Thursday, 8:45 AM. 37 degrees F, wind WSW, light at present but with occasional strong gusts. The sky is overcast with high gray clouds again, but yesterday turned out to be a nice sunny day so today may as well. I hope so, because the chimney needs to be cleaned. It is no longer drawing well, and that is a final, so to speak, warning. It is time to do so anyway, as I usually clean it fall, midwinter if we have a thaw, and spring.
The tundra swans just keep on migrating through, I wonder if anyone has made any kind of a rough count in Ashland, where they congregate on the bay. Yesterday there were only a few at 11:00 AM and at 1:00 PM there were probably fifty. As far as I could see, they were all white feathered adults, no dusky colored young. That must have been a flock which had poor a poor nesting season. I wish we could have seen them arriving, as they are magnificent in flight.
California is deconstructing; taking itself apart piece by piece. I have been watching it happen for some years now…punitive taxes, every restriction on business imaginable, high unemployment, social chaos, billion dollar railroads to nowhere, and systematic destruction of the world’s finest agricultural industry. And to top it off, if you haven’t seen it, now there is a cartoon produced by the California teachers’ union (obviously meant for children or child-like adults) which culminates in a cartoon rich person pissing on cartoon poor people. Nothing subtle about California class warfare.
I have, or had, a lot of relatives in California. Of four maternal uncles, three made their way to the “Golden State” by Model T in the 1920’s, and three uncles eventually settled and raised their families there. The opportunities were great, everyone made money and did well, one even became what the Democrats now classify as “rich.” Oranges and pomegranates and almonds grew in their back yards. The oil wells were everywhere. California was an earthly Paradise.
Those days are fast diminishing, if not already gone, and California is no longer golden and the descendants of my pioneering uncles have begun leaving to find jobs in colder climes, themselves victims of a self-destructive society.
If I were God, I would rethink the whole idea of letting human beings into heaven. I would have St. Peter shut those golden gates posthaste.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
AN ALMOST INNOCENT BYSTANDER
Wednesday, 8;30 AM. 22 degrees F, wind W, calm at present, and if it weren’t it would be frigid. The sky is overcast and it looks as though we will not see the sun much today. In the Ojibwe language they say "Biiboon," (it is winter). I really do believe my barometer is stuck and I will probably have to get a new one.
The bird feeders have not enticed any bruins from their dens, and are attracting a lot of birds, mostly chickadees and nuthatches, we have seen nothing more uncommon as yet.
Social commentary: I probably shouldn’t put my foot in this one but I can’t help it, and I will be pilloried for it I am sure.
The punditry is busy, busy, busy trying to analyze the unfortunate murder/suicide committed by a Kansas City Chiefs football player. A large amount of the discussion (some of it violent in and of itself) focuses on the so-called “gun culture,” upon bizarre accusations of a secret plot against black youth, and more seriously, railing against the Second Amendment right of citizens to own guns. The National Rifle Association and everyday citizen gun owners are being demmonized, as though they were somehow responsible. There is tragedy and blame enough to go around for the problem of violence in our society, and I am not going to try at this point to make any defense of anybody or anything in this all too common tragedy.
But I will be so bold as to assign some blame. I have heard a lot of different arguments and theories regarding “what went wrong” last Saturday, but one that I have not heard is the contributing, and I think dominating, factor: life style. Here were a very young man and woman, literally wallowing in money, living together and even having a child together, without making the most basic of commitments to each other, in the form of a marriage vow. It seems neither made a formal moral or legal commitment to each other or to their child. It appears that both came and went out of their home and each others lives as they pleased. The murderer (let’s call him what he was) had another woman. Love, sex, jealousy, hate, violence…this is an explosive scenario as old as humanity, repeated over and over, down through the millennia, irrespective of race, ethnicity or culture. The gun was almost an innocent bystander.
The bird feeders have not enticed any bruins from their dens, and are attracting a lot of birds, mostly chickadees and nuthatches, we have seen nothing more uncommon as yet.
Social commentary: I probably shouldn’t put my foot in this one but I can’t help it, and I will be pilloried for it I am sure.
The punditry is busy, busy, busy trying to analyze the unfortunate murder/suicide committed by a Kansas City Chiefs football player. A large amount of the discussion (some of it violent in and of itself) focuses on the so-called “gun culture,” upon bizarre accusations of a secret plot against black youth, and more seriously, railing against the Second Amendment right of citizens to own guns. The National Rifle Association and everyday citizen gun owners are being demmonized, as though they were somehow responsible. There is tragedy and blame enough to go around for the problem of violence in our society, and I am not going to try at this point to make any defense of anybody or anything in this all too common tragedy.
But I will be so bold as to assign some blame. I have heard a lot of different arguments and theories regarding “what went wrong” last Saturday, but one that I have not heard is the contributing, and I think dominating, factor: life style. Here were a very young man and woman, literally wallowing in money, living together and even having a child together, without making the most basic of commitments to each other, in the form of a marriage vow. It seems neither made a formal moral or legal commitment to each other or to their child. It appears that both came and went out of their home and each others lives as they pleased. The murderer (let’s call him what he was) had another woman. Love, sex, jealousy, hate, violence…this is an explosive scenario as old as humanity, repeated over and over, down through the millennia, irrespective of race, ethnicity or culture. The gun was almost an innocent bystander.
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
THE GOOD DEED
Tuesday, 8:15 AM. 26 degrees F, wind S, moderate with stronger gusts. The sun climbed a scaffold of black clouds at dawn, eventually reaching a mostly blue sky. The weather changed dramatically overnight and it is finally a sunny, cold, wintry day again, a relief from the dark, gloomy weather that had been hung around our necks like a heavy weight for the last ten days or more. Bayfield had become Seattle, and this feels more normal.
The bird feeders got hung up on the back porch yesterday; two with sunflower seeds, one with thistle seeds, and the chickadees found them as soon as I closed the patio door. I still have to buy some suet/seed blocks. I hope the neighborhood bear has gone to sleep.
I assume by now that you have heard of, and seen the photo that “went viral” on the internet, of the NYC cop who bought socks and boots for a barefoot homeless man and put them on his freezing, blistered feet. Now that homeless person is seeking “a piece of the action” that he assumes there has been from the story and the photo, and he is now back on the street, barefoot again.
It is said, and we should fully expect, that no good deed goes unpunished. Or even appreciated, for that matter, as in this case.
So what should we make of all this? Simply that good deeds are their own reward, and are not contingent upon approval, disapproval, reward or punishment. The homeless man would not be sitting on a New York sidewalk with bare feet if he were a rational person, so we shouldn’t expect a rational response to a good deed.
The bird feeders got hung up on the back porch yesterday; two with sunflower seeds, one with thistle seeds, and the chickadees found them as soon as I closed the patio door. I still have to buy some suet/seed blocks. I hope the neighborhood bear has gone to sleep.
I assume by now that you have heard of, and seen the photo that “went viral” on the internet, of the NYC cop who bought socks and boots for a barefoot homeless man and put them on his freezing, blistered feet. Now that homeless person is seeking “a piece of the action” that he assumes there has been from the story and the photo, and he is now back on the street, barefoot again.
It is said, and we should fully expect, that no good deed goes unpunished. Or even appreciated, for that matter, as in this case.
So what should we make of all this? Simply that good deeds are their own reward, and are not contingent upon approval, disapproval, reward or punishment. The homeless man would not be sitting on a New York sidewalk with bare feet if he were a rational person, so we shouldn’t expect a rational response to a good deed.
Monday, December 3, 2012
WHO KNOWS WHAT MOTHER NATURE MAY HAVE IN MIND?
Monday, 8:15 AM. 40 degrees F, wind again W, calm. The sky is again uniformly overcast with high gray cloud cover. There is a band of lighter clouds on the eastern horizon but that is the only sign of the sun. At dawn the whole east hemisphere of the sky was suffused with the faintest pink light, which was very soft and beautiful, and yesterday evening the moon and stars were caught in a fine mist net of high clouds. The barometer has not yet risen from the depths of its depression.
I have mentioned before the excellent news periodical published by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), available by contacting the organization at MAINA’IGAN, P.0. Box 9, Odanah, WI 54861, phone 715-682-6619, and mailed free to US and Canadian citizens. The current issue has many interesting articles, but one that really captured my imagination regards the ongoing efforts to increase Pacific salmon and lamprey spawning on the Columbia River.
There are a series of dams on the river, including the largest, Bonneville Dam, built in 1933 during the heyday of United States dam building for flood control and electricity production. These dams, unfortunately, blocked the spawning runs of the Pacific salmon and lamprey, greatly damaging the economies and lifestyles of the Indians living in the Columbia River watershed, as the native population harvested these species for both their own use and for trade. The cultural and economic damage to the tribes did not end there, as their best crop land, and many village sites and burial grounds were inundated.
Over the years, fish ladders and other devices have been installed to allow the migrating fish to swim upstream and complete their life cycles. GLIFWC’s counterpart, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, has worked with the federal government to increase both the production of the fishery and Indian access to it (building parking lots, boat ramps and access roads to the river, which is otherwise rather inaccessible due to the high water and steep banks created by the dams).
The whole cooperative venture has been so successful that lampreys and salmon now not only migrate upriver to spawn, but congregate in great numbers in pools below the dams waiting their turn to ascend the ladders. At first this appeared to be a great opportunity for the Indians to catch the fish; but soon the great concentration of fish attracted hordes of sea lions, who would not pass up an easy meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). One would think that the Indians now would have the best of all worlds, feasting on the sea lions as well as the salmon and lamprey.
An aside: in the Great Lakes region the lampreys, which are an invasive species parasitic on salmon and other large fish, are killed in electric weirs in the spawning streams as well as poisoned in the larval stage. Perhaps we are missing the boat, so to speak, and should be eating them and even exporting them to the Pacific Northwest and to France, where I understand they are considered a great delicacy, like eels and snails).
At any rate, it turns out that the Indians do not in actuality have the best of all sea worlds, as the sea lions are a protected species and cannot be killed and eaten, or even physically removed. So it is the sea lions that eat many of the fish which would otherwise continue up river to spawn and provide for the Indians, who are again left holding the bag, or in this case an empty net.
There is an upside to this upside down story, however, as scaring the sea lions away from their seafood feast with specialized fireworks has become the summer job of college interns…who one assumes are learning far more about ecology on the banks of the Columbia River than in the classroom.
But I wonder if the story ends here, and I think that perhaps the grizzly bears may yet come o feast upon the feeding sea lions, and then the killer whales upon the swimming bears. And who knows what Mother Nature may yet have in mind for the zany two-legged creatures who started it all?
I have mentioned before the excellent news periodical published by the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC), available by contacting the organization at MAINA’IGAN, P.0. Box 9, Odanah, WI 54861, phone 715-682-6619, and mailed free to US and Canadian citizens. The current issue has many interesting articles, but one that really captured my imagination regards the ongoing efforts to increase Pacific salmon and lamprey spawning on the Columbia River.
There are a series of dams on the river, including the largest, Bonneville Dam, built in 1933 during the heyday of United States dam building for flood control and electricity production. These dams, unfortunately, blocked the spawning runs of the Pacific salmon and lamprey, greatly damaging the economies and lifestyles of the Indians living in the Columbia River watershed, as the native population harvested these species for both their own use and for trade. The cultural and economic damage to the tribes did not end there, as their best crop land, and many village sites and burial grounds were inundated.
Over the years, fish ladders and other devices have been installed to allow the migrating fish to swim upstream and complete their life cycles. GLIFWC’s counterpart, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, has worked with the federal government to increase both the production of the fishery and Indian access to it (building parking lots, boat ramps and access roads to the river, which is otherwise rather inaccessible due to the high water and steep banks created by the dams).
The whole cooperative venture has been so successful that lampreys and salmon now not only migrate upriver to spawn, but congregate in great numbers in pools below the dams waiting their turn to ascend the ladders. At first this appeared to be a great opportunity for the Indians to catch the fish; but soon the great concentration of fish attracted hordes of sea lions, who would not pass up an easy meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner). One would think that the Indians now would have the best of all worlds, feasting on the sea lions as well as the salmon and lamprey.
An aside: in the Great Lakes region the lampreys, which are an invasive species parasitic on salmon and other large fish, are killed in electric weirs in the spawning streams as well as poisoned in the larval stage. Perhaps we are missing the boat, so to speak, and should be eating them and even exporting them to the Pacific Northwest and to France, where I understand they are considered a great delicacy, like eels and snails).
At any rate, it turns out that the Indians do not in actuality have the best of all sea worlds, as the sea lions are a protected species and cannot be killed and eaten, or even physically removed. So it is the sea lions that eat many of the fish which would otherwise continue up river to spawn and provide for the Indians, who are again left holding the bag, or in this case an empty net.
There is an upside to this upside down story, however, as scaring the sea lions away from their seafood feast with specialized fireworks has become the summer job of college interns…who one assumes are learning far more about ecology on the banks of the Columbia River than in the classroom.
But I wonder if the story ends here, and I think that perhaps the grizzly bears may yet come o feast upon the feeding sea lions, and then the killer whales upon the swimming bears. And who knows what Mother Nature may yet have in mind for the zany two-legged creatures who started it all?
Sunday, December 2, 2012
COULD BE, THOUGH
Wednesday, 8:45 AM. 22 degrees F, wind W, calm at ground level with gray, sometimes rosy-gray clouds moving rather quickly from the west at a moderate height. There is a considerable patch of blue sky on the NNE horizon but the sun is rising through silver-lined dark clouds in the SE. The barometer predicts snow, which we got another couple of inches of late yesterday afternoon and which I scraped off the driveway this morning. It is a very quiet morning in Bayfield.
Reader Doug Peterson of Charlotte, NC recently put me on to the writings of G. K. Chesterton, whom I had never read. It must have been some minor act of fate when I found a new reprint of his “The Man Who Was Thursday,” at the What Goes Round bookstore in town a few days ago. It is even published in large print, which of course I don’t need, but may be useful to some of my elderly friends as it gets passed around. I was enthralled by this book which at times is uproariously funny (I haven’t laughed like that in years) and at other times deeply philosophical and religious. Thanks, Doug. He also sent a photo of his eleven year old granddaughter and the eleven point buck she shot this fall in Louisiana. Ah, youth!
I also thank Bayfield reader Heidi Nelson for her immediate and generous response to our Tree Board resolution regarding trees for Rittenhouse Ave. in downtown Bayfield. She sent a check for $100 towards a tree fund to Mayor Larry MacDonald, with a note saying she remembers years ago when the Avenue had magnificent old sugar maples that shaded the street and lit up the town with their fall colors. That can’t be too long ago, as I consider her still just a kid.
I often wonder who reads my scribbles and why they would do so. It gives me considerable gratification when I find out.
Hundreds of tundra swans are still on the bay in Ashland, scattered about, and bobbing on the waves like blobs of ice. It is hilarious to see these huge birds tip up their bottoms into the air as they crane their long necks down into the water feeding on vegetation that is rooted in the shallows. It has occurred to me that they perhaps are mooning us humans (and me in particular) for that is what it looks like, but I don’t know why they would bother to do that. Could be, though.
We head to Madison tomorrow for an Urban Forestry Council meeting on Friday, so no blog for a day or two. Hope the roads are O.K.
Reader Doug Peterson of Charlotte, NC recently put me on to the writings of G. K. Chesterton, whom I had never read. It must have been some minor act of fate when I found a new reprint of his “The Man Who Was Thursday,” at the What Goes Round bookstore in town a few days ago. It is even published in large print, which of course I don’t need, but may be useful to some of my elderly friends as it gets passed around. I was enthralled by this book which at times is uproariously funny (I haven’t laughed like that in years) and at other times deeply philosophical and religious. Thanks, Doug. He also sent a photo of his eleven year old granddaughter and the eleven point buck she shot this fall in Louisiana. Ah, youth!
I also thank Bayfield reader Heidi Nelson for her immediate and generous response to our Tree Board resolution regarding trees for Rittenhouse Ave. in downtown Bayfield. She sent a check for $100 towards a tree fund to Mayor Larry MacDonald, with a note saying she remembers years ago when the Avenue had magnificent old sugar maples that shaded the street and lit up the town with their fall colors. That can’t be too long ago, as I consider her still just a kid.
I often wonder who reads my scribbles and why they would do so. It gives me considerable gratification when I find out.
Hundreds of tundra swans are still on the bay in Ashland, scattered about, and bobbing on the waves like blobs of ice. It is hilarious to see these huge birds tip up their bottoms into the air as they crane their long necks down into the water feeding on vegetation that is rooted in the shallows. It has occurred to me that they perhaps are mooning us humans (and me in particular) for that is what it looks like, but I don’t know why they would bother to do that. Could be, though.
We head to Madison tomorrow for an Urban Forestry Council meeting on Friday, so no blog for a day or two. Hope the roads are O.K.
...AND GOOD IN GROWING OLD
Sunday, 8:45 AM. 35 degrees F, wind W, calm. The day is a ditto of yesterday, and the barometer suggests it won’t change anytime soon.
It being Sunday and not in my habit of making any political statements on the day, the converse of that might be to make a religious statement, but that would not be proper either. So I think a philosophical, or if you will, a poetical statement suits Sunday rather well.
Accordingly, I will present the poem which dedicates G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday,” the novel I wrote about a few days ago, and the reader can decide what category it fits. The poem and the book are dedicated to Chesterton’s boyhood friend, Edmund Clerihew Bentley. I could easily appropriate it for rededication to one or more of the friends of my own youth, and perhaps, if you are old enough, you could do the same. The poem was written in 1908, a time of worldwide turmoil and social upheaval equal to or greater than our own present time, and just before the terrors of the First World War. I believe it is perfectly understandable without a lot of background information, but ask Google if you feel you must.
Title: To Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Author: G. K. Chesterton
THE DEDICATION OF THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.
Science announced nonentity and art admired decay;
The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay.
Round us in antic order their crippled vices came--
Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.
Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom,
Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume.
Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung;
The world was very old indeed when you and I were young.
They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named:
Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.
Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus;
When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us.
Children we were--our forts of sand were even as weak as we,
High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea.
Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd,
When all church bells were silent our cap and bells were heard.
Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled;
Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world.
I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flings
Far out on fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things;
And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,
Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass;
Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain
Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain.
Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey,
Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day,
But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms,
God and the good Republic come riding back in arms:
We have seen the city of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved—Blessed are they who did not see, but being blind, believed.
This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,
And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells--
Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,
Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.
The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand--
Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?
The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain,
And day had broken on the streets e'er it broke upon the brain.
Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
Yea, there is strength in striking root, and good in growing old.
We have found common things at last, and marriage and a creed.
And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.
It being Sunday and not in my habit of making any political statements on the day, the converse of that might be to make a religious statement, but that would not be proper either. So I think a philosophical, or if you will, a poetical statement suits Sunday rather well.
Accordingly, I will present the poem which dedicates G.K. Chesterton’s “The Man Who Was Thursday,” the novel I wrote about a few days ago, and the reader can decide what category it fits. The poem and the book are dedicated to Chesterton’s boyhood friend, Edmund Clerihew Bentley. I could easily appropriate it for rededication to one or more of the friends of my own youth, and perhaps, if you are old enough, you could do the same. The poem was written in 1908, a time of worldwide turmoil and social upheaval equal to or greater than our own present time, and just before the terrors of the First World War. I believe it is perfectly understandable without a lot of background information, but ask Google if you feel you must.
Title: To Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Author: G. K. Chesterton
THE DEDICATION OF THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY
A cloud was on the mind of men, and wailing went the weather,
Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul when we were boys together.
Science announced nonentity and art admired decay;
The world was old and ended: but you and I were gay.
Round us in antic order their crippled vices came--
Lust that had lost its laughter, fear that had lost its shame.
Like the white lock of Whistler, that lit our aimless gloom,
Men showed their own white feather as proudly as a plume.
Life was a fly that faded, and death a drone that stung;
The world was very old indeed when you and I were young.
They twisted even decent sin to shapes not to be named:
Men were ashamed of honour; but we were not ashamed.
Weak if we were and foolish, not thus we failed, not thus;
When that black Baal blocked the heavens he had no hymns from us.
Children we were--our forts of sand were even as weak as we,
High as they went we piled them up to break that bitter sea.
Fools as we were in motley, all jangling and absurd,
When all church bells were silent our cap and bells were heard.
Not all unhelped we held the fort, our tiny flags unfurled;
Some giants laboured in that cloud to lift it from the world.
I find again the book we found, I feel the hour that flings
Far out on fish-shaped Paumanok some cry of cleaner things;
And the Green Carnation withered, as in forest fires that pass,
Roared in the wind of all the world ten million leaves of grass;
Or sane and sweet and sudden as a bird sings in the rain
Truth out of Tusitala spoke and pleasure out of pain.
Yea, cool and clear and sudden as a bird sings in the grey,
Dunedin to Samoa spoke, and darkness unto day,
But we were young; we lived to see God break their bitter charms,
God and the good Republic come riding back in arms:
We have seen the city of Mansoul, even as it rocked, relieved—Blessed are they who did not see, but being blind, believed.
This is a tale of those old fears, even of those emptied hells,
And none but you shall understand the true thing that it tells--
Of what colossal gods of shame could cow men and yet crash,
Of what huge devils hid the stars, yet fell at a pistol flash.
The doubts that were so plain to chase, so dreadful to withstand--
Oh, who shall understand but you; yea, who shall understand?
The doubts that drove us through the night as we two talked amain,
And day had broken on the streets e'er it broke upon the brain.
Between us, by the peace of God, such truth can now be told;
Yea, there is strength in striking root, and good in growing old.
We have found common things at last, and marriage and a creed.
And I may safely write it now, and you may safely read.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
WHERE WERE THE REPORTERS?
Saturday, 9:30 AM. 324 degrees F, wind WWSW, light. Roof icicles are dripping. The sky is overcast and gray, the waters of the channel are gray, Madeline Island is gray, it is, without a doubt, a gray day. The gloom is somewhat lightened by the whiteness of the snow, which is also melting in a rather gloomy fashion.
We had an easy trip to Madison, the roads were good and Thursday was a nice enough day that we stopped at the McMillan state wildlife area near Marshfield and tromped around with the shotgun, but we found no pheasants (and I didn’t really expect to). Buddy had his usual good time hunting and had plenty of treats on the trip. He is a great traveler, and sleeps in the truck at night without any fuss.
Joan did Christmas shopping in Madison while I was at the Urban Forestry Council meeting, which accomplished a lot of work towards a five year strategic and action plan.
The Council is a diverse group, and in includes two professional foresters from two different Wisconsin utilities. They were both back from two weeks helping clear power lines and streets of fallen and dangerous trees on the East Coast. They worked nonstop. This is the setup:
The utilities nationwide have mutual assistance agreements and come to each others aid in emergencies. There were crews there from as far away as California and Texas. They brought their own support equipment, gasoline trucks and supplies and ate and slept in two hundred man tents (the latter services provided by sub-contractors also part of the mutual aid agreement). Lights out at 10:00 PM, on at 4:00 AM, no alcohol allowed. All were paid their regular rate and overtime and made a lot of money. The emergency expenses are spread out nationwide as a cost of doing business. Hundreds of evergency response utility personell came from Wisconsin alone, and (I believe this is correct) 14,000 professionals came to the East Coast from around the country. Both said it was very gratifying work as people were extremely relieved and grateful to have them show up in their devastated neighborhoods, doubly so when they found out that they came from all around the nation.
All this is business to business cooperation, and works. Whether the federal government has any coordinating role I don’t know, but I rather doubt it. What do the people at FEMA know about utility work? This would seem to be a mutual assistance model for other aspects of the nation’s economy. There could be (perhaps there are some, I don’t know) mutual assistance agreements directly between cities, and between states. What, other than monetary assistance, does the federal government really have to offer? The FEMA response to Katrina was poor, and the response to Sandy underwhelming to say the least. But you know the politicians will never accept a lesser or non role in these tragedies, as it gives them great photo opportunities and bragging rights if things go right (and brings on their blame game if things go wrong).
After what I heard first hand about mutual assistance response I still have a number of questions, but the most nagging question is this: why wasn’t this great story reported by the news media?
We had an easy trip to Madison, the roads were good and Thursday was a nice enough day that we stopped at the McMillan state wildlife area near Marshfield and tromped around with the shotgun, but we found no pheasants (and I didn’t really expect to). Buddy had his usual good time hunting and had plenty of treats on the trip. He is a great traveler, and sleeps in the truck at night without any fuss.
Joan did Christmas shopping in Madison while I was at the Urban Forestry Council meeting, which accomplished a lot of work towards a five year strategic and action plan.
The Council is a diverse group, and in includes two professional foresters from two different Wisconsin utilities. They were both back from two weeks helping clear power lines and streets of fallen and dangerous trees on the East Coast. They worked nonstop. This is the setup:
The utilities nationwide have mutual assistance agreements and come to each others aid in emergencies. There were crews there from as far away as California and Texas. They brought their own support equipment, gasoline trucks and supplies and ate and slept in two hundred man tents (the latter services provided by sub-contractors also part of the mutual aid agreement). Lights out at 10:00 PM, on at 4:00 AM, no alcohol allowed. All were paid their regular rate and overtime and made a lot of money. The emergency expenses are spread out nationwide as a cost of doing business. Hundreds of evergency response utility personell came from Wisconsin alone, and (I believe this is correct) 14,000 professionals came to the East Coast from around the country. Both said it was very gratifying work as people were extremely relieved and grateful to have them show up in their devastated neighborhoods, doubly so when they found out that they came from all around the nation.
All this is business to business cooperation, and works. Whether the federal government has any coordinating role I don’t know, but I rather doubt it. What do the people at FEMA know about utility work? This would seem to be a mutual assistance model for other aspects of the nation’s economy. There could be (perhaps there are some, I don’t know) mutual assistance agreements directly between cities, and between states. What, other than monetary assistance, does the federal government really have to offer? The FEMA response to Katrina was poor, and the response to Sandy underwhelming to say the least. But you know the politicians will never accept a lesser or non role in these tragedies, as it gives them great photo opportunities and bragging rights if things go right (and brings on their blame game if things go wrong).
After what I heard first hand about mutual assistance response I still have a number of questions, but the most nagging question is this: why wasn’t this great story reported by the news media?
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