September 30, 2005

Doctor Lenny's Learning Environment

I work for youth. Given that youth have no representation in society, we do them a disservice by forcing public education and not providing skills for competitive thinking. Given that the past five years, I have been raising grant money for youth programs that succeed with youth, but fail to provide me with sustainance; i feel that i can no longer provide services in education or science free to the adult community. To this end, all adult persons wishing my time are referred to Bob Craft at Smotis, Inc.

Everybody else - those of us who have never grown up, or have grown and revel in the wisdom of their ways are invited to help create doctor lenny's learning environment - Redile in Practice. My current fee is five hours per hour - if you take an hour of science training in a field of your interest, you owe me five hours of your time for the service - which i promise will be applied to your continuing knowledge base.

Courses will be offered on a regular inconsistent schedule and will contain a 1 hour on-line interactive lecture on topic, about four hours of self-directed reading and homework, a few on-line quizzes and an appearance at a certification workshop. These workshops will be held in conjunction with public service projects and will be the events where we spend the debt hours. Continuing students will find their debt lowered in hour per hour contact time. No credit - goal is to manufacture profitable natural resource based businesses.

Buy in by spending time in the first measurement class.

September 29, 2005

The Covenant

XXResponse to James L. Wilson: There are quite a few problems with the proposed fixes for restoring the covenant to workable form. There has to be a respect for individual sovereignty, with the knowledgeable acquiescence of responsibility to people who are temporarily willing to assume power in order to accomplish a societal goal. But how can we develop horizontal structures unless all the people involved in the governance do their homework and provide expertise and leadership in a specific area of their interest. We must regain the ability to have confidence in our own ability - to not have to ask for permission or forgiveness - but just to be.
XXOn another note, enjoyed visiting with Tonya and Brad and several others looking to connect south county youth to opportunities to learn. The Douglas County Youth Summit at the Fairgrounds next Friday is the place to be.

EH - 32 Medicine

Dr. Carolyn Dean has some really relevant questions.

Get howdt

The Zone is a place where thinking about math, science, philosophy, particle physics and other things gets played howdt and worked howdt. The fool Dr. Lenny wishes to play with fire by doing politics, and that isn't really the purpose of the Zone - so our candidate will be excommunicated from political posts here - Get howdt is his own way of doing things.

Professionally - the promotion of math and science as fundamental to the world view rather than optional knowledge is important, and Dr. Lenny will be an actor - using the Bullworth approach as a bully pulpit to generate a name for a future run for congress. A real school in math and science will be developed using the Redile system thru OSEN - the political interplay will be to develop a path of funding, since the schools are a monopoly and real educators that are frozen howdt still have to subsist.

September 28, 2005

I wundr

how many laws did i break today? Can i break McCain/Feingold every single day? may i be a pied piper? are we a lemming nation?
check howdt - Get Howdt! - the new political blog where Dr. Lenny (our hero) harps on the county establishment. Follow his trek into the sewage system we call election politix. barf, gag, gasp - but somebody's got to do it and most of our 'leaders' are scurrying, like rats in a storm.

Where's the money?

Dam issues again take precedence in our local locale. Milltown Hill roars back, so today i asked the county commissioners for their cost/benefit analysis and got invited to spend my time unpaid at their budget meetings. I invited a few acquaintances in the press to give me a jingle, but i plan to blog the way to the congress in 2008 - no holds barred. I'll work for a congressman if i can't get elected, but my guess is that the economy gonna be so bad that no elected politician remains in office.
We desperately need real people to run, so leadership involves rolling up the sleeves and being howdt there on the front line of the debate - turn off the funding spigot for the war on the world. Just say no to the war on terror, the war on drugs and the war on the people that live in Iraq. Stop coercive politics by electing non-politicians. Reduce the rules masquerading as laws. Make the laws understandable to the people affected. And give people a government that reflects our persons, not just our lawyers, some medics and our commerce.

Waste - get howdt - and run

As times get tight, people can no longer afford to waste any of the bounties that are provided. Leadership requires walking the walk while talking the talk - but doing rather than talking is the much preferred course of action. Measuring what we accomplish by wasting less will encourage patterns that physically waste less.
Soul search has led me to believe that the PTB will not allow the problems to be fixed. I will give one more major attempt to change - but even though Rediling the schools would educate, that no longer appears 2B the purpose of schools. We must shrink grubbermint and the only means to shrink it is by getting elected and reducing the volume of rules.
While i would rather run for congress as a scientist on a mission, politix is done best closest to home. Thus, i went in to file for county commissioner yesterday - and was not allowed to file - because independents have no primary mechanism. They wouldn't take my check and allow me to start a legit campaign. Instead i will spend more time flapping jaws with people paid to obfuscate. i am documenting the bureaucratic waste of time required 2B able to file for office, run for office and win office. The count is at 1 interaction with county level officials - 30 minutes. In the end, i expect to get all this time back, paid in full by the grubbermint at either lawyer or full PhD rates. I then expect to contribute the award back to the cause. I do not consider this a waste of time, because it will demonstrate the absurdity and the need for a clean election mechanism that is transparent, non-coercive and legitimately fair.

So if you wish to contribute to the cause - please wait until later - 20.06 or 200.6 or 2006 or 20060 in any unit of currency. All proceeds of political fund-raising will be spent in the venue of the office (county commissioner - spending in douglas county). All proceeds of educational fund-raising will be translated into value to the youth of the community in the venue decided by the contributor. time contributions (investments in people) are accepted any time - in Dr. Lenny's office. The machine begins rolling on saturday, oct 1. Athletes, rock stars and rocket scientists: ask about the investment potential . Get howdt

September 26, 2005

ode 2 dead pen

dip tip 2 ink
as sole pen
slowly dies
must wander
back 2 catch
another
such it B
for bics n
people
always dying
@ most
inopportune
times 4
us living
n'yet
life goes on

lemme howdt (c) 2005

Tsalila

Just the start of a photo essay - the Umpqua Soil and Water Conservation District and the Oregon Natural Resources Research Institute teamed up on macroinvertebrate education - and had kids in the pools. Check out the water scorpion.


September 23, 2005

Devil Dog

Sometimes, you just feel like a devil dog, chocolate on the outside, with vanilla on the inside - creamy - sometime you just feel like a devil dog. Drake's cakes marketing campaign - mid 60's. catchy jingle - clean point.
Fast forward to 2005. Look at any television commercial in terms of cost of production and message. Look at the value of the product compared to the cost and the benefit of use. How much of the stuff would you really buy if the yappers weren't yapping at you to buy their stuff.
Guess what. Belt tightening is just beginning. It all about what you value - if you know, you'll be a lot happier as times get tight. I just feel like a devil dog - time to bug howdt.

Ethanol

The calculations for energy have to favor leaving bigger molecules bigger rsther than expend energy to make them smaller. However, lacking chemical insight, this article makes economic arguments to draw the same conclusion.

September 22, 2005

Media misnomer

'Respected scientists in major universities' is an oxymoron. Since 1995, major universities have tended to side with the oil industry as the public/private partnerships have been patent driven and profit oriented. Scince needs to be made into a personal endeavor - it is much closer to a religious belief than an intellectual enterprise for most people. Enlightenment has led to discriminating against discrimination, which is how we proceed to choose. No wonder everyone's confused.

September 20, 2005

Food featured

Getting ready to continue the coastal adventure - this weekend featured good company and a legitimate party at grandma treetoads pad. Aaron's 50th b'day feature a surprise visit from April. Shane took care of the important stuff - see the picture. The whole hog was supplemented by a bushel of oysters, a keg of dos equis, and a sleeve of elk ribs. Plus the burrito queen's burritos the next morning. Coming up next is Tsalila - a salmon festival that seems to celebrate fall rain every year. Off to bug howdt.

September 18, 2005

Extending Horizons 31 - Forests

Koehler justifies the underground environmental movement - the one that comes from land owners and land managers that know how to manage land and strenuously object to the current embarrassments of the agencies current approach. Jim C. - pay heed to these voices or they will come back and bite you. Pam B. - tough position but you know what has to be done - get your partnerships built based on mutual benefit to your communities. Dr. Lenny enjoys working with designated federal officials - Jay C. - keep progressing forward with community participation, even when it's not legislated, just because you should.

September 16, 2005

Festival Time - Bug Howdt

For the next ten days, Doctor Lenny's Traveling Circus will relocate to beautiful downtown Reedsport and the Umpqua Discovery Center for the Tsalila Festival.

The Oregon Natural Resources Research Institute will be partnering with the Umpqua Soil and Water Conservation District to provide a Bug Excursion - introducing understream life during the elementary school education fest Wednesday through Friday. In addition, our US Forest Service Blister Rust Monitors will use a poster session to inform the public of their discoveries during the public weekend. Salmon Cookout. Invest in indulging yourself on the coast. Last year we watched wooden bears being carved by chainsaw.
We found this guy in the North Umpqua for the first time in 2002 - photo credit to Jeff Adams - kudos for the kids that have gotten involved with me these past five years. This will be doctor Lenny's last official capacity as an ONRRI scientist - as of October 1 - we are Howdt on our own.

September 14, 2005

Chemistry Explained : Fluorine

Doctor Lenny is a chemist by training and a philosopher by design. He thinks about things and does not allow prevailing opinion to interfere with his methods. Science cannot be done by consensus. In thinking about all the elements and how they are distributed, it strikes the doc that we have an absolute dependence on more elements that are readily available in our local environments. So how do elements migrate through the food chain to get where they need to be?

In order to promote science and to replace the late Carl Sagan as a voice that people recognize that represents knowledge and truth for its own sake, Doctor Lenny will start a weekly article series featuring the chemistry of one element from the periodic table. We start tonite with Flourine - Element number nine. The form with one extra electron, fluoride, is added to drinking water. Tonight, Doctor Lenny asks - why?


Fluoridation - Deserving of a closer look?

XXXThere are always two sides to every coin and many times, it becomes difficult to tell heads from tails. Information collected must be taken with a grain of salt - sources need be considered and when conflicts occur - follow the money. Recently, there has been a further push to have communities fluoridate their water supplies. A note on the internet correlating fluoridation with school violence coincided with a local forum on fluoridation presented by a state health official and a local dentist. The major question that needs to be resolved is - what is the physiological effect of fluoride on human development? A few hours of research have not come close to answering that question - but it has lead to a wealth of useful information.
XXXFluorine is an element that belongs to the halogen family. The overwhelming desire of a fluorine molecule is to add a single electron and become the fluoride ion. This negatively charged anion binds to positive charged metal cations to create a form of salt. Fluoride salts are very soluble in water and the fluoride ion has been shown to bind with calcium to make the very strong compound calcium fluoride, CaF2 ,which make the enamel layer of teeth tougher. The American Dental Association has endorsed community water fluoridation since 1950 and has sponsored research that shows that 'optimal levels of fluoride does not harm people or the environment.' (1)
XXXSome beg to differ. A search of the term fluoridation on an internet search engine brings up a myriad of sites. One site details the origins of the fluoride ion used for community fluoridation - the compound sodium fluoride. The label of sodium fluoride containers says corrosive poison in large red letters. In fact, the FDA ranks fluoride ions as a 4.5 on their 6-point toxin scale. Commercial sodium fluoride also contains arsenic and lead ions in measurable amount. The dental lobby recommends 1 part per million of fluoride ion as the optimal amount.
XXXHowever, fluoride ion accumulates in foods. Vegetables cooked in fluoridated water collect more fluoride ions. The dental industry already supplies fluoride to willing consumers in the form of toothpaste - why do they wish to turn an optional poison into a mandatory one? Look at the source of the fluoride ion. This fluorine originates as a by-product of several types of industrial production - examples include the fertilizer industry, the aluminum smelting industry, and the nuclear power industry. It would be very interesting to pursue the correlation between these industries and the fluoride safety studies from the 30's and 40's, then later in the 70's, when fluoridation became a hot issue.
XXXFluoride is also a known enzyme inhibitor, a substance that causes biological catalysts to cease their proper function. As the concentration of fluoride increases, the potential for harmful effects also increases. In Oregon,people are very concerned about the recovery of salmonoid fish species. A study provided by the Oregonians for Safe Drinking Water sites a level of 0.2 milligram/Liter as having a lethal effect on salmon. (2) How can that be when salmon live in the ocean, which has a natural fluoride abundance of 1.0 milligram/Liter? The fresh water salmon component is mostly smolts and juvenile fish, except during spawning periods. Developmental biology is quite different from adult physiology, and the young of a species are much more susceptible to lower levels of biologically active compounds. This preliminary research did not turn up data that would correlate fluoride with youth violence, or even data that would suggest that fluoride is a psychoactive agent. It did note some references that implied a link to certain forms of cancer, an allegation specifically denied at the local forum.
XXX The justification pushed forward by the health department was that overall community health takes precedence over individual risk - a position advocated by the US Supreme Court decisions to allow community fluoridation projects in the past. In today's information age, there is too much conflicting information presented. Science is used to demonstrate fact, based on the sponsor's preconception of that fact. Free exchange of scientific information is often held hostage by the patent process or the industry/academic/government entanglement over the pursuit of profit. The questions of the general safety of fluoride ions need to be answered by factual citations, rather than broad generalizations before another community is subjected to mass fluoridation oftheir drinking water supply.

(1) Water Fluoridation : Prevention … Natures Way - Oregon Health Division Center for Child and Family Health. (Pamphlet)
(2) Foulkes, RG & Anderson, AC - Impact of Artificial Fluoridation on SalmonSpecies in the Northwest USA and British Columbia, Canada. Fluoride Volume 27Number 4 (1994) p 220-226
(3) Websites : http:/fluoride.oralhealth.com ; http:/emporium.turnpike.net/p/PDHA/fluoride/blunder.htm ; www.afpafitness.com/FlourFisc.htm ; www.nofluoride.com/fact1.htm ; www.sonic.net/kryptox/environ/salmon.htm

Plea for basic science research

Time is getting short, so the urgency to do many things is upon everyone. Simplifying will not be easy, but complicated apparatus must be dissembled in order to have the time for the things that are important to get done, while they can still be done. To this end, people need to have support to be able to do what they have to do. Analyze your support structure and work to patch the holes. It is important that you can count on yourself to be ready for every eventuality- start lining up your other ducks in a row. Shed projects that will never end, or reinvest the time in them to make them worthwhile. Only you know what is important for you, but the time to invest was yesterday. Now, you have to plan to react to an unknown circumstance. In Louisiana, that was flood water, in Sri Lanka, tsunami. Weather is a release of atmospheric energy when a system saturates past equilibrium.
Global warming is completely unbelievable as a phenomenon, but that doesn't mean that we can violate the chemical consequences of altering the mass balance. As a chemist, it amazes me at how naive the public is about oxidation and reduction. I don't mean the general public, i mean the literate university educated public. The people who should know Tesla from Edison. I'm not certain that Heisenberg was all there - but he was the closest thing to the edge of science that we have ever reached - Woodrow Wilson got his initials immortalized forever and WWI cemented the downhill slide of hypothetic driven science. Let us go back, please.

September 13, 2005

400 th blog : Zone futures

Lemme's poem was the 400th post since the zone started. The first year finishes up in October - As a demonstration of appreciation to the entire bloggosphere - i will continue to post odd inane chaotic trivia buried deep within the passion of curmudgeonship. Here's to all the Crosslinked areas, the Expanding Horizons authors and the ONRRI guys - who are happy to contribute two cents or two bits, but haven't quite stepped up to the plate with the energy to make this game into anything more than an exhibition match. Of course, we're Tampa Bay vs. the Yankees: Gomes, McClurg, Kasmir, Cantu ... I like our odds for next year

The Zone Life is now planned for this school year - if the fiscal backing falls into place. Salinity Zone will lead to Carbon Zone, followed by Bug Zone, then Water Zone and finally the Envirothon Every Zone. Dr. Lenny's measurement course will work with the products of these zones. The kick off is post Tsalila - October 1 - although if your interested in salinity, contact me now.

Comicals

soap cleans
phosphate pollutes
yet soap = phosphate
Chemicals
make up everything
harnessed for use
change
land somewhere
as something
other than
what they were
Chemicals
evil devils
poisons, pollutants
etch life
toxic leeches
protect us please
from comicals
Comicals?
laugh at fears
things change
but products
are raw materials
for the next
process
Chemicals
happen

(c) 2005 lemme howdt

September 12, 2005

EH - 30 : Changlings

There is no question in my mind who has the best current thought perspective today - Butler Shaffer. In today's Lew Rockwell dotcom piece, he quotes Albert Einstein and discusses chaos and entropy. I think this work really fits with my last post last night. In the end, the final victory is Peace.

September 11, 2005

Stop the #?*&#*! War

Terrorism is not an enemy. It cannot be defeated. It's a tactic. It's about as sensible to say we declare war on night attacks and expect we're going to win that war. We're not going to win the war on terrorism. And it does whip up fear. Acts of terror have never brought down liberal democracies. Acts of parliament have closed a few. General William Odom, US Army retired.

Stop the War on Terror. Stop the War on Drugs. Stop the War in Iraq. Stop the War in Louisiana. Stop all War.

Is that unequivocal enough?



September 10, 2005

1 Pitch 4 Science Zone

Doctor Lenny Howdt is a professional chemist, educator, and general chaotic nutcase. He is downright dangerous, because he will say whatever he thinks whenever he thinks, whether it is politically correct or absolutely uncertain. His life point of view is to take it as it comes and to trust people at their word, tho the latter has become very difficult in this day and age.

Dr. Lenny's background is in inorganic chemistry - all the elements of the periodic table - what they do, how they can be used and abused. After completing a fud and slaving thru the post-fud world on a graduate salary in Bahstan - i joined an R&D firm doing water purification chemistry for NASAs Mars planning. then i moved to a nickel mine as the laboratory supervisor - keep 13 people happy 24/7 doing assays on metal and ore. NAFTA ended that job.

Dr. Lenny joined the local watershed council in 2000 and saw the lack of measurement involved in land management strategy. So he volunteered to monitor the land at a 700 acre drive through zoo. We maintained composting operations and developed the initial flora and fauna around a wetlands, while setting a plan for continuous monitoring of water quality parameters by local area high school students. We acquired grants (and low pay) and empowered Redile - Research Directed Learning Environments. Our group of scientists get kids doing meaningful things, so they have meaningful lives. We've been building community values rather than bank account values.

But since everybody requires support for their families, their lifestyles and their 'pursuit of happiness', Doctor Lenny needs to have employment beyond the bloggosphere. So beginning on October 1st - The Online School Enrichment Network will offer chemistry based classes in anything that has a critical mass that makes it worth teaching. The course will be attuned to the 9th grade high school level based on Doctor Lenny's ninth grade standards - not some educrats bureaucratic system. (There will be a cost $10-20, tbd)

The first class will be on salinity - salt and water mixed together. If you sign up on-line at YC.C, www.yourclassroom.com , we will let you sit in on the on-line lectures on salinity in an Oceanography Course for seniors and juniors offered by teacher Ron Frakes at Reedsport High School. The students will visit the South Slough Estuary, learn about Pacific tidal influences and physically measure the extent of the mixing zone in the Umpqua River Estuary. Successfully accredited students will work as volunteers with the Coos Bay BLM next summer, counting fish in Dean Creek and beyond.

This is a pyramid class - the student are competing for the ability to take part in four field trips schedules seasonally for the next year where a small research group will drive up-river and measure the extent of salt water into the tributaries. This research project is designed for my own edification - my real persona is the researcher working on this component with the class.

If one of the many readers would care to sponsor the course and make a contribution to ONRRI - we can expand the capabilities of the system to educate that much faster. The Redile science program is designed to create students that are capable monitors of public lands using accepted protocols and proper instrumentation. Funding for development came from the Title II Award of the Roseburg BLM RAC - a citizen panel created to enable federal/local cooperation in directing development funds to communities. The legislation is up for renewal for 2007 - but is a federal program like this the responsibility of the government. Only when there is an education monopoly and the federal standards force a one size fits all approach to education in public schools.

So if you want to teach a course on any topic at all - we should be able to set it up if we can get the infra-structure of our non-profit Tall-P set and going. We have contracts to just barely start - one sugar mommy or daddy that wants to see kids succeed can make all the difference. (Hey - pro-athletes - wanna give back to the fan base?) Youth like our sports based scoring systems.

This spring will start full scale on-line classes with a grant to 10 teachers, thanks again to a Roseburg BLM RAC Rural Schools Initiative grant. The core areas in natural resources Carbon Research are - Water Quality Monitoring, Forestry, Bugs, Aquatic Systems, Animal Studies and Compost. If somebody wishes to sponsor a chemistry of Katrina class - i'd bet i could find some folks that can make a significant difference in peoples understanding of the water system.


EH - 29 Systems

The U.S. government is skilled at levying – just not so good at leveeing.

Very few organizational systems are working according to plan at any point in time. They rarely work well outside of narrowly defined channels. Apart from job-threatening, budget-threatening negative feedback systems within organizations, they stagnate. They are soon run for the benefit of their employees.


Gary North provides an excellent analysis of the required response to the agricultural transportation problem - without barges, grain is not worth hauling. Plus, even though the port remains intact in New Orleans, there is no workforce. No place to live. In the whole deep gulf south. Note: The reference to George Friedman of Stratfor is extremely useful - good students collect seminal papers.

Dr. Lenny Howdt's Save the World Research Group will have it's second meeting tomorrow night at 6:30 pm PDT (Sunday, september 11). At the first meeting, Doctor Lenny and lemme howdt had a discussion, with no howdtside attendence. lemme not only writes poetry, but he also is the quintessential professional student. Drop in and get howdt.

September 09, 2005

will luv endure

once again words
used to tempt
but actions fail
2 follow thru
empty day watch
fulfilled by value
again hard prest
2 break imaginary
barriers

(c) 2005 lemme howdt

Order: Wisdom of the Ages on Rye, hold the mayo

Now that everybody is totally pissed off at everybody about everything - let's blame the whole mess on congress. There are 434 elected politicians out there helping their districts feed at a trough that is about to run dry. Wouldn't it be nice to replace every single one of these toady hogs in congress with an independent thinking human being. We could then restore the old honest mechanisms and broker deals that could have the federal grubbermint functioning as a true government - real lawmakers rather than rulemakers. It would undercut all the special interest lobbyists in one fell swoop. Everybody's own congress critter is essential because of the senority system - let's hope that Dr. Paul can be pursuaded to take a shot at streamlining the executive branch to meet the needs of the people through their new congress critters. We da people need to identify honest candidates: the people we trust to be solomon's, cause we're gonna need the wisdom of the ages to get there from here.
(link added 9/10/5 http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul274.html )

New crosslink to Indie Castle - a place for ideas people to gather political leadership. Back East - look up Fran and Nancy in the CUIP office in NYC. We are not sheep - the political class has failed. New philosophy - thinking - dreaming - what does hilary antoinette say about the people of new orleans?

September 08, 2005

Athena and Life Philosophy

I just can't get The Who off my mind these last few days. Except for chasing down the chicken, this dog has been a smooth addition thus far. The muscovy ducks migrated to the neighbors and had to be coaxed back, but all in all the dogger are getting the idea. We are still using leashes and setting bounds, but Athena already seems to have had a litter of pups, so she may be a slight bit older than the year they told us - i would scan the paperwork for birthdates, but i have no way of knowing that those aren't made up. Neither dog is purebred.

while i'm open, i'd like to rant a different topic - the idiocy of pushing mandatory education back onto pre-school kids. Did these regimentarians ever have a childhood? School should start at age 10 and parents should have kids ready with reading and writing down. I can pick up kids that wish to learn and keep them motivated at their own pace through the Redile system. But it won't work without a hands on central location to interchange and exchange ideas, knowledge and socials. Kids less than 10 shouldn't be asked to interact socially. If first grade starts at age 10 and school continues to high school graduate at 22-24, people would become of age at around 26 years old when the body is physically and mentally mature. We take our youth, load them with ideas and abilities at college (supposedly) and then bury them economically before they even start. We have expanded the lifespan from 50 to 80 in the past century - can we stretch the time of living to meet entire range of lifetime? Lets create cross-generational partnerships. It's cheaper than gas for busses.

Salt of the Earth

Doctor Lenny will be offering a chemistry course online on Salinity in conjunction with an oceanography class at Reedsport High School. If you would like to learn about salts, water chemistry and saltwater mixing in estuaries, you can leave me a note here and I'll provide details. The science project at the end is to measure salinity in the Umpqua seasonally to see how far the tidal influence extends. I have a lecture room set-up with the details - http://www.schoolenrichment.org/lecturehall/ . There will be a nominal cost, and we can set up similar projects in other areas (well, not inland - sorry). More details provided soon. High school level - one month duration, with an occasional follow-up, no credits offered except at RHS.

September 07, 2005

EH - 28 : The Welfare State

Robert Tracinski has a different perspective on the battle in New Orleans.

September 06, 2005

dusting off the ashes

nobody's perfect
but truth denial
universally ubiquitous
stress magnet
watching first hand
civilization collapse
while denying
animal nature
on constant display
can't quash miasma
make music, art
but not science
deterministic pickle
unavailable uncertainty
substance materials
convert to not wholly
insubstantial utility
changing attitude
based on altitude
displaying aptitude
toward solitude
pending responsibility
reassumption by
non-perfect nobodies

(c) 2005 lemme howdt

Pound Pups meet Rosencrantz

Minerva (Min) is one of two new dogs that we rescued from Saving Grace - the local dog pound. Athena will be pictured later. Min is a 3 month old mixed breed dogger. All tongue and loads of puppy energy. Rosie had to defend his cutting board. (not really - Rosie was in the kitchen the day before yesterday when i caught this candid python photo.)


I no longer wish to be processed

What is a process? Does something have to be defined to be a process? Or is a process just the continuing forward along a series of steps. No matter what the steps are, the process continues as one step follows another. To get anything done, there is a process to follow. Sometimes, many processes that have to be followed. Why do we follow them? To prevent an unfortunate occurance that could be avoided if we followed the process. But what if something can't be avoided - what if the process doesn't help, but rather places an additional burden on those being processed.

I am dog tired of being processed. Jumping through hoops in order to jump through hoops is one thing, but wasting time and effort on process to make an accomplishment, when the process driving the events burns the value of the work; might as well not attempt to accomplish the accomplishment. Atlas Shrugs - please stop working to implement order. Order does fine implementing itself on its own only after chaos.

Let's elect (and appoint) people at all levels who will dissolve the majority of rules, retire the rule enforcers, make the law simple as to what we should follow and actively lead the battle rather than standing in the background creating more process.

Soapbox 5 : Follow the link

On the Status of Carbon is the fifth essay in the soapbox series. Doctor lenny howdt will take concepts of science and try to place them in perspective to politics, economics and individual reality. On the Status of Carbon deals with the carbon cycle and the nonsense of the idea of battling a process by 'sequestering' a molecule.

September 05, 2005

Science Correction on AP story

When the media makes an error, it usually prints a retraction. How does one let them know? Here the chemistry terminology is wrong. While the headline announcing sodium nitrate as a disease cure, the article discusses sodium nitrite. The chemical properties of nitrate and nitrate are vastly different, nitrite is an anti-oxident, whereas nitrate is a simple common counter-ion and unreactive biological dead end. Anyone adding sodium nitrate to saline would find neglible effect, whereas nitrite would immediately react with body tissue. Nitrite action would act very much like vitamin C.
nitrate anion (NO3)- vs nitrite anion (NO2)- one less oxygen atom, so nitrate scavenges an oxygen and becomes nitrate ion, which passess in urine. (pardon the formulas - blogger isn't chemdraw friendly)

News of the World

Most people that know me know this, but if you want the other picture that the TV/Radio media won't give you - start read the e-news at Lew Rockwell's site - www.lewrockwell.com . Our time has run down, but not howdt - there are serious considerations that need be taken. Today - there were 5 key articles in the twelve posted - and i only read the five i had time to read. Gary North pegs science right on. Linda S. Taylor comments on a bus-driver and Michael Rozeff is dyno-mite about what we can do. I'll get back later
Decide what it is you would like to do and prepare to do it, because the way things usta be done has just drowned in N'orleens. Your interest will have to sustain you. Regular columnists with net airspace can help you to decide what to believe. Everybody lives in the world they create - i hope you can keep yours.
It's all up to what you value. G. Harrison

September 04, 2005

Time Frames

time frames life
ships passing would collide
if not for control of rate
change happens slowly
at hypersonic speed
blink and you miss it
nothing alters visibly
imperceptible movement
leading to a critical point
when cascades erupt
suddenly flood gates open
memory slips as history
rewritten before our eyes
shields lies, wrapt in half-truth
shepherded by ignorance
machiavel made assumptions
that are not valid, little man
under current conditions
life frames time

(c) 2005 lemme howdt

EH - 27 : Med MJ

Fred Gardner keeps a weekly journal at Counterpunch where he reviews the weeks legal activity. He brought this note out in today's post.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens has issued an apology for the majority opinion he wrote in the Raich case. Addressing the Clark County, Nevada, bar association August 18, Stevens acknowledged that his votes in four cases decided last session would cause real harm to large groups of people. "In each I was convinced that the law compelled a result that I would have opposed if I were a legislator," he revealed.
...The fourth case in which I was unhappy about the consequences of an opinion that I authored presented the question whether the use of locally grown marijuana for medicinal purposes pursuant to the advice of a competent physician may be punished as a federal crime. The uncontradicted evidence in the record indicated that marijuana did provide important therapeutic benefits to the two petitioners, that no other medicine was effective, and that without access to that drug one of the petitioners may not survive.
"Moreover, their cultivation and use of marijuana for health reasons was perfectly lawful as a matter of California law. I have no hesitation in telling you that I agree with the policy choice made by the millions of California voters, as well as the voters in at least nine other States (including Nevada), that such use of the drug should be permitted, and that I disagree with executive decisions to invoke criminal sanctions to punish such use. Moreover, as I noted in a footnote to our opinion, Judge Kozenski has chronicled medical studies that cast serious doubt on Congress' assessment that marijuana has no accccepted medical uses.Nevertheless, those policy preferences obviously could not play any part in the analysis of the constitutional issue that the case raised. Unless we were to revert to a narrow interpretation of Congress' power to regulate commerce among the States that has been consistently rejected since the Great Depression of the 1930s, in my judgment our duty to uphold the application of the federal statute was pellucidly clear.

hmmm - next

time has come, roll up your sleeves - life as we know it will no longer be as we know it. if you are at peace with yourself, do what need be done - classes in anything can be made available at YC.C until the internet stops running. If so - see you. doctor lenny will blog along, lemme will wax poetic - if we stop, please come looking for us. time to work - to plan, but don't build yet - think about what you will need and be set.

Starting tonight at 6:30 PM Pacific Daylight Time - http://www.schoolenrichment.com/lecturehall/ - In Doctor Lenny's Office we will have a save the world discussion.

IMO - Global warming is not driving the weather, the cyclic metabolism of the earth drives weather. It's like when you have a shortness of breath and you start huffing. Volcanic activity in the Pacific rim is up - there is land movement accompanying the air disturbances. While Katrina is not unusual as a natural disaster - we had best focus our attention on the metabolic process and start appreciating the forests as redistributors of the chemical order for oxidation / reduction - creating oxygen and purifying water. Instead of panicking - lets let this current economy collapse and build a new economy based on environmental and social reality. A New World Order - starting from chaos and allowing the order to come when the time comes that the proper order comes about. Watch the mechanisms for relocating people in LA operate - the total chaos has decended into a make-shift order where individuals that have stepped up to the plate will be remembered for their action, not their inaction. Freedom to be chaotic will always lead to a higher order of things when the dust settles. Chaos should neither be feared, nor vilified.
Assumption #1 - Everybody starts with nothing. We may be able to keep our clothes and shelters that we currently own, but without a food distribution network, people become a bit more clingy. This is likely not a valid assumption. Try again
Assumption #1 - Everybody starts with the stuff they currently have. Of course - you will have to trade it for food, so those who planned ahead will be much better off. The obvious solution. Start planning ahead. Anyway - tonight, i'd like to start by exploring assumptions. Come into my open office when you get there - if it asks you for a password - i'm not there yet. 6:30 pm PDT - 12 hrs

September 03, 2005

New Blog Title

For the moment, The Zone will be renamed Wigged howdt to symbolize the world and this blogger's shared mental status. Currently, we all live in the state of confusion. Fortunately - there are pictures of critters that don't complain at you, but would rather eat you - to remind us that the goal includes the entertainment value of getting there.



Carbon World

what is carbon?
is it a type of bug?
or a big country fair?
a forest with lots of trees?
or a tube of toothpaste?
is carbon animal?
vegetable? mineral?
what does carbon do?
does it do anything?
or is it what it is?

carbon is
solace in the early morning
bugs and grass and you
oil manipulated in multiways
energy and matter to support life
except in new orleans
where life is hardly a matter

EH 26 - Authority

I try to keep away from popular stuff - but as a natural resources person, I am drawn to stories of resources gone haywire. I feel badly for all the little girls named Katrina out there - they just reallocated your name to a connotation. Michael S Rozoff details some of the statements that have come from N'orleans that need further follow-up.

One new tool that we can use here is to look at the worst emergency that could potentially befall our own communities and then look at the law in terms of whether it exasperates the situation. Let's use the opportunity to purge unworkable self-serving laws. We have to get the government pared down to only problems of comparable scale, and then create a government that resembles the people that it governs. Rule enforcement should not part of law enforcement and certainly not be the focus of direction of the entire judiciary.

It is tiring to be embarrassed by people at every turn. Please get your act together and expect me to get my act together. We can discuss what that means, but you do not have the right to tell me or anybody else what to do. Coercion cannot be voluntary. The situational awareness of a majority of people has become zero - PEOPLE pay attention. Think. Act - look at the consequences. Pay attention. Learn the skills you need to learn. Take control of your personal circumstance. Seek help from people who can and will help. Learn to trust yourself, and trust people that you really trust. Do not trust cheaply, make people earn trust, but then trust them. Now get howdt. Time to fix the problems. Doctor Lenny's Save the World Forum available shortly.

September 01, 2005

Gas Prices

Oh the outrage - high gas prices due to a storm that took out a fifth of our refining capability. We are so-o upset. Er - folks, you have every right to be upset, but - it's labor day weekend and this price gouge was in store for you anyway. Don't kid yourself, their gonna squeeze as dry as possible before the rachet hits on October 18th.
Take the time to look at this picture and then describe the scene as best you can. Then dwell with your mouse on the photo until you can read the caption and explain the photo again. enjoy

Public Service

Attended a public meeting of the Siuslaw Forest Service RAC to pitch Science Zone for Josephine County. There were nine public presentations mostly for youth training. Pam Bode, the Illinois Valley Ranger District Ranger is a strong supporter of youth activities and OYCC and NYC were there to gather work for their excellent youth to reality work. As a cooperative Institute, ONRRI will be better served by coordinating with existing programs rather than Zoning Howdt on our own, and I have some serious ideas to work out on how to accomplish that.

This Science Zone proposal was to use the Great Cats World Park in partnership with the schools to learn animal physiology, habitat biology and trail maintanence. We would work to educate and present a means of stoping the damage done by Off-Road-Vehicles at recreation sites. We didn't have enough focus at the time the proposal was submitted - but i established some new relationships that i can develop.


Anyone that would like to learn how to build trail for habitat areas might wish to keep an eye out for such a course in spring of 2006 - people that want dedicated and able youth for their outdoor management might wish to contact me about setting up a science zone focused on your field of interest - it gets you first dibs on some very awesome kids.

If you wish to have Doctor Lenny as a motivational speaker or to run a science clinic in your area - contact Bob Craft at Smotis or Zina - my personal security featured below. Beware - she bites. (Perhaps we might convince her to visit - more likely Rosencrantz will join me.)


more or less

people stress to maintain pace
when nothing need be rushed
a watch is not my keeper
how we press for means to live
when air is free - building economy
on the backs of people driven
for more in a world of less
as we collect and gather
we collect and gather
plan for success in the future
while melting down in the now
cooperation seems to promise
more than competition, yet ying
yang enforce equivalent dose
pushing forth out of balance
premeditate a deeper fall ...
uncoiling watch springs may allow
today to play the role of today
rethink the whole operation
that has people working for work
rather than for value or progress
why did we sacrifice leisure
for a system of infinite pain?

(c) 2005 lemme howdt