Trouble In Paradise

Disclaimer: The following information is anecdotal; I was unable to locate adequate numbers of third-party references to substantiate some of the following claims.

Photo: Barges from Hawaii moored at the Port of Longview WA containing shrink-wrapped garbage in metal containers to be disposed of in Oregon land fills.

During our ten-day stay at our resort on the Big Island, the maid service came in twice to tidy our room and change the linens. Our kitchen was fully equipped and included a large blue recycling container. As recycling is embraced in Oregon with almost religious fervor, we dutifully placed our newspapers, cans, bottles and cardboard packaging in the recycling container. So we were quite surprised (and disappointed) on two occasions to later find large clear plastic bags outside the front door of our condo with our recycling mixed in with our general trash.

During our stay we had dinner one night with our friends Lorraine and Neil who were born and raised on the Big Island. Over dinner we related our experience with the recycling-trash at our resort. Our friends explained that, although Hawaii has a recycling “program”, there is no residential curb-side pick up of recycling; instead everyone must physically bring their recycling to a center. In fact we had noticed when we arrived at their home that they had two large barrels filled with aluminum cans in their car port.

Our friends told us that Hawaii had enacted a 5-cent deposit on liquid containers. However many of these still end up in the trash as so many of the tourists to the state come from states where bottle deposits are an unfamiliar concept.

The imperative for Hawaii to begin recycling came to a head roughly four years ago when the landfill on Oahu became full. A proposal was then made to ship Hawaii’s garbage to Oregon for disposal. However Oregonians balked at accepting garbage because: “Hawaiians recycle less than 25 percent of their sold waste. Oregonians, by comparison, recycle more than 50 percent of their waste.” ^[1]

Apparently the State of Hawaii contracted with a company to manage recycling on all the Hawaiian Islands. However a subsequent drop in the market for recycled plastic and increased fuel and other overhead costs have since rendered the program no longer cost effective. As a result, a three year accumulation of recycling material is allegedly being stored unprocessed in warehouses.

Beginning January 1st of this year, plastic (checkout counter) bags will be banned on the Big Island. ^[2] These have become a litter problem and the bags blown into the ocean threaten marine wildlife.

Up to now, Hawaii has generally been able to ignore its material waste disposal. But in a state where the cost of living is extremely high, making recycling programs cost-effective will remain a significant challenge in Paradise.

References:
1. Don’t encourage Hawaii to send its trash, Portland Tribune, Oct. 30, 2009

2. Plastic Bags Banned On Hawaii’s Big Island, Beth Buczynski, Jan. 30, 2012, care2.com

Death By A Thousand Cuts

Death By A Thousand Cuts can refer to:

- Creeping normalcy, the way a major negative change, which happens slowly in many unnoticed increments, is not perceived as objectionable

- Slow slicing, a form of torture and execution originating from Imperial China
~ Source: Wikipedia

Pictured above are two spent cardboard toilet paper tubes; you will notice that one is a bit smaller than the other. My wife is an avid recycler; she retrieves these tubes from our bathroom trash were I toss them and adds them to our household recycling. She noticed that the latest batch of toilet tissue was now being produced in a smaller width. The same number of plies, the same number of rolls per package, and at the SAME PRICE… everything the same with the exception that the customer now get 12% LESS product for their money.

This is not a new tactic in the never ending assault of commercial interests to tap a much of our dwindling consumer dollars as feasible. For example, cereal boxes on the grocery shelf appear to have the same height and width, but the packaging is not as deep; a nuance not readily visible as one browses the grocery aisle. Plastic containers have been redesigned to increase the size of the bottom “dimple” lowering the volume of products by 2 or 3 ounces though the container appears to remain the familiar size. A 6 ounce can of tuna today contains 5 ounces of product.

However this marketing tactic is not reserved only for consumer products. Our health insurance premiums had been increasing steadily at the rate of 11 to 15% each year over the previous years. So we were pleasantly surprised (initially) to find that our cost of our health insurance, which had been $1,150 per month last year, would remain this same amount again this year. Instead the insurance company has increased the costs of deductibles, co-payments and fees for special surgical procedures. We will now be required to pick up the first $1050 in medical expenses before the insurance company pays a cent of our medical bills. The premium has remained unchanged but the additional cost in the not-so-obvious charges essentially results in a 7.6% increase in our costs for insurance over last year.

The trend is clear, we consumers will be expected to pay more for less at every turn… and a great majority of the population will never even notice. I confess that I certainly would not have noticed how we are being gypped on toilet tissue had not my diligent little recycler lady noticed the change.

More than ever the rule of Caveat emptor applies– the trend toward redistribution of the wealth will continue, but not quite in the manner in which the Republicans like to frame the issue.

Postcards from Paradise

A few snapshots from our vacation on the Big Island, Hawaii. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. Enjoy.

High Court Orders Redo of Texas

My son-in-law, Adam, has been finding the news feeds to his i-Phone quite entertaining - specifically the 'truncated" headlines as they are trimmed to fit in the small window of his news app. So amusing an numerous are these that he has decided to publish them on a site he's named Bad Headlines:

http://badheadlines.tumblr.com/

In the mean time I am taking a couple of weeks off to flop under the tropical sun of our very own Hawaiian Islands. While there I'll been checking the validity of our President's birth certificate. So for now, until I return in mid-February, enjoy Bad Headlines.

~ Aloha, RtS

A Jury of his Peers

It was August 2007, I had been called to Jury Duty. Most people will agree that this never happens at a convenient time. This was particularly so for me but this was particularly so at this time - I was called to report on a Monday; the subject of my recently completed documentary, Jerry Andrus had just died of advanced Prostate cancer two days previously on Sunday. My mother-in-law, Wanda, had just been released by the hospital; she was at home under the care of Hospice.

The jury had been selected and I was included. The defendant had been charged with Unauthorized Use of a Motor Vehicle. The case laid out something like this:

Two guys were roommates sharing a rental in another city. “Skinny” had some decades old high-mileage muscle car, a GTO. His roommate,“Heavy Guy”, wanted to buy the car from his roommate. The arrangement between them was that Heavy could drive the car all he wanted until he could scrape enough money together to buy it from Skinny.

This arrangement went along fine until one weekend Heavy took the GTO on a long trip to our town. Heavy had borrowed the care for long trips before, however, during this trip the car broke down. Heavy managed to limp this clunker to his girl friend’s house where it sat in her driveway until the repair shop opened on Monday. Heavy managed to get the car to a shop but he didn’t have the money to pay for the repairs; Heavy would need to ask his mother to wire some money to him.

In the mean time Skinny notices that Heavy hasn’t returned the car following the weekend. Word gets to Skinny that his car is broken down in our town; pissed, he calls the police here. The police find the broken down car in the local girlfriend’s driveway. The situation is explained; everyone knows where the car is. The next day Heavy is arrested for essentially stealing the car.

So I’m sitting in the jury box listening to this testimony all the while wondering what the crime is? This seems more like a major misunderstanding has occurred, and a lack of courtesy... but a crime?!I am wondering why the prosecution even brought this trial to court; did a junior prosecutor need some practical court room experience? Remarkably during the entire trial, NO physical evidence is submitted, not one shred – the case is based entirely on whether Skinny gave Heavy permission to take this car. It's Skinny's word against Heavy's.

Skinny appears in court as a witness in a smart suit and tie; he’s young and good looking. His pretty girl friend is with him in court. Heavy, the defendant is overweight and not all that attractive; his shirt is untucked and clearly could use a hair cut.

The judge sends us into deliberation. This being my second time on a jury I decide I will set myself up to be the Foreman. I purposely sit myself at the head of the big conference table in the Jury room. I’m wanting to drive this process so I can wrap this up quickly and I can get back to my family and dying mother-in-law. I ask if anyone else wants to be the foreman; nope – so I am now foreman.

I summarize the case: Skinny has allowed Heavy borrow his car repeatedly over a period of months on the hope that Heavy will by this Junker from him. The junker breaks down out of town and they have a problem. I’m thinking most of the jury is thinking as I; what we have here is a failure to communicate resulting in an over-response by a pissed off car owner. I ask for a view of hands how many of the jurors think Heavy is NOT guilty.

Three people raise their hands. My jaw drops.

The standard for determining guilt in a criminal trial is that 10 or 12 jurors must believe that the defendant is guilty Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. Apparently what looks to me like a simple misunderstanding is going to result in a felony conviction for a guy who I don’t think deserves it. I’m surprised to find myself in the minority opinion.

The afternoon wears on, we deliberate. We note there is no evidence, no third-party witnesses or testimony other than the defendant and witness. We note that these guys are not total strangers, that the defendant made no attempt to hide the vehicle, sell it, etc. In fact, he was actually trying to have it repaired at his expense. He's had the car to the shop to get an estimate for repairs, he just needs the money to do the work.

It’s getting dark, the court clerks takes our dinner orders. I call agian for a vote – half the people want to send this kid to prison. The deliberations become heated. One guy, one of these types who wears baggy shorts and his baseball cap on backwards, has clearly developed a grudge against me. Another woman is crocheting; this jury looks like it was put together by Central Casting. What has become abundantly clear to me is that the term “Beyond a Reasonable Doubt” is analogous to these people as “I believe truly truly in my heart of hearts”. We are deadlocked. It’s late Monday night; we go home to sleep and must reconvene tomorrow.

I go home despondent. I can’t talk about the trial to my wife, but I can tell her how upset I am. She has spent all day with her mother who is slipping in and out of a coma. Out of town family have arrived at her mother’s home; her end is very near. I feel I am the only person standing between people who would send a guy to prison over a stupid disagreement. I am convinced that if the defendant were a good looking, nicely dressed young man, he’s probably walk. My jury figures that if the guy has gone to trial, that alone must mean he's guilty. I have a poor night’s sleep.

The following morning I arrive early in the jury room before anyone else has arrived. I write on the white board with red markers:

"Preponderance of Evidence"
"Clear and Convincing Evidence"
"Beyond a Reasonable Doubt"

I don’t sit, but stand at the head of the room next to the white board as each juror comes into the room and takes their seat. After the final juror arrives, I begin to speak.

I explain that there are several different standards for making decisions in a court case. For example in a civil case, each party may be partially responsible for what happened. In order to come to a decision we jurors wold have to decide which party is more likely guilty than the other. But we cannot do that in this case. I draw a big X through Preponderance of Evidence.

I then say that again, mostly in civil cases, one side says the other is guilty, the other says they aren’t. In these situations a jury needs to decide which side’s position is more substantially true than not. But again, we are not allowed to send a man to jail because we are leaning more this way than that. I draw another big red X through Clear and Convincing Evidence.

That leaves us with Beyond a Reasonable doubt. It doesn’t mean you are pretty convinced Heavy is guilty; it doesn’t mean that you feel it in your gut that Heavy is guilt – it means that you have NO DOUBT whatsoever that Heavy is guilty.

I point out that it is Skinny’s word against Heavy’s. There is no evidence to weigh one mans word over the other. There are no witnesses to confirm what either of these men said to one another. I further say that Heavy may indeed be guilty, but is there a possibility that he is NOT and that this is a misunderstanding that has blown out of proportion? If we don't know FOR SURE we must acquit him.

I call for a vote – 2 guilty, 10 NOT guilty. In Oregon it only requires 10 out of 2 to decide a trial. I don’t even attempt to turn the two remaining jurors; backward hat boy voting against me, not his conscience. Crochet woman is an idiot. But I cut my losses, quickly informing the clerk we have a verdict before anyone changes their mind. Moments later everyone is walking out of the courthouse.

As I rush directly from court to my mother-in-law’s home I chisel two important facts into my brain: The name of Heavy’s defense lawyer so I NEVER hire him as my defense attorney, and secondly, that if I am EVER accused of a crime, I’ll NEVER ask for a jury trial but instead leave my fate to a judge.

Later that evening Wanda slips briefly out of her coma. She is surrounded by her family, children and grand children. She peacefully loses consciousness and is gone.

[Between composing this story and posting it; I received a summons in the mail to appear for jury duty]

The End of Suburbia

I was hungry, so I did what most Americans do, I grabbed my car keys and drove over to the local Burger King. Within three minutes of ordering, I strode out with a burger with onion rings and BBQ sauce for $1.99 which I paid for with a credit card.

In this country, we take this extreme level of convenience for granted; this is our “normal”. Yet outside the USA, this level of self-indulgence is rare – hell, in most of the world, its unheard of.

Consider that the burger came from beef raised on a “factory” ranch. The cattle feed is mostly feed corn; a crop that requires a significant volume of fossil fuels to produce. The onion for the rings may have come from Mexico; transported (using fossil fuels) to its ultimate production. The energy to cook this meal (out West here) was produced by hydro-electric power. But in most areas of the country, electrical energy is generated using coal or natural gas.

The car which I so conveniently used to retrieve my burger was produced at a huge energy cost; again fossil fuels were consumed in massive quantities to turn iron ore into steel, plastic and other raw materials; then fabricating these materials into the final product, delivering it to a dealer… and ultimately (yes, fossil fuels) to turn the key and drive the quarter mile to the Burger King.

The United States of America represents a small fraction of the global population yet we account for over a quarter of the world’s energy resource consumption. Though few of us give a second thought to the huge energy cost of indulging what we here in America almost consider a right, they should. You see, the luxuries we take for granted is on a downward trajectory, it is coming to and end and it will be permanent.

I recommend everyone watch a little known documentary titled “The End of Suburbia”. The title is somewhat misleading, though the rise and fall of the suburbs is the central focus, the peak of our world oil production, in view of ever increasing demand, will become a global issue. The hard fact is that ALL economic growth is completely dependent on the availability of affordable energy - and the continued availability of that energy, in the opinion of MOST experts, has peaked.

By “peaking” I am referring to the top of a bell curve where all the easily accessible, and therefore low cost, petroleum and natural gas has passed. Domestic (within the US) energy production peaked in the 1970’s. The “fracking” issues recently in the news are the results of attempts to force the more difficultly obtainable petroleum to enable extraction. This bears repeating: Most experts believe that world production has already peaked; or will within the decade at best!

Though the focus on this startling documentary is on the eventual decline of our post WWII middle class way of life, this film produced in 2004 is almost prophetic in shining a glaring spotlight on the overall decline in living standard of the Western World and the United States in particular.

Most AMAZINGLY, many of the economic predictions described specifically in this film made in 2004 have already happened:

“Seven-trillion dollars lost out of the US Stock Market. Two-Million jobs lost in the United States. Federal budget surplus gone; state budget surplus' gone. The middle class disappearing.” This film accurately predicted the global recession we are currently experiencing as the cost of energy continues to rise as demand outstrips supply. New power generating facilities are not being built as investors know there are no additional sources of energy to fuel them. The situation is dire.

Alternative sources of energy are, and will be, insufficient to supplant the huge cheap, and formally abundant, fossil fuels. There is insufficient land mass on the planet to generate wind, solar, nuclear or bio-fuel source energy at the rate the world consumes fossil fuels. There is great concern that converting food production into fuel production will result in increased food costs, lingering recession and a lower standard of living, the likes of which Americans cannot even begin to imagine.

I have repeatedly expressed throughout this blog that I believe that our generation has lived in the best times man ever has, and ever will have, in the history of this planet.

False Heroes - Revisited

Back in October 2010 I did a post, False Heroes, about men who had faked their military service, mostly lying about being Vietnam War veterans. Most of these men had psychological problems, resulting in bad behavior, which they attempted to justify based upon their (supposedly) traumatic experiences during the war. The overriding tragedy is that this MYTH of the psychologically deranged or homeless Vietnam veteran has instead taken hold in the country as practically a cultural meme... even though there is little truth to the belief.

Recently I was listening to old Podcasts of American Public Radio's "This American Life" programs when I discovered they had done a story on this very subject which I blogged about in my False Heroes article. If you haven't already, I invite you to go back and read it. But in either case I recommend you listen to the 3-minute segment of the Podcast prolog below. If you have been following my blog for any length of time you will recognize the reoccurring theme in my blogging which is that things (and often people) are not always what they appear to be.

This American Life, Episode 138: "The Real Thing - Prolog" (Runtime: 3m:30s)

Christmas 1955

Christmas 1955 - I was seven years old and my little sister was age two when this photo was taken of our Christmas tree and all the loot underneath it. My Dad was a veteran of WWII, he had just gotten a good paying job as an engineer and we had moved out to the San Francisco suburbs only a few years earlier. My Mom was the stay-at-home kind.

The motivations for practicing Duck-and-Cover drills at grade school were beyond my comprehension; I was living in total middle-class heaven. Needs I didn't even know I had were met with excess. I could look through the Sears Catalog toy section and be reasonably assured that some of those treasures would end up under our tree. The only downer for the season was when I opened a gift that turned out to be a shirt or sweater - I felt gypped.

I must have gotten an new bicycle every-other Christmas. The toys were always cool - Erector sets, Tonka trucks, Lionel train, even an Atomic Canon once. These things made up for my Dad drinking too much on Christmas Eve and my Mother going to be crying. I took the toys in my room and played by myself with the door closed. These were times of excess - materialistic and alcoholic... and everything in between.

My parents struggled. My mother went to a psychiatrist and took Milltown. My Dad drank. There were no marriage counselors (other than the Catholic priest) and no self-help empowerment books. My parents foundered in guilt, self-pity, anxiety and cruel words between them.

A Christmas of "stuff" never really seemed to make up for it, though it did provide escape. I wasn't able to truly escape until I went away to college. And even then, I had to return home during Christmas break. Nothing had changed.

Today my wife and I spend practically nothing on Christmas; we don't buy gifts and we don't even attempt to compete with the other grandparents showering our grand kids with toys. We put up lights on the house and a lovely Christmas tree... it even has an angel on the top. We Atheists celebrate the holiday like most everyone does, with family and friends and good food, wishing for peace on earth and good will toward us all.

Media Generated Empathy

The following type of stories appear repeatedly in the news: A person or family, down on their luck due to unforeseen circumstances, perhaps due to illness or economic downturn. The story airs on national news... and suddenly they become the recipients of a huge outpouring of contributions of money, job offers and scholarships.

For example recently the CBS news show “60 Minutes” ran a story about homeless children in Florida; parents laid off work, living in their car, using a gas station restroom to clean up for school. The story had a huge impact on viewers; so much so that a follow-up story was broadcast about viewers sending in nearly one million dollars in contributions. One of the little girls in the story was wearing a sweatshirt emblazoned with the name of a university – that particular university offered the girl a full scholarship. ^[1]

I see these stories and think: "Great… but what about the hundreds of thousands of other families who weren't lucky enough to appear on '60 Minutes'. What do they get?"

The answer is, they get nothing! People see these stories in the context of an isolated incident. They know that there is widespread poverty and deprivation in the world, in their community. But until it becomes personalized, most people are blind to issue.

Yet oddly we recognize that most humans are generally obsessed with a sense of morality. Granted how we each of us personally defines morality varies widely from individual to individual. But a sense of morality infuses a large percentage of how we interact with others. A number of scientific studies have actually been conducted in an attempt to find a biological basis for our sense of morality. At the biological level, we know that when levels of oxytocin are raised in the blood stream, we feel more magnanimous and interested in moral abstracts.

Interestingly the mere acting or invoking of empathy actually causes the oxytocin; some have begun to call it it the “moral molecule”. But oxytocin has a very short half-life and our ability as humans to summon empathy is equally short lived. Empathy rapidly attenuates as the demand for it becomes more widely spread. A story about four specific homeless children in Florida strongly evokes empathy in a large population of television viewers. But a story instead about the hundreds of nameless, faceless homeless children, often entirely misses the empathy bulls-eye. In fact often the opposite happens; the sense of morality instead generating indignation and the feeling that empathy is undeserved.

I often find myself dealing with negative emotions when, confronted at some check-out counter at a store or restaurant, there is the seemingly ubiquitous slotted can next to the cash register: "Help little Timmy get that liver transplant, his parents have no insurance." I’ve even dropped spare change in such cans myself. But I wonder what would that store would look like if there was a slotted contribution can for every needy Timmy, Johnny, Sally… all the thousands of needy people just in my area alone? Slotted cans would be stacked on every surface up to the ceiling, all over the floor and rolling out the door!

I find outrage in the realization that most people are unable to generate even the remotest sense of empathy, and remote sense of morality, to those they have no way of individually connecting to? Who decides who has earned a donation jar or nightly news story in their name and who will continue to suffer silently in anonymity?

---------
References:
1. Homeless teens on "60 Minutes" get free college, December 3, 2011

Fear of Flying

In the course of five minutes, Air France flight 447 dropped from cruise altitude down into the Atlantic Ocean; none of the 228 passengers and crew on board survived. There was nothing mechanically wrong with the aircraft until it hit the the surface, sinking two miles to the ocean floor.

The opposite was true of US Airways Flight 1549 whose twin engines flamed dead out after climbing through a flock of birds during takeoff. The captain and first officer ditched the plane in the Hudson river; all 115 passengers on the flight survived.

The reasons for the diametrically opposite outcomes between these two airplane crashes reside entirely within the differences in the brains of their pilots. It involves the response of the human mind to situations of stress, fear and cognition.

Statistically half of all airline crashes can be attributed to “pilot error”.^[1] However, these statistics are not entirely unequivocal. For example there are cases of what is termed: “controlled flight into terrain” where pilots, completely unaware of a dangerous situation, believing that they were fully in control and on course, still crashed their aircraft. Then there are fatal incidents directly resulting from the pilot’s incorrect responses to emergency conditions; disregarding warnings or not following accepted procedures.

The latter was the case of Air France 447. While at cruise altitude and on automatic pilot, ice caused the plane’s airspeed indicator to read incorrectly. Unable to reason through the situation, the co-pilot did the unthinkable – failing to consult the checklist for this situation, he disengaged the autopilot. Attempting to fly the aircraft manually at that altitude, he pulled back on the controls, placing the aircraft in a stall condition.

Student pilots learn from their earliest training that pulling back on the control is exactly the WRONG response to a stall; a condition where the nose is lifted up to the point where the plane loses all lift. Even through every pilot knows that placing ANY aircraft in a nose-down attitude is the proper recovery procedure for a stall, the Air France co-pilot continued to attempt to pull back on the controls until the plane hit the ocean. Why?

Analysis of the cockpit voice recorder revealed that the co-pilot in command at that moment (the pilot was away from the flight deck) was apparently overcome with fear, unable to stop and reason through the predicament. Psychologists who study people’s reactions during periods of extreme fear sometimes refer to this inability to think a situation through as a “brain lock”. Deep within our brains the Amygdale processes our fear responses. If these responses override the Frontal Cortex, the “reasoning” portion of the brain, the person mostly likely will respond using instinctive behavior.

The crew of Air France 447 had almost five minutes to attempt to diagnose and recover control of their aircraft. Conversely, Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger in command of US Airways Flight 1549, had mere seconds. But Sully did possess the benefit of both years of experience and specific training which had been programmed into his cognition. When the engines flamed out on his Airbus, his rational frontal cortex overrode the fear. By thinking and responding rationally Sully and his First Officer saved 115 lives. Reacting to fear without thinking cost the lives of 228 Air France passengers.

Fear can cause us to believe things that are not true, to draw to incorrect conclusions and take inappropriate actions; fear often is a response out of ignorance. The antidote to fear is knowledge – education, training, experience and critical thinking.

In 1993, Chinese pilots flying a U.S.-made MD-80 were attempting to land in northwest China when the aircraft crashed on approach killing all on board. The pilots were baffled by an audio voice alarm from the plane's ground proximity warning system. Recovered from the wreckage, the plane's cockpit voice recorder picked up the Chinese pilot's last words: "What does 'pull up' mean?"

References:

1. PlaneCrashInfo.com accident database and represents 1,300 fatal accidents involving commercial aircraft, world-wide, from 1950 thru 2009 for which a specific cause is known.