Superfluous Saturday

Not Afraid to Tackle the Controversial Topics of the Day *

* Gun control . . . Climate Change . . . Evolution

Alert Readers Want to Know

Gun Control

Dear Blogging King, Now that more time has elapsed, what are your thoughts about the Parkland H.S. massacre & subsequent events? Signed, Control Freak

Dear Control Freak, Thank you for asking. Now matter where someone falls on the gun control spectrum, we all feel a deep sense of loss at the totally unnecessary loss of life among students & staff. First of all, having said that, I feel that students were used & used badly. Instead of giving them time to mourn the loss of friends, they were pressured to climb onto buses & attend all sorts of questionable rallies that played up the emotional level while ignoring the rationale level. Secondly, because we enjoy both 1st & 2nd Amendment privileges, major companies have a right to adopt ineffectual boycotts, but these efforts seem driven by self-seeking pandering of special interest groups. Special interest groups & individuals that fall on the other side of the spectrum have a right to take action against such companies, including legislative action. It's all about cause & effect, action & consequences. Thirdly, it's appalling that even while the tragedy was unfolding, partisan hacks were trying to spin it for their own political agenda. Signed, Your Humble Blogger

Health Progress

Dear Uber Blogger, Are you taking care of yourself like you should be? Signed, Worried Reader

Dear Worried Reader, Thank you for asking. As I've blogged previously, I've been recovering from a triple-whammy of Influenza, pneumonia, & a subsequent staph infection. I return to my cardiologist this MON 3/9, hopefully to start the ball rolling for a stent procedure in the near future. I continue to do 2-3 breathing treatments per day, using a shutter valve [It looks like a giant duck call.] & nebulizer * w/albuterol. I also use an inhaler twice daily, once when I get up in the morning & again before I go to bed in the evening. [This isn't helping my BP.] My cough is almost gone, although I'm still taking cough medicine w/codeine at bedtime, & people are telling me that I look & sound better. ** I wish I could say that I'm experiencing success w/a Mediterranean-type diet to promote heart health. 
* I have not been able to confirm that this instrument takes its name from the Assyrian [or was it Babylonian?] King Nebuchadnezzar. The odds seem unlikely in his favor.
** And it's unlikely that this is caused by my athletic physique.

Since these breathing treatments take about 35 minutes together, I've been enjoying documentaries from YouTube while I exercise my lungs & inhale therapeutic vapors. This has proven to be highly entertaining, albeit somewhat challenging to my set of values. Signed, Your Humble Blogger

Global Climate Change

Dear Blogger Supreme, What are your thoughts these days about global climate change? Signed, Climate Change Questioner

Dear CCQ, Thank you for asking. Climate change, specifically global warming, was at the heart of a documentary I watched recently, entitled "Glacier National Park Montana HD." The inspirational segments concentrated on the awesome scenery, as well as the flora & fauna on the park. *
* It's on our bucket list. I hope we make it there before the glaciers are all gone, which, according to the experts & the evidence, could happen within the next 10-20 years. 

On the other hand, these messages got to be a little(?) annoying:  

• Save the glaciers.
• Save the meadows.
• Save the bears.
• Save the pikas.
• Save the bull trout.
• Save the white bark pines.

As I soaked in the grandeur of the geological forces that have carved out this wilderness & marveled at the ecological complexity, I couldn't help but think that human efforts to counteract global climate change pale in comparison to the natural cycles of climate & weather. I've never denied the possibility of global climate change. I've just doubted humankind's ability to counter-balance this change. I also suspect the motives of some who are at the forefront of pronouncements that we have to do something, anything . . . Stat!

Which reminds me of one more annoyance that is common in all of these documentaries. Since Americans are among the large audiences drawn to these videos, why do we have to put up with socialist measurements, such as kilogram, kilometer, meter, centimeter, ad nauseum. I don't WANT to know how many KG of roots & berries that a grizzly bear can pack away. Tell me in lbs & tons! And describing a beaver's  6-meter fall from a tree, which happened when he tried to climb it in search of nourishing branches & limbs, DOESN'T interest me. Tell me in feet! Or yards! Signed, G.O.M.E.R. *

* Grumpy Old Man & His Elucidating Remarks

Evolution

Dear Soapbox Blogger, Why haven't we read anything about evolution in your blogs lately? Signed, Puzzled & Perplexed

Dear P & P, Thank you for asking. I'll use the beaver documentary as my soapbox this morning. Considering a beaver's instincts to successfully engineer dams & lodges, derive nourishment from trees, bark, etc., & enjoy a special gland in its stomach, which helps it digest largely undigestible matter, & trying to wrap my brain around evolutionary theory which would require a proto-type beaver evolved from another creature, & intermediate stages over millions of years, all leading to the current species, I don't see how mutations could have made this work. Did such a gland materialize suddenly over time? And if it started as a "proto-gland," wouldn't that beaver have been unable to digest certain food stuffs, die, & end that possible evolutionary link? The mathematical odds of this happening are so enormous as to be unfathomable.

I'll take my chances with the six-days of creation that are taught in the first 2 chapters of Genesis. This takes faith, but it takes just as much faith, perhaps more, to believe in evolution. *  Signed, Your Humble Blogger

* I don't have a problem w/micro-evolution. Macro-evolution? Doubt it.