load:  Physical Geology (4 hours), Historical Geology (4 hours), Mineralogy (4 hours), Optical Mineralogy (4 hours), Petrology (3 hours), Stratigraphy/Sedimentation (3 hours), Structural Geology (3 hours), Geology Field Camp (6-8 hours), General Chemistry (8 hours), Physics (8 hours), Computer Science or Statistics (3 hours), Calculus (6 hours), and a possible foreign language requirement.

Summary

In the future scramble for understanding our world, and locating the last remaining resources available to exploit, or impacting how companies approach this exploration, we’ll need those who understand geology.

See more here

The post Post Peak Career? Forget Law, Consider Geology appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

A Queer Eye for a Post Peak Life Geologists and Engineers are Today’s Peak Oil Cowboys Two Years of Peak Oil Blues…

Today is the last day on Earth, according to some New Age interpretation of the Mayan calendar.

This belief has caused endless suffering and useless expensive purchases by people trying to “beat the clock” and find somewhere safe to spend their last few hours.  Cheap places have suddenly become outrageously expensive, because someone said “Hang out there!” during your final hours.

This story caused one young woman to take her life.

However, saying “Goodbye to Tomorrow” has a long history that goes beyond this moment in time.  Humans are famous for planning the end of not only their own anticipated deaths, but because that is just too commonplace, they have to anticipate the death of everyone and everything around them.

The End of the World.  Or more modestly put, The End Of The World As We Know It (TEOTWAWKI).

One psychologist got interested in one “Say Goodbye to Tomorrow” group, and actually hung out with them during their “final moments.”  He wanted to know how they cognitively justified it, when the end of the world failed to materialize.

He reported that great anticipation happened during the moments ticking up to “the end.”  Five minutes “after doomsday,” the euphoria of the group changed to anxiety.  After several hours, when the followers began to look doubtfully at their leader, he enthusiastically announced “We’ve done it!”

In a twist of mental gymnastics, he proclaimed that given his followers’ prayers and preparations, they had successfully “stopped” the end!  But now he was in a bit of a dilemma:  If the whole raison d’etre of the group was the “end,” he needed another “end,” or what’s the point?

What I’m noticing is a disturbing trend that mimics this same pattern.  Saying “We’re screwed!” is a good start when you are trying to build enthusiasm, but not quite as good as “We’re screwed next Tuesday!”  When next Tuesday comes, and the “screwing” didn’t happen on cue, what do you do to maintain your credibility?

Again and again over the years, I’ve noticed that people have taken dramatic actions in anticipation of this or that “end.”  For some, it is the end of civilization.  For others, it is “goodbye to the global economic system.”  For still others, it is the end of the Earth as a livable planet.  For these intelligent, sincere individuals, their goal, despite their critics, isn’t making a fast buck.  Most of them make no or little money on their predictions.  They really believe in what they are predicting.  So, to live in congruency, they pack up, sell off, and move to some more “sustainable” or “safe” location, and try in earnest to live in keeping with their anticipated tomorrow.  They “do it anyway” as a friend of Sharon Astyk says.

But it causes some of them tremendous social hardship.

Nostalgia for the Present

For some, they start to miss their “old life,” that “yesterday” that they abandoned with conviction.  For most living in this “yesterday,” they weren’t nearly as wastefully as others.  They were already living lean, using a fraction of resources compared to the average person in Western Civilization.  And they, themselves, are products of this Civilization they’ve come to critique.  They are writers, intellectuals, scientists, and professionals. They often leave culturally rich environs to move to remote locations known for, well, known for nothing in particular that most people care very much about.  Let’s call that location “Rural Nowhere.”

Then they wait.  And wait.  And wait.

Rural Nowhere is not noted for great employment opportunities. They’ve often given up their jobs and their incomes as a matter of conviction and necessity.  No matter how long they anticipated their resources to last, as the months and years tick on, they see the bank accounts dwindling.  Some have sold their homes, bought an RV, and drove around believing the “end of oil” is upon us.  (Yes, I know…)

Plus, if they left an intellectually alive place for Rural Nowhere, they get lonely.  They get resentful.  They start to look back at all of their colleagues and neighbors, the “Sheeple,” that continue to rake in decent salaries and take in decent cinema, without driving a few hours.  They feel increasing disdain  and then increasing hostility.

If they confidently provided a timeline, their families begin to stare at them with their own impatient brand of “Sooooo?”  Few of us would move on the promise that “the end of tomorrow” will happen in 50 years.  Most of us drag our feet at dramatic lifestyle change if doom is expected in over 5 years.  So many are stuck with an accelerating Doomline, and a stubbornly “Todaylike” tomorrow.

What happens to your marriage, when you took her out to Rural Nowhere, and you have day after day of Todaylike tomorrows?  What happens when Tomorrow stubbornly refuses to leave?

The pressure is enormous.

As the clock continues to build, not only must Tomorrow be something that is going, it starts to mutate.  Despite the hardship, Today has got to go.

Evil Believers

It is one thing to be a Panglossian, who believes that nothing in the world could possibly go wrong.  Now, however, what about those who continue to believe in Tomorrow?  They are viewed in the worst possible light.  You want children? You’re pregnant?  Those bearing children become “breeders” who should be shunned.  You bought a new car, or iphone?  You are killing off the ecosystem.

3-E Hair Shirts

But caution is in order, because it is really very difficult to live purely, even in Rural Nowhere.  To resolve the hypocrisy, some proclaim “I won’t change, it is the corporations that need to change!” They say their contribution to Demise is hardly significant. So they go on living like they did yesterday, while predicting the end of tomorrow. The rest of us us still secretly driving to buy take-out, and are ashamed of ourselves or embarrassed when we’re “caught.”

We find ourselves lusting for that “really cool” gadget, then hating ourselves.  In an attempt to purify ourselves, no different than the saints who wore hair shirts or whipped themselves into trances to rid themselves of impure thoughts, these modern day Doomers also look for relief.

As if I haven’t created enough enemies in our community at this point, allow me to push forward.

 You either support our movement, or you take your place of shame with the Sheeple and be shunned…

Nudging Along the End of Today

If civilization is going to fall, and isn’t falling fast enough, it should now be nudged along.

The solution is also an old one.

A movement is gaining popularity whereby this nudging has taken on violent overtones.  The narrative is outlined in the starkest terms:  If you love the planet, there is only one recourse to those who are killing it.  You are either with us, or against us.  You either support our movement, or you take your place of shame with the Sheeple and be shunned.

Most often, of course, history has taught us that within these movements, there appears to be two classes of people:  The Leaders and the Followers.  The Leaders are often most valuable for continuing to do what they have been doing all along:  Thinking.  Writing.  Lecturing.  Pontificating.  They are justified in any eco-transgressions because, after all, they are the Leaders, and are attempting to gather more Followers to speed up The End of Tomorrow.

The Followers

The Followers also appear to be remarkably similar over the years.  They are usually much younger than the Leaders.  They have far fewer resources and often live lives much closer to “The End of Tomorrow” than the Leaders do.  They are often directly impacted by the worst parts of today, whether this is the crappy jobs during the rise of the industrial empire, or crippling student loans today.  But whether we are talking about the turn of the century or today, the role of the Followers are the same:  they are the handmaidens, the expendables.   They read the call to action and are ready to act.  They will engage in behaviors that cause them to either die or be put in cages for a very, very long time.

Sometimes we’ve learned, decades later, that the provocateurs were actually agents of the government who were seeking to discredit a popular movement that was gaining power.  They were “plants” who said: “We have to do this!” and yet, when everyone was imprisoned or dead, these “Leaders” safely vanished.  Popular movements become “unpopular” when associated with “senseless” acts violence.

Anyone who carefully studies human history will notice this trend.  And they will notice another mantra:  “Things have never been as bad as they are today.”  And usually they are right.  And dramatic actions are called for when we are talking about the End of the World.

They will also notice how slow the progress of change is, and how unpopular ideas seem to almost overnight, become popular ideas.  And despite how dire things are, no matter how bad today is, compared to all the badness of yesterday, remarkably, “today” continued to seamlessly flow into “tomorrow,” against all the odds.  And those who wrote the Doomline re-write the predictions, and no one seems particularly interested in the miscalculation.

Now I hate to have to be the one to write any of this.  What I’m saying is hardly revolutionary or new.  In fact, what I’m saying is easily what the most conservative endorsers of Today would say in response to social critics.  I’ve hardly been a cheerleader of Today, and don’t imagine Tomorrow will be swell, either.

But I care about young people, and I care about their passion and their enthusiasm.  And while I’m terrified of the future, too, I can’t imagine how violence that will mostly impact the poor and working classes will lead to a healthier planet.  I don’t see how spending decades of your life behind bars (“in a cage”) will somehow make the world a safer place for dying species.

And while most of these Thought Leaders proclaim how delighted they’d be to give their own lives for the future of a healthy planet, they live on.

They prep on.

They pontificate on.

And they tell us over and over that if we don’t “do something,” something increasingly dramatic as their Doomlines creep forward, we won’t have Tomorrow.

So for those who believe that Today is the last day on Earth I say:

”So long, it’s been good to know you.”

For the rest of us, let’s continue to work for change, with the utmost of care, and always anticipate that Tomorrow MIGHT come.

The post Saying Goodbye to Tomorrow. appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

Two Years of Peak Oil Blues… Peak Oil Activists Cut off from Adult Daughter How to Be Maladaptive: Fourteen Tips for Mental Activities Guaranteed to Enhance your Misery during Bad Times

It was a quiet afternoon, when the man walked in, holding a gun.

He was looking for his wife’s therapist.

He was angry, and was convinced that it was this therapist, not his wife’s own decision-making, that had led her to decide to divorce him.

By the time he was finished shooting, one therapist was dead, another shot and permanently blinded.

The man was a good shot. He was a police officer.

I began working with couples in that same clinic several years later.

There is a certain edge to a place that has experienced gross, unpredictable violence, even years earlier.

That agency was lucky in some ways, because it had some excuse, some explanation for why it happened. The shooter was a violent, angry husband. He came gunning for his wife’s therapist, although he never actually shot at her therapist. It didn’t matter. Once you walk into a place looking to kill, anyone becomes a target. I don’t know of a case where a person just leaves, unable to find their target. Once the decision to kill is made, the rage propels an outburst, a blood lust.

“I Can Talk Him Down”

Another colleague, a former teacher of mine, told us a teaching tale. He was doing crisis work, and a patient of his had a gun and was threatening people. My teacher was the patient’s therapist at the time. He was convinced that, being the therapist, he could “talk the man down.” After the first shot missed him, he changed his mind.

In this post, I would like to acknowledge the death of the school psychologist, Mary Sherlach, who was murdered in Newtown, CT.  Like my former professor, perhaps she believed she could reach the person, and stop the violence.

I would also like to talk about a similar incident that killed a number of innocent children in Great Britain, and how, in our desperate need for a solution, any solution, we pick one, and convince ourselves that this is the right one. This will stop senseless acts. This will stop the insane, or those bordering on it, from doing insane things.

Explanations

We can focus on a target, when none is presented to us. We need a target to focus our own terror, fury and grief.

Back in March of 1996, Great Britain targeted the legal ownership of handguns, after a former Scout leader fired his registered handgun in a gymnasium, killing 16 children and their teacher, before killing himself. Eleven other children and 3 adults were badly wounded. The gunman had enough ammo to kill everyone in the building. He was heading for a school assembly, but was misinformed about the time it began. Instead, he fired 105 rounds in three minutes into two buildings, from the four pistols he carried with him.

It remains the deadliest massacre in Great Britain.

They were five- and six-year olds.

The Community

It was unbelievable to so many people. Violence was expected to happen to children in urban areas, where assaults of all kinds are commonplace. It seems to be all but dismissed there, where we have an explanation. But Dunblane, Scotland was a prosperous community, far away from urban cares. Parents had a pact with their world. They chose the town because of its good schools. They sent their children to a “happy” and “safe” place, and no one doubted that they would return home safe at the end of each day.

The Age Group

Many can explain away violence of teens toward teens.  But so few can grasp why rage is directed at 5 year olds.

Parents who lose small children live in a persistent psychological torment.

Children at 5 and 6 years old begin to get a grip on the world in a way 3-4 year olds can’t. They tell stories with a beginning, middle, and an end. They have a clear sense of right and wrong, and the “rules.” They like school, and they like to please. Sometimes they tell “stories” of the way things “should” have happened, instead of the way they actually did. Adults call that “lying” but that word is too harsh for a 5 year old. It’s just a good story, with a “correct” ending. They also like a good joke or riddle. Five year olds develop greater empathy, prefer their own gender, and have best friends. They can begin to talk to themselves to calm down, but can also get easily upset when things aren’t “right” or are “not fair.” They begin to understand the concept of death and have many questions about it.

In a documentary about the Dunblane Massacre, there is a heartbreaking scene, where a father of one of these children talks about his delightful five year old, Sophie, who was taken from him 10 years earlier.

“She liked drawings, she liked videos, she liked going to parties and playing in the [garbled] pool…various things like that… she liked playing swimming, she was a bright, intelligent, talkative, friendly, girl, and a pleasure to be with.”

Sophie’s mother had died of cancer two and a half years earlier.  He knows it is unreasonable, but blames himself for Sophie’s death because he promised his wife he’d take care of Sophie after she was gone.

It is remarkable how much pain one individual can bear.

The Outcry

The town florist in Dunblane spoke of the continuous calls from people all over the world, people with no connection to the family or the town, ordering flowers with poems, quotes, words of support. They sent stuffed animals.  Then money.  We can’t bear our own grief, and want to show the bereaved that we feel pain, too.  We want to reach out and comfort ourselves and them.

At first, these gifts lined the streets. Then were transferred to the grave sites  Sophie’s father remembered the rustling of “cellophane flowers” he called them.

Flowers enclosed in cellophane…. it is an auditory memory that brings back that traumatic time whenever he hears it.

The Murderer

Sophie’s father asks a question that we all want the answer to:

“How does society deal with somebody who is on the margins, but has never committed a crime, that can actually be seen by the legal system, as a crime?”

The man who had done the shooting was murmured to have acted in sexually inappropriate ways with the children under his care. He wrote the Queen, protesting that people thought of him as a pervert. As a result, his business in this area of small towns began to falter, and then failed.

He was angry that he had been removed from contact with children.

However his other passion, hand guns, was still alive.

No one in the documentary could say the word “pedophile.” The best they could express was that the man took children into his van, and there were complaints against him to authorities, but “nothing was ever done.” Instead, he was shunned by the community.

We don’t know why he loaded his guns and went to kill children that morning. But we do know what happened afterward.

The Response

The lives of the families of those dead children were forever impacted. Their enormous grief mutated into rage, as they realized that the man who had killed their children practiced his aim, and carried his handguns legally. He had a firearms license for 19 years, and held memberships at three target shooting gun clubs in the area.  They took united action to give meaning to an otherwise senseless act.

The Snowdrop Campaign

A campaign was begun, entitled The Snowdrop Campaign, after the only flower that bloomed in that part of Scotland in March. By July, over 700,000 signatures had been gathered. A united grief was mobilized. Within 24 months, the Campaign was successful: there was a complete ban on handguns in Great Britain (with a few areas like Northern Ireland exempted).

It was the tightest legislation on guns in the world.

The gymnasium was later torn down and replaced with a garden. Churches in the town put up stain glass windows with doves and snowflakes representing the dead and injured children. Ted Christopher added an additional verse to Bob Dylan’s song “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,”  with the siblings of the dead kindergarteners singing the refrain.

The island was now too small a place to allow those “on the margins” to have access to weapons. Anyone wanting to carry a gun was guilty, and look upon with hostility and scorn.

School Shooters

In the old days, three groups of people harmed others in elementary schools: unrequited lovers who killed the school maiden who rejected them; teachers or students who killed other teachers or students; or members of the school board. There were rare exceptions.

Today, the phenomenon is so common the perpetrators are given a name: “School Shooters.” Guns are used in the USA, but in China they have a phenomenon of School Stabbers. The accelerated rate of stabbings of elementary school mass stabbings in China since 2003 is remarkable. There were seven attacks on elementary school children in 2010 alone.

School Shooters are profiled by the FBI. One of my former supervisors is an expert on the phenomenon of school shootings. The typical profile is a kid who is “on the margins.” Often bullied, left out, angry. These are also sometimes kids that can achieve in other ways, but not socially.

Socially, they are miserable.

They don’t do the heinous act spontaneously. They acquire their weapons and carefully plan their attack.

If we could somehow outlaw social misery, we could probably solve a great many more social ills than School Shooters. In the meanwhile, another predictable result of these tragedies is a moral panic that settles in those of us who bear witness.

There will continue to be a lot of discussion about what causes such terrifying outbursts of violence against the helpless and innocent. It is so intolerable for us to believe that such unpredictability can exist in the world. Some will blame guns, some mental illness, or the lack of available mental health services. Others, because we are talking about a 20 year old, will blame his mother or her political beliefs about the future, claiming that she was a paranoid survivalist waiting for the end of civilization as we know it.  But we need to blame.  We need to explain.  We need to settle ourselves that if we know, if we understand, we can re-gain control.

But whatever reason we use to comfort ourselves, we need to have a reason. We need to be convinced that once we know why things went so wrong in such “right” places like Dunblane, Scotland or Newtown, CT, we can right the wrong, and we can rest easier.

I  honor you, my colleague, Mary Sherlach, and to all of those in grieving, may the memory of each of the dead be a blessing to you.

The post Grappling with the Inexplicable – A Psychologist Looks at Newtown CT appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

PO Psychologist Ponders: Have I Gone Off the Deep End? Living with Mass Denial? Psychologist Lives Clean Off the Grid for 30 Years Politics of Peak Oil and Everyday Life

That’s right, you, that miraculous machine that takes in food energy and converts it into useful work.  Wait a minute you say, I am a pencil pushing paper shuffling e-mail dynamo, how is that going to be useful alternate energy in the world unfolding before us?  Well, in a few words, it won’t.  One of the mantras we have heard repeated during this economic downturn, is that to stay employed you have to constantly re-invent yourself.  Welcome to the biggest re-invention you will ever experience, the world’s newest (and oldest!) alternate energy source.  This alternate energy source already runs on bio-fuels without any need to convert its inner workings.  It will work in extreme heat or cold, just not as well as in moderate temperatures.

Uh oh, I think I hear the term physical conditioning coming.  Is this some kind of New Year’s resolution thing?  I don’t do well with those.  Well, those of us who have been to a Dr. in the last 10 years have already heard the speech, so I will dispense with it here.  What I would like to focus on is how we can make better use of this age old form of alternate energy in the future.  If one looks at a copy of an old Sears catalog from the late 1800’s, you will find all sorts of tools to multiply one’s ability to accomplish work.  Some are simple and still in use today, the crowbar and the pulley being two such items.  Others are a little more complex, such as the bicycle.  In order for these to be useful to you, two things must be in place.  First, you must understand how to use these tools in a manner for which they were designed, and their limitations.  Secondly, you must possess or have access to these tools when they are needed.

There is a second way to multiply this alternate energy when needed, recruit other alternate energy supplies to assist you with your task at hand.  This may be the biggest challenge to the new alternate energy.  We have lived several decades, at least one full generation, with the notion that to ask for help is a sign of weakness.  Our pride can be our undoing.  In order for this alternate energy of the future (and the past) to be effective, it will have to be a collective effort in many cases.  Unless you live in a very small community, calling your friend on the other side of town to assist may not be your best idea.  Instead, you will need to start cultivating the fields of neighbors right around you.  The sooner the better.   Not only can you acquire different skill sets by doing so, but you can come up with a way to multiply your tool access in the process.  It will usually be sufficient for there to be only one or two sets of certain tools among your group to accomplish most tasks.  It is very inefficient for everyone to have a copy of the same tool set, if it isn’t used very often.  Part of the process to break the ice, is to have an inventory of your own tools and skills  which you pass to each neighbor with the understanding that they are available if needed, and ask them to add anything to the list they might be able to make available if needed.  This is an early step in making “community” right where you live.

Up to now, this seems to be a “me and mine” or “you and yours” type of arrangement.  There is another group you need to realize your alternate energy will have to be used for.  In your “community of neighbors” will be those whose alternate energy has decreased to a barely functioning level, either by age or physical infirmities, who will have to depend on you and your neighbors to assist with, or in some cases completely take on a task of theirs which is beyond their capability.  In the future, giving them a phone number of a United Way agency or telling them to call an out of town relative for assistance will probably not be an option, and will not discharge your obligations to the “community”.

All of this prepping for the new alternate energy takes something all of us try to hoard, TIME.  Some of your neighbors today will see no reason to invest any of their time in any endeavor of this sort, because they don’t see a problem they can’t solve themselves or with a phone call……..yet.  I’m reminded of times when a strong hurricane is approaching shore, and the population has been put under a mandatory evacuation order, there are still those who want to do it all themselves and stay put, their pride won’t allow them to be anything but completely independent.  Unfortunately, they put others at grave risk trying to rescue them later.  You probably won’t be able to convince a large portion of your neighbor community to work at mutual assistance initially, but seeing it in action can be a powerful incentive.  Somebody from the city or the state is not going to come in to set up the kind of “community” you need, it will have to originate with YOU.  Will you start using your alternate energy productively today?  Let’s hope so.  It may be all we have available in a few years.

Chuck Willis

written by Chuck Willis on 1/9/11

The post Alternate Energy – It may be closer than you think appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

Alternate Energy – It may be closer than you think Update: “Wise Grandmother” Moves to a New Community Kucinich Speaks: Expanding Industry, Saving Energy, and NO SACRIFICE !

Chuck Willis Teaching about Peak Oil

Major contributor to this blog, and my dear friend Chuck Willis, died suddenly on Tuesday, Oct 30, 2012 in Wichita, Kansas.

Chuck has contributed 54 blog entries during his years of writing for Peak Oil Blues.  He was working on another one right before he died.  His son will finish it and forward it to me.

Here is my tribute to him.

Early Years

College

In 1960 – 1965, Chuck received his B.S. in both Math and Physics at The University of Texas at Austin.

Chuck spent his professional career doing many things.

Early Work in Computers

He worked on the earliest prototypes of computers.  In 2008, he wrote to me about it:

I was one of 1900 who turned the world upside down 43 years ago. I went to work for IBM straight out of college in their Advanced Systems Development labs in the mountains outside of San Jose California.  I was part of the team that  developed the System 360 computer, the foundation of nearly every computer since. Before the 360, no computer could talk to another computer. Every time a new model computer came out, all of the programming had to be re-written before it could be used.  A computer then could only run one program at a time. The 360 design changed all that. This is why your PC is called an IBM compatible PC, it is compatible to the old 360 design, which is at the heart of every computer system since (except Univac/Unisys and Apple MAC, which are built on a different design).

My job was to design a new data access method for Disc called BDAM. It was very fast, but fragmented the disc drive (sound familiar?), and fell out of favor in the mainframe world in the mid 70s, except for check processing, where it is still at the core. I designed and developed that access method with 3 other guys, 2 in San Jose and one in White Plains, NY. If you have a hard drive on your PC, a variant of that access method is storing your information right now. As such, I have had a very unique view of the beginnings of the information age.

When I joined IBM, the computer industry was at the stage of where aviation was in 1912. With the 360, we took it to where aviation was in 1940.  I am seriously thinking of writing a book about that era.

To our great loss, he never did write that book, to my knowledge.

Chuck never bragged about his past.  He just stated it, as a fact. And when he wrote to me, I always learned something new and interesting:

The three most costly projects in the decade of the 1960s were NASA’s race to the moon, the IBM 360, and a distant third, the interstate highway system. The race to the moon would not have been possible were it not for the 360 that ran the Apollo missions.

Navy Years

When I went into the NAVY, I remained on the IBM payroll and they paid the difference between my NAVY salary and my IBM salary, in case there were problems that arose that the other 3 guys couldn’t handle.

You got that?  IBM kept him on the payroll, despite his being in the Navy, because they needed him “just in case.”

Fighter Pilot and Flying Stories

He was a fighter pilot in the Navy, and used to remind me of the old chestnut: “There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.”

He used flying stories to encourage and inspire his readers. Here is a story from his early flying days, in response to a very intimate and revealing post I wrote, that I was unsure about, a post that explained my long absence in my contributing to this blog:

When I was learning to fly, on my second solo, my instructor sent me out to the practice area about 15 miles from the airport to do the “stall series”, one of my least favorite activities in a plane(where you make it quit flying).  I was immediately surprised by the steep angle it took to stall the plane with only one aboard.  I completed the power off stalls with no big problems.  I started the full power stalls from about 3500 feet above the ground.

On the first stall, I must have gotten sloppy with the rudder, and when it stalled it did something I totally didn’t expect, the plane dropped instantly into a spin, not just a spin but an upside down spin.  For an experienced pilot with proper training, spins are a non problem, but years before I took my training, spin recovery had been removed from the training requirements because so many were killing themselves practicing it.

Everything I tried to recover just made it worse.  In desperation, I turned loose of all the controls and to my utter joy the plane righted itself into a spiral dive, which I could recover from, and I recovered about 500 ft above the ground.  I climbed up to 3000 feet, trimmed the plane for level flight, and was shaking like a leaf in a windstorm.  I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to land the plane at the airport as all my confidence in my training and abilities was totally gone.

I got back to the airport and somehow got it on the ground.  I was sure I would never try to fly an airplane again, I didn’t think I had what it took.  When I went back in the hanger, my instructor asked me what had happened as I was still shaking and pale as a ghost.  I told him I was throwing in the towel, it was more than I could do.  He would hear nothing of it, took the keys from me and marched me back to the plane.  We took off and flew back to the practice area, and he told me we were going to de-mystify the terror of the spin.  I was protesting loudly, but he proceeded to spin the plane and have me follow his movements with the controls.  Then we climbed back up, and he spun the plane and had me recover it.  We did that 5 more times, then went back to the airport.

I still had apprehension on my next solo, but I also had the self confidence that hey I’ve done this before and now have the experience to do it again and recover if necessary.  Over the years I have been so thankful that my instructor encouraged me to face my fears head on, get back in the saddle, and go further down the path of life.  I have had to do that many times in my professional and personal life.  Your writing is a perfect example of that.  You have returned to the saddle with a firm idea that hey, I can conquer this, and make a great contribution, not only to others, but myself.

He was not a person prone to hyperbole.  Instead, he delivered his terrifying messages about what was to come calmly and evenly, in his slow Texan drawl.  He had many of the features others would call a “pilot persona.” While there is a Hollywood lore about fighter pilots having the”right stuff,” (Wolfe, 1980) possessing extreme levels of confidence, assertiveness, and competitiveness, the true psychological profile is more complex. What appears to be true is that both male and female combat pilots are considerably less neurotic and more conscientious than others.

Conscientiousness – (efficient/organized vs. easy-going/careless). A tendency to show self-discipline, act dutifully, and aim for achievement; planned rather than spontaneous behavior; organized, and dependable.

Low Neuroticism - individuals who score low in neuroticism are less easily upset and are less emotionally reactive. They tend to be calm, emotionally stable, and free from persistent negative feelings.

Career Challenges as Teaching Tales

At the end of 2010, when my husband was at a low point, Chuck sent me his own personal story about his early career life, to inspire my husband to “hang in there,” when dealing with unreasonable bosses. He also sent my husband a key chain with a logo my husband still has “(Expect the Best and Deliver What You Promise)”.  Here is Chuck’s story to Dan:

Chuck started working at the Fourth National Bank and Trust, one of the oldest banks in Kansas, in the fall of 1980.  He worked for a department with a turnover rate running about 70-75% a year, a staff of 26 under him, and a completely incompetent Department Manager. In addition, each terminal was on a Lazy Susan type of turntable between cubicles and shared by two programmers, so only one person could work at a time.

His boss would regularly promise a program or enhancement to a system to others in the company, and commit to a delivery date without a clue about what it would take or what work it would interrupt, to accomplish it.

Then, he’d ask Chuck to make sure it got done.

The 26 employees were upset with all the work coming down the pipeline without a break and had to work 60-70 hour weeks at lower pay than what the aircraft companies in the area normally paid. Chuck began working with his team, asking them for ideas to improve their situation, and blind copying them on many of the memos he was sending to his boss requesting changes. They began to accept that he was on “their side” and started drastically increasing productivity. The turnover rate dropped from 70-75% to about 20% in one year, under his leadership.

Two years later, Chuck was asked by his boss’s superior to run a conversion program from DOS to MVS, a job that had thousands of programs, all which had to be re-written to run under MVS, and at the same time keep up the bank’s normal maintenance of daily operations and changes. He would be given no additional personnel.

This was the largest project he was ever to undertake in his professional career, and agreed to it only if he could set the timelines and control the entire project.  His bosses’ superior agreed, promising rich financial rewards upon its success.   Over the next 16 months he and his staff put in nearly 50 man years of work to get us converted.  He personally put in over 2100 hours of overtime above normal work hours, while several of his staff put in over 2500 hours of overtime.

I used the old Navy Plan of the Day format for my daily reporting to management.  Every morning at 8:30am I met for 30-45 minutes with my staff managers, IBM, and computer operations, discussing current problems and solutions, and what our goal was by the end of the day.

The year 1983 was a blur, more intense than anything I had ever done.  We ran ourselves crazy trying to tame this elephant.  How Linda endured my preoccupation, late hours, short temper, and total physical exhaustion is beyond me.  No member of my staff was immune.  I sent out regular letters to the spouses of my staff trying to explain as best I could the magnitude of what we were doing and how much I appreciated their understanding and support.  Tempers were on a short fuse for everybody.

The conversion was a strictly one-way proposition, once we switched over, there was no going back to the old systems, it had to work.  It was a very successful conversion. IBM indicated it was the smoothest they had ever seen. We had converted over 4000 programs and tens of thousands of files, while keeping the everyday business running.

His higher-level superior died suddenly at the age of 44, and the incompetent one took over.  Upon completion, this man never sent as much as a one line memo congratulating the staff on this extraordinary achievement.  In addition, no one got even a penny for their efforts, including Chuck.  He found out later that his boss took all the credit for the success of the project, and received large bonus payments at year end.

He wanted my husband to know that he had been where he was, and that if my husband kept putting one foot in front of the other, he would eventulaly get his bearings back.  Chuck was offered a job he loved, and stayed in for 30 years shortly after this.

Here is the part of the story that I really loved:

I had become mentally and physically exhausted by March of 1984.  Linda and I went over to Riverside park one warm afternoon to talk about what we could do to restore me and us together, something we have done frequently.  One thing we fell back to was that we had really enjoyed the camping experience at the World’s Fair, even with all the inconveniences.  We brainstormed about what we could do to recapture some of that freedom, and hit on the idea of acquiring an old VW camper van, which would be about 2 steps up from tent camping.

I started looking around in the classified ads at the library for all the area newspapers.  One showed up in the Kansas City newspaper for a 1973 model van for $1200, which I could borrow, and using the tax refund we had just obtained.  We drove up to Kansas City on a Saturday and took it for a test drive, and found it to be in pretty good condition, but it was a bright orange color.  We closed the deal and I drove the beast back to Wichita with Linda following me.  We promptly named it the “Great Pumpkin” from an annual cartoon series in the Charlie Brown cartoons around Halloween.

Linda and I decided that our first outing in the Great Pumpkin should be back to Oshkosh, so she could enjoy the serenity of Partridge Lake.  Being that the trip would be the first long trip in the Great Pumpkin, we weren’t sure of what adventures would lie ahead of us.  It didn’t take long for the “adventures” to start.  When we went out to leave, the VW refused to turn over to start.  We pushed it down the hill to get rolling and popped the clutch to start it and returned dejected back to Wichita.  I got up early next morning and did some trouble shooting, and was able to jury rig it to start.  I went back in and announced to everybody that we were off again, and we loaded up for the second try.  This time it behaved for the most part, except about every 3^rd time I tried to start it, I would have to crawl underneath and jumper from the battery to the starter solenoid.  We made it to Partridge Lake.  It was worth it.  I taught  We gradually adjusted to camper living, and found it to be very relaxing.  On the way back we discovered one of the drawbacks to the bright orange color, it attracted bees like crazy.   Over the next 18 years we owned the VW, we constantly worked on it to improve its usefulness.

The three worst years I had at work, were years I would get the greasy hands and work like crazy on that van ( I souped it up with a Corvair engine and gearbox that I rebuilt from the ground up – first and only engine I have ever rebuilt).  We enjoyed that van for close to 20 years before we sold it.  Something good can come out of working out your frustrations, even if you have to learn by trial and error.

At other times I have painted pictures, taken up the banjo (absolutely no musical talent, but enjoyed taking lessons and learning to plink and plunk), so encourage Dan to find a physical creative outlet.  Currently Linda and I carve ships (the Edmund Fitzgerald) and sell to the Great Lakes Shipwreck museum near Whitefish Bay, MI, something we have been doing for about 12 years.  Carve all winter, paint in the spring, sell in the spring summerand fall.  We have created close to 1000 of the small ships and around 220 of the large ones.

Contingency Planner for B of A

Next, he went to work for Bank of America, a job that he loved, and retired after 30 years as a Vice President and Senior Contingency Specialist.  His nickname there was “Doctor Doom,” because his work depended on his ability to understand how complex systems interrelate, and to predict the trajectory of how they break down and how to mitigate this impact. The largest bank in the USA, and the 10th largest in the world can hire the best and the brightest to do this work.  Chuck was one of them.  It was in this capacity that he learned about Peak Oil.

Storm Spotter for Tornadoes

After he retired, he continued his work at a trained volunteer of storm spotters, spending 27 years at it, intentionally putting himself in harm’s way, but no doubt saving thousands of lives.  Meteorologists use radar to forecast where tornadoes might form. But, the radar can’t detect actual tornadoes. People like Chuck are needed to do that.

Storm spotters are different that storm chasers. Spotters work in organized networks to observe and confirm severe weather events for the NWS and for local emergency managers.

I talked to a meteoroligist here last week, and she said the severe storms forecast center in Oklahoma is very apprehensive about the tornado season from late March through mid June.  I’ve been going out into the western part of the county from Wichita two going up and down roads with a map noting safe observation points and possible places with storm shelters, as well as making sure there are no dead communication areas with my equipment for when the weather bureau sends us spotters out into the field.  Our county is about 40 miles by 30 miles so we have a lot of territory to cover.

[I am ] Working on getting all my equipment ready for the upcoming FEMA exercise on April 7-8, had to design and currently building out a new power supply for my mobile FM transmitter that I will have to use at the hospital I’m assigned to as their equipment broke down, and so I will have to use mine instead.   Having to learn some new technology, but that is a good thing, got to keep the little grey cells humming!!

Humanitarian

Chuck was also an active humanitarian and did many acts of charity.  This excerpt gives you a sense for his empathy, compassion, humanitarianism, and vision.

Tonight our small bible study and discussion group has our monthly duty of serving the evening meal at the Union Rescue Mission.  Linda and I worked that last month.  It was sobering.  We had prepared ourselves for the burned out druggies and alcoholics, but what caught us off guard was that more than half of the 230 people we served that evening were clean cut, well dressed (compared to most homeless folks) and polite young- to middle-aged individuals, the Joe Average you pass on the street.  You could look into their eyes and just see the hurt and bewilderment at how they went from a functioning part of society to unemployed homeless, being fed by strangers.  The Union Rescue Mission purchased a nursing home on the outskirts of the city that was closed by the state, and uses it to provide two meals a day and house the folks for sleeping at night on rubber mats.  It really drove home the point of how bad the economy has really become.  When you see true hard core hunger that close up and close to home, it really shakes you to the core over what is coming.

I talked to him about how he saw the future, and how I could be more useful to people who read me.

One of my major concerns that is starting to be formulated in my mind, is that the peak oil onset may not allow time for an orderly transition to a downsized lifestyle. Political action to do something on a large scale is just not going to happen, for one thing, because of limited tax revenues. I’m beginning to feel like we will be thrust suddenly into a reduced lifestyle in the next couple of years, sort of being laid off from the energy society. Most people will not have the time or inclination to research all the ramifications this has for them personally, and how to develop a survival mindset, when the politcal correctness crowd has given the word “survival” such a negative connotation. They will however read the “Dear Abby of Peak Oil” perhaps.

Deep Religious Faith

Chuck was a man of profound religious faith, that was a guiding force in his life.  It was woven into the very fabric of his being, not a coat he tried on one day a week.  His faith was unshakable and provided him with enormous personal comfort.

Support and Encouragement

I will leave you with one final quote for now.  As I’ve already mentioned, 2011 was a very difficult year for me.  My Mother died, a foster child got into a car accident, my husband was depressed over a difficult employment situation, and several other personal trials drove me to write to Chuck for support and guidance.  He wrote the following back in his email:

You sound like you have the February blues. When you get up in the morning, look to the east.  Somewhere in the trees and clouds you will find the sun. No matter what happens with the economy, energy or environment, the sun will be there, each and every day. You and Dan have had everything and the kitchen sink thrown at you the last 60 days. It has got to be overwhelming.  When I have more crap than any individual person should endure, I remember Elton John’s song, “I’m Still Standing.”  For some reason it always encourages me to take another step.

Wish I had some profound words of wisdom to offer, but that is the best I can come up with.

I will miss those words of  encouragement.  Thank you, Chuck, for your tremendous contribution to this blog and my life.

I will forward any messagesof gratitude or condolences left in the comments section of this post to his wife, Linda.

If you’d like to take a look at the 54 (soon to be 55) articles he’s contributed gratis over the years, you can find all of them at The Best of POB under the heading “Chuck Willis.”  I will also be posting more of his writings, some I found in my inbox recently.

The post In Memory of Chuck Willis appeared first on Peak Oil Blues.

Related posts:

The Willis Parking Lot Theorem In Memory of Pat Is It Just Me???