Another Day - Another Tree Down

Well, Ben doesn't let any grass grown under his feet. If you aren't up and working when he walks out, the tree will already be down. Thankfully, I heard his chainsaw fire up, so hurried to put my shoes on and rush outside to watch. This time the tree was about 80 feet tall [by our estimation, the maximum height]and we decided to fell it TOWARD B1 which is the Bieniaks unit. TRUST!

So, Ben first cut a wedge out of the B-Bldg. side of the tree about two fee from the base. Then he started to cut straight towards the wedge cut. Now, normally, the tree would just eventually bend into the wedge cut and fall square with the wedge cut. But today there was an east wind blowing directly against the direction of the fall. So, felling the tree is more complicated. Behind the saw blade he hammers in small wedges that force the tree "forward." Then he cuts a little more and then hammers in some more small wedges. Eventually the tree falls. Awesome! Whap - a thunderous whap - it hits the ground.

It was about 8 feet taller than we though, with a perfect small "Christmas Tree" at the top, except flat on one side. We allowed for about 15 feet from the front of B1's porch. So, we missed the porch as it turned out by about 5 feet. Whew! The artist did it again!

We also pruned several fruit trees, badly in need of pruning. We rented a chipper that turns branches up to 6" thick into wood chips. It has been a lot of work over 2 days, but the branches and leaves are now in a huge wood chip pile and we have tons of wood stacked everywhere for anyone that needs it. A lot of it needs splitting. The maple and the fruit wood will ultimately be great for fireplaces.

An Unlikely Artist

Yesterday we felled 2 trees on the BSRC property in spaces most people would look at, shake their heads and say, "Your're nuts if you try." One of the trees was a maple tree with 4 trunks, each big enough to be a tree in its own right and all over 70 feet tall.

Ben Thompson, our friend and a logger by trade from the time he was a boy, studied the trees and determined that he could fell them. Skeptical, but trusting his judgement [because after all he is the expert] I watched as he artfully felled the trees along lines that he missed, if he missed at all, by less than twelve inches. Some of the trees leaned 90 degrees opposite to the direction of the fall. He climbed up 40 feet or more [mind you, he is not a school boy, but a 50 year old man], tied on a rope to be used "just as a precaution" and keep the tree from swaying in the wind before it fell correctly. But the direction of the fall ultimately depended and in fact happened by the skillful cuts that Ben made.

I never thought about calling a logger an artist, but Ben, you are an artist.

Income Tax

Last night's segment about income tax on CBS's 60 Minutes was well done and provocative. It confirmed my own ignorant bias towards progressive income taxes and renewed my hope that sanity may yet prevail in our economy and in our government. The two are inextricably linked of course.

Washington State's referendum on instituting and income tax (currently there is no state income tax in Washington) was used as a focal point of discussion, together with an interview of David Stockman, President Reagan's budget director. See it here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7009217n&tag=contentMain;contentBody

Leslie Stahl says, "Think your taxes are too high? David Stockman thinks they're not high enough. And he's a Republican who once helped engineer the largest tax cut in history. Ronald Reagan's former budget director tells Lesley Stahl why he's changed his tune on taxes. " She goes on to interview Stockman, Bill Gates Sr. and Washington's governor. She also interviews opposing individuals.

Everything I have read to date point towards the benefits of "taxing the rich" [or eliminating the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans], but the naysayers continue to state that higher taxes on the "rich" would hurt business. I don't get the connection. I can understand how some businesses might benefit from being in a state that has no income tax because they can retain employees that want to work in a no income tax state, but on the Federal level I don't see any viable arguments.

I do understand that an increased revenue stream tempts Congress to spend, spend, spend, but economists such as Paul Krugman argue that spending, targeted at stimulating the economy, is essential in the near term for digging out of this recession and that history proves such is the case. I have to believe he is smarter on the issue than I am even though I know equally smart people disagree with him. If Krugman is correct, then the problem is not taxes in the near term, but how to control spending in the long term. Many entitlement programs need to be brought under control and probably our standard of living as a whole will decline. But if things are not brought under control our standard of living will definitely decline with perhaps worse consequences both in duration and in severity. I am thinking in particular of the crime and political upheavals and wars that have accompanied global economic depressions.

NaNoWriMo

I started my novel this morning. I have been anticipating this event for several months now. Usually November ends up being overwhelmed with assorted activities and responsibilities, virtually prohibiting allocating enough time to participate. However, this year I decided that I wasn't as busy as usual and that I would try to keep it that way in order to have more time to write. There will still be a trip to Tehachapi for Thanksgiving, and between now and then there are days of work, including felling trees with the help of Ben Thompson, but with fidelity to some early morning writing and late evening writing [as needed] I think I can do it.

Today I completed 1675 words and may yet devote some time to writing more. The novel is historical fiction, set in pre-Civil War through early post-Civil War times. The heroine is based on a real person of whom I know very little, but believe she was educated, independent and liberal thinking for her time. She was an abolitionist and woman suffragist and a cousin to Harriet [Beecher] Stowe and Henry Ward Beecher. She was a Union sympathizer married to a southern man and trapped in the Confederate south, but in the area of Knoxville, TN recognized as a hotbed of Union sentiment because of many human ties to families in New England.

How does she cope when her husband's sentiments turn to support of the Confederacy and how does their relationship change? Does her loyalty to the Union cause(s) trump her love and devotion for her husband? When her husband is tried for war crimes after the war, what, if any, role did she play in the death of his victim and in his capture, and how will their own personal "civil war" resolve itself?

I don't know the answers or how it will end, but I have embarked on the journey.

Tolerance and Intolerance

Tolerance and Intolerance

In her “This I Believe” essay, “Finding Our Common Ground”, Robin Mize expresses much of the angst about sharing political views with family members that are at odds with their views. I totally related to what she had to say. My own frustration was a major catalyst for me to create this blog.

I find myself not only at odds with some of my friends and family [though, assuredly, not all], but what troubles me most is how viscerally upset I get at some of the ideas propounded by educated and reasoning relatives and friends. I feel my blood pressure rising, and struggle as I might, my frustration becomes visibly evident. Why can I not just change the subject and move on to converse about something else less troubling to me? Partly it is because “they” won’t let it rest.

But why can I not calmly probe with questions that will elucidate the fallacy of “their” reasoning? Partly it is because they counter with more and more astounding “facts” and unfounded assertions to the point where no matter what reason I attempt to bring to bear on the issue is buried under an avalanche of falsity. Partly it is because I am not armed with facts that I can spout with equal surety to their assertions. So what to do?

I cannot recount a recent such incident accurately in detail, so I won’t attempt to do so. I just know that I handled it poorly. The assertion was the continuing belief by many that Obama was not born in Hawaii and is not legally a U.S. citizen. Because I knew I would be too agitated and frustrated to discuss the assertion rationally, I immediately said, “I don’t even want to talk about this. I don’t believe it for a minute and the idea is so preposterous to me that I don’t even want to talk about it.” I said all of this in an agitated tone of voice and was upset with myself even in the moment, but I was out of control. The follow-up comment was something to the effect [short version], “but it’s written right here.” My response, “What makes you think that what is written is true?” With a chuckle, the response was essentially, “Why would anyone lie about this in a published article of this authority?” Indeed, I have to ask myself, “Why?” and not have an answer except “Why would Hillary Clinton let him get by with it, or John McCain, or any of the Supreme Court justices, or any of hundreds of capable foes to Obama that would stand to gain by his being so fundamentally disqualified?” [Resisting the temptation to add, “Are they more stupid than the writer of the article?”

Enough said about my own failings to remain calm and self-assured at such moments. More important is the ideal to be strived for and eloquently described by Robin in her essay that I heard on The Bob Edwards Radio Show. She is a self described liberal Democrat in a family of conservative Republicans. [She even calls them “the enemy.”] She concludes her essay with the statement, “It seems to me that here in my family is an essential element of our democracy: We agree to disagree. Our ability not only to accept, but to respect, our differences is our common ground.” I do not yet have the ability to accept, much less respect, differences based upon what I believe are preposterous assumptions and assertions. Hopefully, I can at least learn to calmly say, “Let us agree to disagree on this subject.” That is not much common ground, but it seems like the responsible [response able] thing to do. Responsibility in such instances will have to await discussion in a future post.

Day One

For some time now I have thought about blogging, but this week, in a conversation with my son Stephen, he suggested that I might want to start one because of a comment I made to him about doing some daily writing in long hand called "The Morning Pages." I think he found it curious that anyone would want to bother with long hand considering the convenience of word processing, not to mention the other benefits such as publishing and editing the text. But, a great deal of the purpose of TMP is to break out of writer's block, or at least to keep thoughts flowing, and to not worry about publishing. In fact, TMP purposes to not publish, but keep the writing personal, private and free from worry about criticism from either self or others.

A blog, on the other hand, is usually published for all the world to see, or at least friends and family, and subject to potential criticism from self and others. I could keep it private, but that seems to defeat the purpose and the benefits regardless of the downside.

Once I decided to pursue creating a Blog, the first obstacle was a title. I felt the need for something with meaning and something that would endure, but I am usually lousy at coming up with such ideas. Then, in TMP, I was reflecting on the past and my varied interests and I remembered being labeled as a "Renaissance Man" by one of my colleagues. At the time, I was flattered even though I did not know what a Renassance Man was. Upon being told that a Renaissance Man is "a man of diverse interests," I felt that the label fit and I was happy to belong to a category! Today I hesitate to use it because new learning makes me believe it applies to a person not only of diverse interests, but also of considerable knowledge and skill in diverse subjects. Diverse interests yes, diverse expertise? - not so much.

Then today, in researching more about Renaissance Man I discovered the terms "polymath" and "polyhistor" and their application to the concept of what might more correctly be termed "universal man." I especially enjoyed Aristotle's thought: "For an educated man should be able to form a fair off-hand judgment as to the goodness or badness of the method used by a professor in his exposition. To be educated is in fact to be able to do this; and even the man of universal education we deem to be such in virtue of his having this ability."

Now, even as I write this, it occurs to me that what I am really talking about is being a "man of universal education." Aha! Yes indeed. Hence the title "The Education of Wade Austin."

Now, the purpose of this blog is to both share and continue my education. Writing, speaking, conveying understanding in whatever form or genre serves to deepen understanding, if not discard it when it is foolish. It also serves to seek new input from others - to create dialog. My hope is that this blog will serve as a forum for expressing my own understanding [or lack of understanding] of a broad range of subjects, for seeking and accepting input from others as a means of increasing my understanding of those subjects, and participating in discourse about them.

As time goes by, I hope I will find a few friends that will bear with my struggle to educate myself and share the journey with me. I suspect there will be some that endure for awhile but will tire of my progress or be consumed with other dialogs more important to them. In any case, I look forward to this journey with a tiny bit of trepidation, but a whole lot of optimism, because learning is about truth, and truth genders to freedom, and freedom, while it may experience seasons of fear ultimately leads to being at peace with oneself. What more could one wish for? Ah, a question for another time.