Making Ripples: post-corporate adventures in Floyd County Virginia

Chernobyl Anniversary - when will we come to closure?

UPDATE: I don't think the answers are technical. I think the answers lie in the realm of cooperative activity and open communication when it comes to developing advanced sources of power.

Although it may seem contra-intuitive, the answer will be more communication, not less.

We might recognize a common factor in all recent disasters - secrecy and lack of information were the root cause, and solutions were found only when open communication was established.

This originally appeared as a conclusion. It is more useful as an introductory summary of what I found in this additional material.

UPDATE:  Now you can tour Chernobyl and write your own story.

Faraway places...

When I look back at the beautiful places I have been privileged to visit, I realize that my memories of these trips have been distilled over time to a few bright images, not all of which have been caught with a camera. ^{Click on image to enlarge}

Sometimes the single lasting memory is of a happy moment spent with a loved one. Some of these were captured by a convenient passing stranger, like this shot of Gretchen and me on a beautiful and isolated north coast road on the Island of Maui.

A time to plant - with one difference

It's the season when we sit out on our back deck and marvel at the transformation that Spring has wrought.

In the last few days, the trees have gone from a delicate hint of buds and blossoms, to a profusion of new leaves. The vista from our deck has changed from a view of creek and neighboring houses to a small clearing surrounded by seventy-five foot walls of lime green leaves.

We are reminded again that: "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Nature has shaken off her winter-induced torpor and is flourishing on every side. It is time for us to do likewise.

But, Spring planting in our neighborhood requires more than hard work and hope. If you want your flowers to flaunt their blooms for all to see, you need altitude, lots of altitude. Our local herds of deer regard flower beds as salad bars.

Dawning of a new day for teachers?

Teaching has become a grueling, often humiliating ordeal when it should rightfully be a proud and noble career. It amazes me that teachers are given so little support when they are the real key to a better future for our children.

It is a tribute to their strength of purpose that so many dedicated people continue teaching in the face of increasingly litiginous parents, personal attacks by undisciplined students, and little or no backup from timid administrators.

UN Credibility - can it get much lower?

While the pious and terminally hopeful supporters of the UN still bleat that America had no business handling Saddam's regime without the approval and support of the UN, the dirty dealings of Kofi Annan's top appointees to the Iraq Oil for Food Program are being spread out for all to see.

At the center of this latest UN corruption are Kofi Annan’s hand-picked director of the oil-for-food program, Benon Sevan, and Annan’s son, Kojo Annan.

Bloggers Who Are Helping Bloggers

Here is a recent update from Wayne Hurlburt: The Bloggers Helping Bloggers network already includes the following confirmed blogs:

Blog Business World
Ripples
Ensight
Drink This
WOLves
Food Basics
The GodBlog
The Desert Light Journal

If you would like to join in this community effort, read the information page and send an email to David St Lawrence or Wayne Hurlburt.

Update:
Two more people contacted me today about helping other bloggers:
Cindy Camileri of Dusting My Brain
David Eddy of CareerNudge Users Blog

Another thought on Bloggers Helping Bloggers

I have been visiting many different blogs recently and I saw a recurring theme which seems to present another opportunity for bloggers to help bloggers.

I see a number of bloggers working through hard times in their lives, but still keeping up with their daily posts and offering messages of hope and encouragement to others.

Some of these indomitable individuals are battling life-threatening diseases like cancer, but they have not succumbed to the pity party that permeates so many journals. They are getting on with their lives and making the most of every day. I think these people need to be acknowledged for their spirit and encouraged to continue creating.

Internet errors come back to bite us

Mistakes made on the internet do not go away. I discovered this recently when I was doing a search on Google for a particular quote concerning two giants in the field of medicine, Galen and Harvey.

Along with many reliable sources of information, I saw, with some embarrassment, a mangled version of the quote that I had written some months ago.

I had added a comment to a post on Gray Monks weblog and had completely messed up the original quote without realizing it. When I returned to the site recently, I found that I could not add a corrective comment on an archived post.

Yesterday's Experts - woefully out of touch

Who are they?

"Yesterday's experts" are those who have risen to the top of their profession by hard work and then, satisfied by the approval of their peers, stopped learning about new things. Yet they continued making judgements about things they obviously didn't understand.

You do not want to become "yesterday's expert", because you can go down in history as a dunderhead of record when you make predictions about upcoming events.

There is a vast collection of erroneous predictions from yesterday's experts. These predictions are all the more amazing because they were made by people who were known as innovative trailbreakers and highly successful businessmen right up to the point where they revealed that they had become dinosaurs.

What they said.

Life without the internet

Life without an internet connection is the pits. The internet provides me with so much daily inflow and outflow that it is a major part of my social communication activity. When access is interrupted for any length of time, it significantly affects my quality of life.

We have been without telephone or DSL service for two days. We first noticed it after some grading was done in the back yard.

I don't mind the phone being out because we have cell phones, but I began to feel email and blogging withdrawal symptoms after the first eight hours. After two days without an internet connection, I feel numb and slightly retarded.