DRESSING FOR GEOLOGICAL BANQUETS - Biographical

A few decades ago, I was to give an address honoring one of my colleagues at an international meeting of geochemists.  It was to be in Tucson, AZ, in the summer.  Tucson is near the Mexican border.  I told my wife that she would have to take a nice dress through she usually wore trousers, pedal pushers, or , on rare occasions, shorts.  She rebelled against this, but I insisted so she finally agreed and did include a nice dress.  So the night of the banquet, she duly got into her dress and panty hose on this blistering hot day, and we went to the reception.  In came the female geologists from their day in the field dressed in flop-flops, shorts and dirty, stringy hair, and nap sacks.  My wife gave me a look of "You'll never get me to do this again."

Some years later I again was to give an address honoring a friend of mine at a Geological Society of America banquet during their annual meeting in Denver, CO, in October when it is often still hot.  This time I didn't insist that my wife dress up.  It was a good thing because the same this happened in this up-scale hotel where the banquet was to be held as the women geologists came in dressed in their "uniforms" of flop-flops, shorts, dirty, stringy hair, and nap sacks.

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ON EARTHQUAKES

In view of the Nepal earthquake, I have several items in this blog regarding earthquakes.  The poem titled simply Earthquake, stimulated by the Mexico City earthquake of 1985, is one of the two poems I have written that come closest to capturing the emotion I wanted to express.*  A couple of personal experiences with earthquakes in Japan, during my 1965 trip there, are given in You Are So Lucky and The Teacup Seismograph.**  And lastly is The Theology Of Natural Hazards that includes a biblical reference to an earthquake.***

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/04/earthquake-poem.html
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2009/11/you-are-so-lucky.html; http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-tea-cup-seismograph-biographical.html
*** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2010/05/theology-of-natural-hazards.html

WAR IN AFRICA - UPDATE

Things are heating up in Africa.  We actually have a minor World War going on now centered around Islam of various forms:

In 2013, the combined total of all US activities on the continent reached 546, an average of more than one mission per day. Last year, that number leapt to 674. In other words, US troops were carrying out almost two operations, exercises, or activities—from drone strikes to counterinsurgency instruction, intelligence gathering to marksmanship training—somewhere in Africa every day. This represents an enormous increase from the 172 “missions, activities, programs, and exercises” that AFRICOM inherited from other geographic commands when it began operations in 2008.*

* https://www.thenation.com/article/us-carried-out-674-military-operations-africa-last-year-did-you-hear-about-any-them/

THE DRONES OF WAR - II

I have written on drones before and my views haven't changed.*  An excerpt is below:

People speculate on how more modern parts of warlike drones - will be viewed in 10 years, largely because of collateral damage.  It is naive to think that using group troops instead of drones would result in no collateral damage or even less collateral damage.  Plus how many of our troops are you willing to sacrifice to get the target?  I  support drones, but not indiscriminately.  If in 10 years it is decided that they should be illegal, then so be it.

It is incredible to think that war should be done in a surgical manner involving only military personnel.  War is messy and violent.  In WW-II, how would you classify the Dresden and Tokyo fire bombings and the Hiroshima and especially Nagasaki* atomic bombs?  Such events were not made against military targets but in an attempt to break the will of civilians and their leaders.


Since troops are taught to kill, not all are well behaved and there are civilian casualties from our troops aside from war and they also leave behind children they have fathered either through "love" or rape.  And it isn't just the woman of the invaded country that are at risk but our own women serving in war zones as well.

Drones may also be used in cases where we would be reluctant to send troops, but maybe should to get some bad guys.

There is the claim that, since no American lives are lost using drones instead of troops to get who we think are bad guys, there will be a temptation to use drones more than we would have if we were using troops.  Yes, I think this is a danger, but one we must face.  It could have been said that we would use atomic bombs more to settle scores more than troops, but we haven't done so although at times, there are those who wanted us to do so.  So I think the temptation to overuse drones can be handled.

I think that when civilians go into war zones to do some good, they must accept the possibility of capture (kidnapping) or death.  To think that you can just safely wander around in a war zone with no threats to life or limb is just incredible.  War is a failure of humanity, but, unfortunately, it is real.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-drones-of-war.html
http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/12/torture.html

BENGHAZI FOREVER?

It may come as a surprise to you, as it did for me, that Congress still has a Benghzi investigation going though it happened on 9/11 in 2012 in response to an anti-Islam movie trailer, and that in the two 9/11s since then there have been no attacks on diplomatic posts that I have seen news about.  Though Benghazi was probably not the State Departments finest hour, it was actually a rather small occurrence compared to many previous attacks on our diplomatic posts, only unusual in that an American Ambassador was killed.  Perhaps some corrective action has been taken to lessen the prospects of attacks.  I have heard of a "rapid response" force that can be rushed to trouble spots quickly, for one example.

Elijah Cummings (D-MD) says that there have only been three meetings of the Select Committee on Benghazi since May but that the committee has spent $2.3 million.*  Another report says that more than $14 million has been spent so far by the committee.**  This on an investigation of an event that is 2-1/2 years old.  I think the public is long since gone on to other issues.  The radical Islamists must be laughing themselves sick over all the Congressional the response the Americans have given to Benghanzi.

*http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/gowdy-gop-benghazi-clinton/2015/04/22/id/639952/?ns_mail_uid=80800736&ns_mail_job=1617799_04222015&s=al&dkt_nbr=1yhlybmx
** http://www.politicususa.com/2014/05/02/pay-back-house-republicans-owe-taxpayers-14-million-benghazi-investigations.html

GOOD TIME TO BE A YOUNG WOMAN

I would think that this is a good time to be a young woman.  For one thing, opportunities abound and the "glass ceiling" is being broken all the time.  Yes, there is the problem of getting equal pay with men, but women are on the way.  Though not up to 50%, there are lots of women in both the House and the Senate.  Some of the biggest companies now have CEOs as women in Fortune 500 companies e.g. GM, Hewlett Packard and IBM plus a whole host of other companies like the techies Oracle, Xerox and Advanced Micro devices.*

What about science and technology?  A women is president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Shirley Ann Jackson, 1999 - ?, Black woman physicist, ),** and Director of the U.S. Geological Survey (Marcia McNutt, 2009 - ? and former Griswold Professor of Geophysics at MIT),*** Geological Society of America (4 women Presidents), American Geophysical Union (4), and American Association Of Petroleum Geologists (3) in the Earth sciences, for example.  Women have won all the major prizes in the large Earth sciences societies such as the Geological Society of America (2014: Susan Kiefer, Penrose Medal; Lisa Tauxe, Day Medal for research) and the American Geophysical Union (Inge Lehman discovered the inner core of the Earth and has a Medal named after her. 2014: Jessica Tierney, Macelwane Award for young scientist; Mioara Mandea, International Award for foreign researchers).  In Earth science, women have a particularly strong contingent in seismology research.

I grew up in an environment somewhat similar to what women are in right now.  I got my Ph.D. in geology from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and there seemed to be unfair competition with the Ivy League.  It was sort of we non-Ivy Leaguers had to show we could do the job whereas Ivy Leaguers had to show they couldn't do the job.  It was a thrilling time and slowly the situation changed over a period of years.  I fully expect that the situation for women will also continue to improve over time.

Note added April 10, 2015: This morning on Morning Joe I saw an interview with the CEO of AFLAC (The Duck remember?) .  She is an impressive middle-aged (?) Black lady who said that 63% of their workforce are women.  They also have a department to help employees develop skills to get ahead.

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_CEOs_of_Fortune_500_companies
** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Ann_Jackson
*** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcia_McNutt

ECONOMY VIEWED AS IMPROVING, MARCH 2015

The American economy is thought to be improving as 70% of those questioned feel the economy is fair to excellent in contrast to December 2008 when 70% thought the economy was poor.*  See the pdf table in the reference.  Of the 70% that feel the economy is fair to excellent, 25% feel the economy is good.  Though this may not seem like a lot, the number was only 16% as recently as September 2014 and was only 4% in December 2008.

Those questioned, however, are not so sure about the economy continuing to improve.  Only 28% feel the economy will get better, while 41% feel it will stay about the same.  These figures are down from December of 2009 when 43% felt the economy would get better and 29% felt it would stay about the same.

* http://www.cnbc.com/id/102563690?trknav=homestack:topnews:15

TERRY SCHIAVO LIVES AGAIN?

You may recall the case of Terry Schiavo.  She went into a coma and was later pronounced brain dead, but she was kept "alive" by artificial means for 10 yrs.  When her husband got a court order to pull the feeding tube, Jeb Bush got involved.*  He got an order to replace the feeding tube.  When this was overturned by the courts, he manipulated things to try to have it replaced so Schiavo "lived" another 5 yrs before her husband finally got the tube removed and she permanently "died."

Now there are emotional reasons to have supported Jeb Bush.  My sister-in-law, who is a physician, for example felt that Schiavo was not brain dead from looking at TV pictures, though in an autopsy it was found the Schiavo was indeed brain dead.  There are cases, I guess, where a person in a coma for years does come out of the coma.**

No one seems to answer the question of how many Terry Schiavos can we afford?  Medicine seems capable of keeping many (any?) coma patients "alive" indefinitely.  Is the public responsible for keeping such people "alive" in perpetuity?

Jeb Bush's insistence of inserting himself into this case is a great disappointment to me.    It is scary to think that Jeb Bush is actually one of the more rational Republicans.  I suppose you have to accept some blemishes in whomever you select as a presidential candidate, but this blemish is very serious.

The upshot is that you should make sure your wishes on health are understood IN WRITING and NOTARIZED while you still have your facilities.

* http://thinkprogress.org/election/2014/12/17/3604615/michael-schiavo-jeb-bush/
** Particularly notice case number 2 (http://listverse.com/2015/01/10/10-amazing-stories-of-people-who-woke-up-from-comas/)

FABULOUS FIFTIES COMMON STOCKS (MARCH 2015)

There are 16 stocks that have increased their dividends for 50 years or more.*  Note that one of these actually has joined a select new group of 60 consecutive years of increasing dividends.  The first stock to reach 60 years was Diebold (DBD); however, they then dropped out of the group, so there must be caution in getting involved in any stock.  It is called doing your own due diligence.  At one time Aon (AON) was the only stock with a 50 yr record of consecutive dividend increases, but they dropped out; however, the company is doing very well so dropping out of the list does not mean the company can't perform well.  Without further ado, below is the list plus two stocks poised to enter the group.

FABULOUS 50S
American States Water (SWR) 60 1 Dover Corp (DOV) 59 2 Genuine Parts (GPC) 59 3 Northwestern Natural Gas (NWN) 59 4 Emerson Electric (EMR) 58 5 Parker Hannifin (PH) 58 6 Proctor & Gamble (PG) 58 7 3M (MMM) 57 8 Cinncinnati Financial (CINF)  55 9 Vectron (VVC) 55 10 Coca Cola (KO) 53 11 Colgate Palmolive  (CL) 52 12 Lancaster Colony (LANC) 52 13 Lowe's Cos. (LOW) 52 14 Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) 52 15 Nordson (NDSN) 51 16 POISED TO ENTER THE FABULOUS 50s Hormel Foods(HRL) 49 1 Tootsie Roll (TR) 49 2
For what it is worth, GPC is the largest holding by far in my late wife's trust that also includes KO, and I have MMM in my own account. * From tables compiled by dFish: http://www.dripinvesting.org/tools/tools.asp