Introducing Zork Zynt, Intergalactic Field Agent (Spy)

Zork's official bio for the Directory of Intergalactic Field Agents is reproduced here:

Zork Zynt  Cultural Analyst, Supreme Intergalactic Expeditionary Council. Transmorgified on planet xv406.98 ("Earth"), local date 11.4.2019 to follow up earlier reports regarding suitability of local species for exploitation. Unfortunately Zork could not adapt to local conditions and had to be recalled prematurely.  Currently under neurological treatment and rehabilitation on Xyborg 6 for extreme stress and disorientation.

While on earth Zork sent sporadic reports about his observations of earthlings in a political unit called "America." Due to the primitive local infrastructure and extreme distance of transmission, the reports were very short and were often received in clusters of 2-3 at a time.  They will be released in the same manner, beginning with those reproduce below.

As his assignment progressed Zork became more and more deranged by his contact with earth culture and eventually had to be removed for his own well-being. His reports are a cautionary tale to be considered carefully in expeditionary planning.

___________________________________________

Encrypted Transmission #001 Agent ZZ to IEC Local Date Nov72019

Zork here on Earth. Transmorgification went ok, but still not used to this human body. Leaks all the time and requires energy inputs that just pass through. Also the more palatable the inputs the greater damage they do. Getting very fond of something called “Krispy Kremes.”

Encrypted Transmission #002 Agent ZZ to IEC Local Date Nov72019

Materialized in a place called “America.” Past recon agents must have been high on gorxinger worms. Very dangerous. Weapons for waging war everywhere and easy for anyone to obtain. Send a Level 4 Neutralizer to replace my current Level 1. Hope I survive this...

End of Transmission. Complete as sent. Acknowledge Receipt .

Mainland Missive: Dodging Dougie and Going Down A Rabbit Hole

7/31/20

Aloha Everybody!

Well, Dougie missed – just barely for some islands.  The hurricane passed north of our island far enough that we got nada, zip, zilch.  As it went further east it edged closer to each island, and for a while it looked like it might hit Kaua’i dead on.  However, even that island got spared because the eyewall stayed about 30 miles offshore.  They got buckets of rain, but that’s not at all unusual for them, even without a hurricane. Ok, that’s all the good news.  The sobering part is that Dougie held together as it went by all the islands, staying a Category 1 hurricane even as it passed over northern waters.  These waters have been warming over the last several years (leading to some coral bleaching, unfortunately), and so the storm’s energy wasn’t sapped as much as it might have been in earlier years.  If this continues it doesn't bode well for future storms that come our way.  Stay tuned.
                               
My 8-year old desktop computer started giving me problems this week, and this prompted a deep dive down the internet rabbit hole to research new ones.  A problem living in Hawai’i is that warranty service and returns may be 2000 miles away.  We also have very few options of in-store buying.  Many of us have found that Costco is our best bet, because they automatically extend the warranty and you can easily return something to the local store if it breaks, doesn’t work, or you just don’t like it – even if you bought it at Costco.com and had it shipped here.  I have settled on a big bad boy (HP All-In-One) from Costco that has *almost* all the features I want.  The exception is that the SSD drive isn’t as large as I think it should be.  My solution is to buy a larger drive online and then swap out the old one.  I’ve done this twice before, once on a laptop and once on the desktop, so I think I can do it with this one (with the help of You Tube, of course).  I’ll let you know.

Our rainy and cloudy weather continues, and we locals are getting very tired of it.  Evidence that this is unusual comes from my water bill (lowest in 2 years) and from my pv system – in the red for 5 of the last 6 months, which has never happened since it was activated 6 years ago.  This summer has been the coolest and wettest we can remember.  Good thing we haven’t had a lot of  tourists because they would be very unhappy.

Oahu is getting record numbers of new Covid cases, but the other islands (us included) have stayed level.  We want to keep it that way, and we were glad when the Governor extended the traveler quarantine order until September.  Big debate now is over reopening schools.  I think this could be done safely on our island but Oahu has to get it under control.  The Oahu outbreak is attributed to greater population density and to bad behavior during the July 4th weekend.

Ok, that’s it for this week.  Off to Farmers’ Market, breakfast picnic, and Planet Fitness.  Take care, Stay cool, safe, and sane.

Mainland Missive: 3 Doctors, 2 Frogs, and a Hurricane

7/25/2020

3 Doctors, 2 Frogs, and a Hurricane

Aloha Everybody

Last Saturday I saw my retina specialist and indeed had to have an injection – the edema had come back bigly.  However, it had been 2 ½ months since my last injection, so it shows the new drug (Eylea) really does work well for me.  We followed the special prep procedure (very little numbing solution, only at the injection site) and I didn’t have any problems at all with the injection itself. My acuity snapped back within a couple of days (well, to it’s former 20/60, anyway), so I think things are about as good as I can hope for.

Speaking of doctors, I also “saw” my internist on Monday.  This was a video visit to go over my routine blood work, which was all good.  It worked pretty well, but of course there was no poke- and-prod to look for other issues.  He is still seeing patients in person if they really need it or can’t do the tech visit, but for the current Covid crisis this seemed like a good solution.  Of course, I to had get my blood sucked at the lab in person, which poses some risk. I read him my home bp numbers and mentioned it had been going up since April.  Rather than point to the obvious association with stress, the pandemic, Trump, and general world disintegration, he thinks it’s due to the fact that as we get older the kidneys can’t get rid of sodium as well.  So I’m now trying a diuretic in addition to my regular bp medication.  Oh boy, another pill to pop.

On Wednesday Karen went for her yearly skin check with our dermatologist.  This was of course in person and very up-close-and-personal.  The procedure is that you wait in your car until they text you, then masked up you go in for your appointment.  Risky but in Karen’s case probably worth it.  No problems to report, so it was a good visit.

I finally caught the coqui frog that had moved into our front garden. Amazing how loud something that small can be (the size of a quarter) and how hard they can be to find.  Then a few nights later I caught another one down below our house in the lower garden that I think had just moved in from our neighbors lot.  Definitely on a roll!  Only a few hundred to go!  Our wet weather has been ideal for them and I’m certain they have been reproducing like crazy. Remember, these were accidentally imported from Puerto Rico, and they have no natural predators here.

Just to add to all of the other chaos these days, tomorrow hurricane Douglas will be moving through. In our specific location this will likely prove to be more or less a non-event.  These storms approach from the east and usually pass south of islands.  The troublesome ones, though, take a gradual turn north and hit the windward side of the islands.  We, of course, have two 13k mountains (aka volcanoes) that give us a lot of protection.  Hilo, though, can get really smashed. Another track is a bit more strange, which is that a hurricane passes south of our island but close enough to be influenced by Mauna Loa.  This causes a sharp northward turn that can bring a hurricane up along our leeward coast on its way to whack Kaua’i.  Douglass won’t do that, and instead is aiming for the windward coasts of the northern islands.  At this moment the predicted track will take it north of our island but may cause problems for Maui, Oahu, and especially Kaua’i.  The good news is that the further north it goes, the cooler water will sap its strength. Interesting, eh?

Ok, it’s nice at the moment so we’re off on our usual Saturday morning routine.  Carpe diem!

Stay safe, sane and healthy.

Please Pass the Antidote

Let's face it.  Ingesting news these days can be hazardous to your psychological health.  Between Trump's latest Twitter tantrum, the pandemic, the breakdown of world order and slide toward authoritarianism, myriad ecological disasters, wars, widespread violence and incivility, and the latest data breach and misuse of our private information for political or monetary purposes, we can be overwhelmed with the relentless negativity of it all unless we come up with a strategy to cope with it.  Here's mine. Please feel free to offer your own strategy in the Comments Section.

I've chosen to get most of my news these days either from online sources or our local West Hawai'i Today newspaper. "Online" doesn't mean Facebook, Twitter, or any other social media, as I'll explain shortly. I deliberately avoid Broadcast news (aka "the talking heads") except on rare occasions when the show offers an in-depth investigation into a particular topic rather than than the usual sound bites and attention-grabbing images.

My usual morning strategy is to meditate for half an hour (an attempt to prepare for what's to come) then I dive in to the news cesspool by scanning online versions of two of the following: Aljazeera, BBC World News, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. The limit is just two of these each day because otherwise my head might explode.  My sources are chosen to cover a reasonable range of perspectives presented in a responsible, analytic and thoughtful manner.  It's often interesting to compare the way the same events are reported in two different sources, for example in terms of the importance given to the event and the context in which it is embedded. In the service of cranial defense I don't read every article, just those I consider essential to stay informed.

I also might read one or two op-ed pieces that are by people I respect even though I disagree with them. I do this sparingly and with a fairly high threshold.  Examples of my vetted list include Washington Post columnists George Will, Michael Gerson, Kathleen Parker, Ed Dionne and Fox News Congressional Correspondent Chad Pergram.  I've recently added to the list independent commentator and historian Heather Cox Richardson (thanks to SH for suggesting this source), who publishes a well-researched daily analysis of the political scene.  Although the choices here are admittedly limited to more or less the center of the political spectrum, they span enough of a range of viewpoints to hopefully avoid the echo-chamber syndrome.  For example, here are two op-eds that all of us liberals who are convinced Trump is finally on the ropes should read, one by the Post's Kathleen Parker, ("Don't let poll numbers fool you.  Trump could still win."  and the other by Andrew Mitrovica, ("How is it possible that Trump can still win?)

Following this my wife and I usually take our morning walk through the neighborhood (very calming), then eat breakfast.  At breakfast I scan our local newspaper using the same technique of cranial defense as for my online sources.

As soon as possible after each of these masochistic exercises, I reach for two sorts of antidotes.  The first is my favorite comic strips, both online and in our paper.  Although I enjoy quite a few strips, there are three that for me have the highest antidote level:  Bizzaro, Non-Sequiter, and my personal, all-time favorite, Far Side. Note that these selections are a reflection of my rather warped sense of humor, something I have explored before -- see What, Me Worry?  These creative and odd-ball observations of the human condition are a blessed relief from the relentless negativity in the news of the day, and for a few moments they allow me to think of something else before I start my day.

The second type of antidotes are various accounts of the latest advances in science and technology, testimony to the fact there may be hope for humans after all.  My main sources are a daily email summary of cutting-edge scientific developments presented by the scientific organization Sigma Xi, and news summaries by technology magazines Wired and CNET.  Imagine, people who can communicate in complete sentences and who support their arguments with evidence!

That's it.  I can't say that all these measures are 100% effective, but I'm convinced I would be confined to a rubber room without them. Stay Safe. Stay Sane. Don't let your brain be hijacked.

Mainland Missive: Sore Muscles and Champagne

7/11/20

Aloha Everyone –

A relatively busy and pleasant week here.  Last Saturday we were able to go to our Farmers’ Market for the first time in months.  It was pretty quiet but our favorite vendors had set up and we were able to buy a few things, like bananas, papayas, and radishes. Although we can get most things in the supermarket, buying direct from growers and supporting them in person is something we value highly after our years back in Ohio as vendors ourselves when we had our apple orchard.

On Sunday we celebrated our 19th anniversary of moving to Hawai’i with sunset champagne and of course followed up on Monday with more champagne to celebrate the first day of living in Hawai’i. Hard to believe it has been that long!  All in all these have been very good years, and certainly we are extremely happy to be here right now in the middle of the Covid19 pandemic, the world-wide economic melt-down, cultural upheavals, and the upcoming election campaign, which may set new heights for nastiness and absurdity.

This week saw the biggest surge of new virus cases since the pandemic began.  This is nearly entirely due to community spread as things have reopened.  Starting in August, when the state will allow a waiver of the quarantine requirement if a traveler can show a negative test within 72 hours prior to arrival, we expect to see many more cases brought it from outside.  The real question is “how many?”  Our state health care system can handle perhaps a thousand hospitalizations and only 300 or so intensive care cases before being overwhelmed, and we will have to find a balance between handling the illness and pumping up the economy.  The next few months will be “interesting.”

This week has been one of our most physically active in months.  On Tuesday Karen played golf, on Wednesday we went to one of our favorite snorkel spots down south, and on Thursday we worked out again at Planet Fitness, which is now requiring face masks at all times, even on the huff and puffs. Today we are rather stiff, but plan on working out again.

After our Thursday workout we had lunch at an open-air restaurant in the Kona Inn, which was the earliest of the fancy hotels here, built by the steamship company that brought passengers from the mainland US way before there was air travel.  The view of the bay is gorgeous from the restaurant.  On Friday Karen got her hair cut and went shopping while I did some gardening – mostly whacking back some bamboo that I had been neglecting.  I figure today after market and our workout at PI we will collapse.

That’s about it.  Enjoy your early summer.  Stay well.  Stay sane.


                   

Ever See Baby Peacocks Before?

My wife's favorite golf course is called Makalei, located on the slopes of the smallish volcano of Hualalai that looms over our village of Kailua.  The course is beautiful but difficult, with holes that rise and fall with the steep terrain.  On a clear day you can see the Pacific Ocean and the island of Maui in the distance.

The course's mascots -- even appearing on the course logo -- are a number of resident peacocks who have become quite tame and usually insist on a treat as a toll charge at each tee.  My wife loves to watch them as their behavior and plumage change during the year.  Breeding season is now over and the males have lost most of their long tail feathers that they spread as a huge fan to woo the females.

This year Karen was treated to see a couple of baby peacocks wandering around with their mother.  She snapped the photo below and caught a cute interaction between the female (left) and (male) chicks. Note the little stub of a tail fan on the male that he seems to be trying to display.  I imagine the dialogue between them going something like this:

She-cock:  "Brother dear, what the Hell are you doing??"

He-cock:  "I...I don't know!! It just feels like I'm supposed to be trying this!"

She-cock:  "Yeah, well just keep that little peacock to yourself!"

Snow Crash Stirs

On January 5th, 2017, Snow Crash took a break just as Trump began his reign of chaos.  At the time I predicted that his behavior would "very likely continue to dominate and degrade our national consciousness." Boy was that an understatement

We are now about to experience one of the nastiest and most vicious presidential campaigns in history as he unleashes an avalanche of mean-spirited misinformation that will make his previous 20,000 falsehoods look like a mere trickle.

Even though nothing has improved since 2017, I've decided to resurrect Snow Crash anyway.  There will be some changes, though, in keeping with the times.  First, some of the new posts will be rather short -- I doubt many people have the mental energy or patience to deal with long analyses of the sort I used to write.  Second, some of the posts will be a bit more personal, such as a weekly series based on emails I send to my family on the mainland.  Some may be fanciful, such as a series I'm considering that are based on my experience on Twitter as Zork Zynt, Intergalactic Observer assigned to Earth who makes periodic short reports back to his handlers for their assessment.

Finally, some posts will have a definite political edge. Fair warning -- I am a fact-based moderate liberal with a deep disgust of DJT, even though with great angst and amazement I find I sometimes (not often) agree with him.

Here we go..........