tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72101949243287240802024-03-05T18:57:10.224-06:00Wallin's WaveEducation, Poetry, Technology, Quilting, Genealogy, and Whatever I feel like writing on a given day.Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.comBlogger203125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-35595794576794075902024-02-23T11:51:00.002-06:002024-02-23T11:51:25.656-06:00Pre-fun<p>More fun is planned for the coming month. Concerts, travel, Zooms, and my usual fun with famiy, quilters, singers, poets, and friends. You'd think I'd be happy, and I am, but for me, there is always anxiety. I calm myself by cleaning (presently cleaning closets), playing video games on my phone, and generally making a mess, which will have to be spotless soon. I have perfectionistic tendencies, which makes me clean my house almost spotless before I have people over. I know, that's why I never have parties. I am grateful for a doggie that takes me for long walks. That always lessens my anxieties. How about you? Do you get nervous before an unusual event in your life, like travel or hosting? </p><p><br /></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-62909016386776801222024-02-06T10:04:00.004-06:002024-02-23T11:44:46.684-06:00Post-Fun, Revised<p><span style="font-family: times;">I had so much fun in January! I rested up from my trip to Cuba, celebrated the birthdays of two beautiful teenage granddaughters, and joined the Swedish Glee Club (<a href="https://swedishgleeclub.org/" style="font-size: 14px;"><span class="s1">https://swedishgleeclub.org/</span></a><span style="font-size: 14px;">), which has great singers, beautiful music, </span>and fantastic director. I attended the opera Carmen for the first time and had dinner with friends. Then I also attended the opera Cinderella for the first time and had lunch with friends beforehand.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: times;">Then I realized there is a downside<span style="font-size: 14px;"> to fun, and I’m calling it “post-fun.” After having a fun month in January, life is back to normal and that now seems more boring.</span><span style="font-size: 14px;"> I still sing in my church choir and quilt with friends and alone. So I am having plenty of fun in retirement, but the routine aspects of life are not so fun. Cleaning bathrooms and scrubbing floors are not fun.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-size: 14px;"> </span></span></p><p><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: times; font-size: 14px;">Even quilting, reading, and writing can be isolating. Solitude is wonderful, but rarely as fun as almost anything with family or friends. I am grateful for the beautiful memories of January.</span></p><p class="p1" style="font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: times;">It doesn’t take much to meet my needs. In the coming months I have plans to travel, go to concerts, a play, and another opera. They may or may not be fun. But I have goals I wish to achieve before I die. So having too much fun causes a kind of stress. But that’s another story.</span></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-19723041399091498262024-01-12T11:38:00.001-06:002024-02-05T15:59:41.816-06:00The Theme for the Year is Fun<p>I recently made a trip to Cuba with a family I have grown close to in the U.S. I was treated like a member of the family, and I realized I just don't have enough fun. Now, mind you, fun is relative. Parties can be fun, or not. Relatives can be fun, or not. You get my point? I hope to locate some of the fun in my life that I take for granted and share these with you. You may think they're boring or worse, but I hope to spend more time having fun this year, unless God has other plans. </p><p>First, I must say it is a pleasure for me to dance. As a single living alone, I don't get much chance to do so. The most dancey I have gotten is exercise videos. Still, I danced for hours on New Year's Eve in Cuba and loved every minute of it. My phone thought I had walked for miles.</p><p>Grandkids are the most fun family activity I have enjoyed to far. Even teenagers, who can be separating themselves from family know some fun games to play. Have you played Cave Man? It's a riot!</p><p>My other fun activities are sewing, reading, waking, writing, and learning about genealogy, so you can see I'm not the wild thing I used to be. What do you do to have fun? Give me some ideas here, people! I'll let you know as I discover the fun I've been missing in life and hope I can laugh through the tough times.</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-77195905054297027472023-09-23T16:59:00.000-05:002023-09-23T16:59:03.537-05:00 A Writing Room Retreat Fall 2023<p>I am participating virtually in a writing conference this weekend and it is so encouraging. I have let this blog slide since April. April! I hope to get back on track. When I think about writing, I am overwhelmed with all the things I can write about and stay paralyzed with the inability to choose one and get started. It's a combination of procrastination and perfectionism, (thank you Laura Scala). When I write, I feel better. </p><p>Each speaker has offered ideas I haven't heard before and they all encourage me to write. I have realized that I have a few syndromes that interfere. First, there is the never good enough message I absorbed from my mom, who was very hard on herself. I have never looked at my life as a "hero's journey." I waste my time on my phone and TV, being entertained and distracted from the life that is going on around me. I am terrified of criticism, although I love receiving tips from friends who can suggest ways my writing could be better.</p><p>I come from a family of gifted people who expect something to be really good the first time we try it. In addition, we can think of all the other things that might be included. I don't mean to be hard on my family. I am just as guilty as anyone else. </p><p>And then there is Anne Lamott. She has been my favorite author for as long as she has been writing and she uses humor to point out things we might want to know. I got on her mailing list by going to a previous online workshop and I am soooo grateful. I would love to quote her, but you really have to read her work and attend a workshop to get the full picture of how much grace she portrays with her life. Her son Sam has found his way into writing and I have ordered his first book. What a gifted family!</p><p>Jacob Nordby spoke on "Your Creative Hero's Journey" and I was too tired to take notes. I went to bed, missing the final event, but I will be able to see it in a few weeks via video.</p><p>Tooday, I have heard from Ryan Spear on "Crafting Resilience," Claire Giovino on "The Space Between," Lauren Sapala on "Healing Writing Anxiety," and Laura Mckowen on "Pinning the Butterfly." And that's just until suppertime today. I hope all of you will check out the app "A Writing Room" and it's free.</p><p>More tomorrow, if I can make myself sit in a chair long enough.</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-2332207012944746532023-04-15T18:37:00.000-05:002023-04-15T18:37:59.936-05:00Economics of Being a Woman<p> </p><p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">April 15, 2023</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I decided to post this year on the randomness that goes on in my head. Unfortunately, my head is full of wild and random thoughts and I have trouble focusing. Sounds like an apt description of ADD, although I have only been diagnosed by coworkers.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I have on my desk a book I cannot part with, <span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;">The Economics of Being a Woman</span>, by Dee Dee Ahern with Betsy Bliss. It’s not because some child of mine has scribbled between the back covers, although that brings back fond memories. It’s because this book opened my eyes to the way women’s role in our society (U.S.) limits our achievement. Most heterogeneous women grow up dreaming of finding that soul mate, marrying, and having a family. At least my generation did, although this changes with every generation, thankfully. In my childhood, women could aspire to three professions: nursing, teaching or secretarial work. I was surprised in 1969 when I married and was told I shouldn’t work at all because it indicated the husband was not a good provider. Luckily, I ignored his wishes and he enjoyed the income.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">From 1956 to 1974, women’s pay went from 63% of men’s pay to 57%. Yeah, I was surprised, too. Even with lots of protesting in the 60s and 70s, women’s share of income went down. Luckily, we weren’t so easily overcome. Women’s rights became an essential part of civil rights. By 1979, our share had gone up to 61.5% of men’s, and by 2021, it rose to 84.3%. The exception was West Virginia, where it was still 36.6%. (1)</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"></span><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What are the reasons women earn less? When I entered the workforce, I had a choice among low-paying professions. There were women chemists, physicians, and plumbers, but they were the exception, rather than the rule. The unions in the 50s made sure men could make enough to support a family, and teacher’s union made sure a job would be there after a child was born. Women’s birth control had undergone a significant change in the 60s with the advent of the birth control pill. Now women could control when and if they had children, but they were still held back by employers that expected them to take time to have a family. Women were also expected to take care of sick family members or elderly ones. They were expected to move if the husband was transferred, and they were entitled to very low retirement benefits because of low earnings during their lifetime. Women who were widowed were just out of luck and often had to move their family into smaller houses or apartments. It is still true that the survivor of a marriage has to choose between the two retirement packages, if there are any.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The pandemic has showed us that it is still the women who usually have to leave their jobs to care for sick family members, and divorce has certainly shown us it is often the woman who provides for the family. I hope my granddaughters will know equity in the respect (and salaries) paid to women throughout their lives. Maybe pay equity will be up to 90% by the time they are working.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">(1) <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gender-wage-pay-gap-charts-2017-3#major-cities-show-an-even-bigger-discrepancy-3"><span class="s1">https://www.businessinsider.com/gender-wage-pay-gap-charts-2017-3#major-cities-show-an-even-bigger-discrepancy-3</span></a></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-feature-settings: normal; font-kerning: auto; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variation-settings: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Gender Wage Pay Gap Charts, accessed 3/29/23.</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-28796696817176489622023-01-24T10:33:00.003-06:002023-01-24T10:36:09.459-06:00This year's theme is "Ideas"<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">I took me a few weeks to come up with a theme for this year, but I have decided on “Ideas” as my theme for 2023. I was cleaning out my closets and realized that I will probably not keep my web site up to date because there is just that one extra layer of effort needed to post on it. So here are the Relics of the Past, as I like to call them. I hope they help you all.</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The first place I wanted to take you was to an article by Glenda Thorne. Yesterday I searched to find it and it was gone. I hope you see this Glenda and repost the chart you entitled “Memory Self-Test.” I downloaded it in 2008 from the Center for Development and Learning, which is no longer available. While it is written for students, i think there is a whole generation that could use this advise; the Boomers. As I approach three quarters of a century, I am constantly frustrated by short-term memory loss and word retrieval problems. I have begun to read books on improving memory, but your article was short, simple, and thorough.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Luckily for all of us, she has a new article up, called <a href="https://impactofspecialneeds.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/1/9/3419723/10_strategies_to_enhance_students_memory.pdf"><span class="s1">10 Strategies to Enhance Student Learning.</span></a> (1) I should say I hope it is the same Glenda Thorne, because when I searched for a way to get in touch with her, I found many Glenda Thornes with PhDs. I hope you will all check out her article.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">On the same page is another article by By Jonathan Mooney called “Strategies for Improving Memory.” Seven tips are listed that use more than one sense, which is always a good idea. I do better with numbers, but my short-term memory is weaker than it used to be, so I have to keep repeating the numbers out loud if I am going to use them right away (like all those numbers we use to log in with double security).</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">This page may disappear like Glenda’s first article on memory, but at least you have the name of two researchers in the field.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">(1) Thorne,Glenda”10 Strategies to Enhance Student Learning,” https://impactofspecialneeds.weebly.com/uploads/3/4/1/9/3419723/10_strategies_to_enhance_students_memory.pdf, accessed on Jan 24, 2024.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Mooney, Jonathan, “Strategies for Improving Memory,” ibid.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-38312069881993718542022-06-10T10:39:00.001-05:002022-06-10T10:39:11.339-05:00 A Big Adjustment<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A Big Adjustment</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When I first saw Phil Duncan’s farm, I felt elated. The trees and bushes were wild, the gravel path led down the hill to the barnyard, and silos and a barn stood silently nearby. Within a few months we married and moved to the farmhouse. My<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>handsome suitor disappeared into his work, and I became a farm wife, with only a romanticized idea of what that meant. Phil farmed about 800 acres with his father and brother and we bought the farm next door a while later. Phil also raised pigs, eventually expanding to include a confinement for birthing, another for piglets, and another for finishing. At its peak, Duncan Farms sold about two thousand hogs per year.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My first adjustment to farming was the work farm wives were expected to do. In the suburbs, the men take out the garbage and mow the lawn. Now it was my job. I also learned to amuse myself. This took me several years, but there was no movie theater near us and no great restaurants. I tried every craft I heard of and began sewing again for the first time since high school. Maternity clothes were the first thing I made.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Our first child arrived ten months after we married. My mom came for a week, and I didn’t want her to leave. Then, I was on my own. Son #2 and daughter came within seven years. I started a big farm garden, canned vegetables, and froze corn.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The advances in crop yields led to record production. Then inflation caused the Fed to raise interest rates, which led to a drop in the value of farm land. I worked as a substitute teacher for two of those years between kids, to supplement our income. Another aspect of the Farm Debt Crisis of the early 1980s.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Coming up next: The drought.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-79462938697283310342022-05-17T18:50:00.004-05:002022-05-17T19:23:12.843-05:00The Family Farm<p><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’m the last person to be writing about a family farm. Born in Chicago, raised in the suburbs, I lived on a pig farm for only fifteen years, and I really don’t have the perspective of a third generation farmer. Yet farms have played an integral part in my family’s story.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">During the second half of the nineteenth century in Sweden two driving factors for emigration were the compulsory membership in the state church and the potato famine. All Swedes were required to register with the state church—the Swedish Lutheran Church. The church collected taxes. If you moved, you had to tell the church where you lived and then register with the church in the new location.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The potato famine hit Sweden about the same time as it hit Ireland, causing poverty and starvation, so there was hope in emigration by looking to the U.S. One of my ancestors was an eighteen-year old woman with a one-year-old child. They had been living on one bowl of potato soup a day.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My mother’s grandfather (Axel Victor Gabrielsson) was unable to hold a job because of alcohol use, so he left Sweden illegally (did not tell the church) and came to the U.S. His son (Johann Albert Edward Axelsson) followed in 1874. I have little information on where they lived until Axel shows up in Varna, Illinois (in north central Illinois). I looked Varna up and decided to take a trip. What I found was shocking. The town of 3,000 people had decent homes, but the downtown area was run down with empty stores scattered among the ones still open. On the main street, a set of huge grain bins overwhelmed the little ones next to them. Instead of seeing miles of family farms, there were miles of huge farms, obviously owned by corporations. How had this happened over our lifetimes? </p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When my great-grandparents and grandparents came to the United States, they found their way from New York City to rural Illinois and Iowa. The railroad offered steady work, and farms needed hired hands. Western Iowa was the frontier, and those who stayed on the land for five years could acquire it for free. A man in Sweden bought land in southwest Iowa and put ads in Swedish papers for God-fearing men to settle it. I like to joke that he got my great-grandparents instead.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My mother’s parents met in northwest Iowa, where her father was a circuit preacher and her mother was an organist in two churches. They traveled to Boston, New York City, and Chicago, where he ministered to large Swedish churches. When the Depression hit he<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>retired to a farm in Red Oak, Iowa. The remaining family consisted of him, a son, daughter-in-law, three children and my mom. They lived off the food they could grow, since ministers weren’t paid salaries then.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>The idea that a small farm could sustain a family seems ludicrous now.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">My father’s parents lived in Stanton, Iowa, a very Swedish town, where his grandparents owned the local hardware store. It failed in the Great Depression. My parents knew each other in high school, but became interested in each other on a train trip home for the holidays one year. Dad rode the rails with cattle for the stockyards in Chicago, then worked in the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Mom had gone to Swedish Covenant Hospital for nurses training. My parents left the small towns for the suburbs and never missed it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The government began legislating to help farmers. The years of 1940-1950 brought technology making it easier to plant, fertilize and harvest. Farmers began to sell excess crops to other countries. The Food Stamp Act of 1964 had as its goal “to achieve a more effective use of agricultural overproduction, improve levels of nutrition among individuals with low-incomes and strengthen the agricultural economy. “ (1) Schools found their free lunches were often heavy on surplus dairy and corn products.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Fast forward to the 1960s. Young people were not happy with the culture and created a counterculture. Going “back to the land” was a trend, although most hippy-like famers were not successful in living off the land. Nevertheless, it was an ideal. The environmental movement was in its infancy. Heavily influenced by this, my brother left his well-paying computer job to live in a Colorado commune. I was offered a job in western Illinois in January and chose it over one on the west side of Chicago. I fell in love with the land and the people and stayed, met my children’s father. Small family farms were still available at that time, although it helped if your parents and grandparents had land to leave you.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The farm debt crisis in 1980s was a result of higher interest rates and lower land and crop prices. I remember news of a farmer that went to a savings and loan company and shot a person. I also remember wondering what we would live on for two weeks, when our money ran out one month.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">To be continued…</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 17px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "American Typewriter"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">(1) The History of SNAP, https://www.snaptohealth.org/snap/the-history-of-snap/. Accessed 5/7/22.</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-42246423755549606602022-03-11T10:35:00.002-06:002022-03-11T10:36:46.977-06:00Putin Poem<p><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="background-color: white;">The news in November that a beloved family member had been diagnosed with cancer knocked me off balance. The suffering the family has gone through seems unbearable, and the road we are traveling can turn at any time. Today, we are happy, grateful for the medical personnel in hospitals and labs across the country who spend their days working for patients.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">This occurred in the midst of a plague that has taken six million lives worldwide, an undercount by most who follow that news. Although this plague is not over, governments all over the world have loosened mitigation measures and many people are going about their business as if it is gone. It is not. While others think it will become less lethal and endemic, I wonder if it is just practicing its ability to spread before it wallops us with a big variant. Some say I am negative. Cynical, sarcastic, yes. One of my jokes in college was pessimism is realism and optimism is masochism. Joke. Not funny, but it fit the time.</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And now, Putin has gone berserk, leading five wars in 28 years. I think it is time I publish my Putin Poem. I wrote this in 2016, after reading A Russian Diary, by Anna Politkovskaya, translated by Arch Tait.</span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p3" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">A New Adolph</span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p4" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Such a good-looking devil.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We see the cunning in your face.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Others use you to secure their power,</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">only to find you’ve used them<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">to steal yours.</span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Official duties in Leningrad gave you<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">connections to siphon foreign aid.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Moscow called and you answered,</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">assets and contracts in your pocket.</span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Once President, you used your power,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">stopped the questions concerning Yeltsin.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Politkovskaya and Litvinenko died for speaking truth. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Opponents drugged, abducted, put in prison.</span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Soldiers in Cechen and Ukraine froze<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">while elites splurged, all to feed the Russian bear.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p><p class="p6" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p class="p5" style="font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Your KGB skills serve you well.</span></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-76026858974686851982021-12-31T10:11:00.003-06:002021-12-31T10:11:56.603-06:00 What We Did This Year<p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">It’s the time of year when our mailboxes and email are flooded with requests for funds. But just what have we accomplished worldwide against Climate Change? The groups I follow, Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Nature Conservancy, Environmental Defense Fund, and Audubon Society, are all sending out their accomplishments. I am just an ordinary person and this is my perspective of what has changed. </p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;">First, we are on our way to making electric cars in the Western world. Norway leads the world in per capita use, although China has the most cars in use. (1) The US has been slow to change, with gas-guzzling trucks, SUVs and luxury cars common in most areas. My only concern with this is what we will use to create the electricity. Germany has closed three of the last six nuclear power plants, showing how smart they are once again. (2)<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>One positive outcome of the COVID pandemic is that skies cleared when people stopped driving. So we got to see what clean air looked like. Of course, clear does not mean clean.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Businesses have found a selling point to be carbon neutral, so we have moved past the pioneer stage of change. News outlets are reporting on climate change daily. This means “a rapidly evolving research” (3) in most areas.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A good summary before the Climate Change Conference was on Vox. “Coal is effectively dead in many countries. Renewable prices are falling rapidly. The price of solar fell by 89 percent in the past decade. Onshore wind fell by 70 percent. They’re now cheaper than coal and gas. To make this transition, we will need lots of energy storage. There’s good news there too: The price of batteries has fallen by 97 percent in the past 30 years.”(4)</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Hill had a summary of how well/badly we have done in combatting climate change. (5) Zaelke and Dreyfus see positives as advances in science, policy and activism. Feedback loops, which I covered in a previous post, are being monitored. Fossil fuels are on their way out, at a snail’s pace. Awareness of the need for natural habitat and the species it contains, and activism by youth are on the rise. The World Bank is putting its money where its mouth is, starting a fund to help countries trying to advance in this field.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So, to sum up, we have turned the bow of the ship. Although we signed back onto the Climate Change Agreement, my greatest hope is with the youth of today. They are being affected the most, and they have the best chance to turn things around. I believe they will.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country#"><span class="s1">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car_use_by_country#</span></a>, accessed 12/31/21</li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-germany-angela-merkel-gerhard-schroeder-11b97717f822a38c90fb7483ffc825aa"><span class="s1">https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-germany-angela-merkel-gerhard-schroeder-11b97717f822a38c90fb7483ffc825aa</span></a>, accessed 12/31/21</li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Lionello, P., Abrantes, F., Gacic, M. <i>et al.</i> The climate of the Mediterranean region: research progress and climate change impacts. <i>Reg Environ Change</i> <b>14, </b>1679–1684 (2014). <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0666-0"><span class="s1">https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-014-0666-0</span></a>, accessed 12/32/21</li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Lopez, German. The world’s progress on climate change. <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-weeds/2021/11/5/22765434/climate-change-global-warming-progress-glasgow-cop26"><span class="s1">https://www.vox.com/the-weeds/2021/11/5/22765434/climate-change-global-warming-progress-glasgow-cop26</span></a>, accessed 12/31/21</li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Zaelke, Durwood, and Dreyfus, Gabrielle. The good, the bad and the ugly of climate change in 2021 — but it’s not too late to act. <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/587652-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-climate-change-in-2021-but-its"><span class="s1">https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/587652-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-of-climate-change-in-2021-but-its</span></a>. 12/29/21. Accessed 12/31/21.</li></ol>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-46203668129802970302021-10-22T10:29:00.000-05:002021-10-22T10:29:08.370-05:00Inspiration<p></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I was absolutely inspired this month when I was asked to give a short talk on poetry to a group of gifted students who are writing about climate change. The students who are learning about climate change are our hope for the future. The organization that is mobilizing these children is <a href="https://www.chicagogiftedcommunity.org/event-4446637?CalendarViewType=1&SelectedDate=10/22/2021"><span class="s1" style="color: #0000e9;">Chicago Gifted Community Center </span></a>. They support a Climate Summit once a year, and the link above will take you to the page where writing is accepted for this, whether you’re a kid or adult.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As I have mentioned before, the news is full of actions being taken by countries all over the world. Unfortunately, the United States can’t seem to get over its love affair with fossil fuels. I understand that people will be thrown out of work. So let’s train them to do something else they enjoy. I have traveled into a mine (northern Michigan) and it is not a fun job. It does put food on the table, so people don’t want to give it up. I get that. But it is going to be obsolete in a few years. Start learning new skills, people.</p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As for the owners of fossil fuel companies, take some of the millions you are making today and invest in another type of renewable energy. Some countries have already done it. Iceland and Sweden are leading the way, with almost 100% renewable energy. Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Germany, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Denmark and China round out the top ten.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Our present system of government is failing on this front, with a minority of rural states bucking the trend. It will take a massive effort to overcome the people representing these states, who don’t want progress in our response to climate change. In fact, I have a family member who doesn’t believe there is a crisis. And it’s <span class="s2" style="text-decoration-line: underline;">not</span> the one that was described as “he doesn’t believe there’s a flood until he feels the water.”</p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">So how do we overcome the reluctance of many people to even acknowledge there is a crisis? I believe it will come. In every new idea/invention there are several groups: the pioneers, the settlers and those who don’t want change at all. There is an excellent description of change management <a href="https://www.caveolearning.com/blog/change-management-and-countering-resistance-to-organizational-change"><span class="s1" style="color: #0000e9;">here:</span></a> <a href="https://www.caveolearning.com/blog/change-management-and-countering-resistance-to-organizational-change"><span class="s1" style="color: #0000e9;">Caveo Learning</span></a>. We have had pioneers for some time now, and the mass of humanity that sees the danger of not changing is beginning to move. Let's see what Caveo says about addressing the reluctance to change.</p><p class="p1" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><b>We address resistance through audience analysis. Gather data that predicts or measures resistance by the various target populations, then analyze it to determine where the problems are, the size of the problems of resistance, and the potential impact on the project. Then, build action plans to mitigate the resistance.</b></p><p class="p2" style="background-color: white; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"><b>Of course, don’t focus solely on resistance avoidance. There are many positives—or at least, there should be—for the change being implemented; focus on those benefits, as well. (1)</b></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">Perhaps we should change our focus and spend more time preparing people for the major shift that is inevitable if we survive.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="s3" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">(1) Change Management and Countering Resistance to Organizational </span><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue";">Change</span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://www.caveolearning.com/blog/change-management-and-countering-resistance-to-organizational-change"><span class="s5" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">https://www.caveolearning.com/blog/change-management-and-countering-resistance-to-organizational-change</span></a>,</span></span><span class="s4" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 10px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"> accessed 10/22.</span><br /><p class="p5" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-9345410890199312832021-07-28T10:24:00.126-05:002021-09-24T10:17:27.182-05:00Climate Emergency<p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;"> We have gone from Global Warming to Climate Change to Climate Emergency in the last couple of years. Of course, there are those who have been pointing to this future, as we went about our business happily hoping some magic technology fix would occur so that we wouldn't have to change. Unfortunately, nature doesn't work that way. We are learning by our mistakes that nature can be inflexible at times. Warm up the atmosphere and you will warm up the oceans. Warm up the oceans and you will melt the polar ice caps, create massive storms unpredictable in scope and location. Warm up the climate and you will ensure massive extinctions, that may include ourselves. </p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">I have been raising butterflies for three years. The first year, I had over 100 monarch butterflies hatch from their chrysalides. Last year, although milkweed was plentiful, I only raised 20. This year, so far, I have raised one swallowtail and two monarchs. Was it the very wet June that drowned several of my dahlia, or the drought since then that killed my milkweed? I can only hope this is not occurring species-wide. I think it was the insecticide my association felt compelled to spray on the lawn because people don't want to have lawns that look "bad" from insects. </p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">How do you reach people who are blind to what is occuring? The media has picked up on this topic and we are now deluged with ideas every day. I began this year choosing one topic and writing on it, but I am overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. My need for constant stimulation doesn't help much. I listen to public radio and watch the news every day. I think the most promising news is that we as a species have realized we are on schedule for disaster after disaster until we solve some of the problems. </p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">Most pressing, of course, is the carbon in the atmosphere. It was startling to see how clean the air became with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. People stayed home for weeks, traffic was negligible and the skies were blue over Chicago. So, our modes of transportation have been the first to be changed. Electric cars will be a reality in a few years (what will we do with all those batteries?) and buses have already gone electric in half a dozen cities.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">Companies are also beginning to find ways to capture carbon from the atmosphere. Today, Iceland opened the world's largest carbon capture plant. (1) It will capture 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air, the equivalent of 870 cars. If we can create these plants all over the world, they will have an impact.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">Solar and wind power continue to increase in use. Governments all over the world are making commitments to improve mitigation efforts. The United Nations has made climate action a Sustainable Development Goal (#13) . In fact, the United Nations has the most extensive list of resources I have seen on the Web. (2) It is understandable that the governing body of the world would have the broadest view of the effects of each country on the environment.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">I have more hope now than I have ever had. Those that are fighting this change will soon be outnumbered and hopefully the governments will take note.</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">(1) <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/worlds-biggest-plant-to-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-rock-opens-in-iceland-orca"><span class="s1">https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/sep/09/worlds-biggest-plant-to-turn-carbon-dioxide-into-rock-opens-in-iceland-orca</span></a> . Accessed 9/24/21</p><p class="p1" style="font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 12px;">(2) <a href="https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/"><span class="s1">https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/</span></a> . Accessed 9/24/21</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-17483166086710891222021-07-03T12:40:00.002-05:002021-07-03T12:40:20.166-05:00Alaska<p> My family counselor said of my son that he didn't believe there was a flood until he felt the water. This could aptly describe the attitude of Alaskans toward climate change. Don't get me wrong, it is absolutely beautiful there, the people are wonderful, and I am sure there are many that are worried about the warming. What was surprising to me was that Alaska favored no taxes over renewable energy sources. They had no recycling except in government buildings. They make a good deal of money from tourists, who must go by plane, train, ship or car, all of which use fossil fuels. Alaska is still mostly wilderness, with only 300,000 people in its largest city. The state basically has two main roads, linking Fairbanks to Anchorage and Anchorage to Canada. Many citizens fly small planes to travel within the state. Although the snow is melting faster, glaciers are sliding down mountains, and the pine beetle has killed millions of pines along the base of the mountains, (1) global warming is a topic that is avoided with tourists (they may discuss it among themselves). At dinner one night, a gentleman who had moved there after years of visiting in the summer said that the mountains have 1/3 the snow they used to have. As someone who camped in the Rockies a half dozen times, I know what the glaciers there looked like 70 years ago. There are no glaciers in Rocky Mountain National Park today. The West, in general, has a denial system in place about global warming, in spite of the 20-year drought, savage forest fires, and heat waves that kill people. This denial system helps continue living in the world without changing the way we live. I include myself in that system, and I know how harmful denial can be, both as a relative of an alcoholic and as a teacher of children with disabilities. You can't solve the problems you don't see. I sure hope this changes soon.</p><p><br /></p><p>(1) Popkin, Gabriel, Invasive Insects and Diseases Are Killing Our Forests, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/06/opinion/epidemic-invasive-species-trees.html</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-34639953165139998942021-06-09T15:04:00.000-05:002021-06-09T15:04:24.750-05:00A Long, Hot Summer<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I began writing this in the middle of May, after rotator-cuff surgery. I have to admit that I became overwhelmed with the amount of climate change information that comes into my life on<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>a daily basis. I decided the best attempt might be to list resources for those who are interested. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I start with the most recent; a video made by PBS about Greta Thunberg, who is one of my heroes. She is demanding change now. Although this video was made in 2020, it was one of the first to show what progress is being made. Her question in a carbon-capture plant was very accurate. Why not just build wind or solar technology? Fortunately, the world has changed in one year. Our present government is beginning an aggressive plan to<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>change the way we do business. Will this change in the future? No one knows.</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Greta Thunberg - Year to Change the World</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.pbs.org/show/greta-thunberg-year-change-world/">https://www.pbs.org/show/greta-thunberg-year-change-world/</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">At the web site for the Institute for Governance and Sustainable Development (<a href="https://www.igsd.org/"><span class="s1">https://www.igsd.org/</span></a>), a tweet from <a href="https://twitter.com/HMolinValdes">Helena Molin Valdes</a> recommends a new video with David Attenborough on Netflix; "The future’s not determined, the future is in our hands.” Sir David Attenborough tells the story of one of the most important scientific discoveries of our time. "Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet", coming 4 June."</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I had intended to put Climate Wednesdays down as a resource because I heard an interview on public radio with one of the members, but apparently they do not do every Wednesday. Still, if you are interested, there might be important information here:</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Climate Wednesdays</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Brooklyn Public Library</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://www.bklynlibrary.org/event-series/climate-wednesdays">https://www.bklynlibrary.org/event-series/climate-wednesdays</a></span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 13px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 15px;">Enjoy your summer. I’m hoping it’s not as hot as Chicago has been for the last month. </p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-47323316975863750022021-03-31T20:52:00.000-05:002021-03-31T20:52:01.427-05:00Change<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;">I’m not a scientist. I didn’t even take a science class in college, unless you count psychology. My knowledge about science comes from a lifelong interest in scientific topics: in no specific order, plants, space, chemistry, ecology, technology and geology. I read Discover Magazine, thank you Wilda Morris for my free subscription, and listen to Science Friday religiously, pun intended.</span><span class="Apple-converted-space" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px;"> </span></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I love to write about nature. It gained an idyllic representation in the late 18th and early 19th century literature, but it can be quite ruthless. Ask anyone who has seen a cat play with a mouse or a flood wash away a car. Nature is not a person, has no emotions, no personality. When the temperature rises to a certain point, ice melts. When trees burn, they release carbon. When animals lose habitat, they move or die.</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">As a pioneer in Early Childhood Special Education Technology, I learned of the stages of change and the reactions of people to that change. Shawn Galloway(1) characterizes people according to their reactions: pioneers, yes people, crowd followers, skeptics and cave people. </p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I’d like to think we have finally made it to the crowd follower stage of development. New books, news items, and even college studies are common, although our country is still divided in opinion. I have already written about Greta Thunberg. Bill Gates says we need to get to zero emissions to reverse the heating. Will anyone listen to him?</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="background-color: white; color: #262626; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 6px;">Galloway, Shawn, “Five Types of People in Organizational Change”, 1/1/2017, accessed 3/31/2021</p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">https://ohsonline.com/articles/2017/01/01/five-types-of-people-in-organizational-change.aspx?admgarea=magazine&m=1</p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-91715684576848686432021-02-26T18:26:00.001-06:002021-02-26T18:26:51.444-06:00Climate Disasters: I Was So Certain<p> <span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; text-align: center;">Climate Change 2.0</span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If you weren’t paying attention this month, there was a catastrophic climate event. This was the third Polar Vortex in my lifetime of 73 years, and all three occurred in the last 10 years. The first time it happened, my mother was still alive. I drove to her house before the snow hit so that I could be there in an emergency. I didn’t try to figure out why it was happening, but with another in 2019 and 2020, it dawned on me that if we are experiencing polar weather, then it is not occurring where it is supposed to - at the pole. Sure enough, some scientists believe the air at the pole is displaced when the air at the pole is warm.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0 0 0 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>“This warming is believed to be weakening and fragmenting the polar vortex, and distorting the polar jet stream, the ring of westerly winds that typically keeps the ultra-cold air mass contained to the Arctic Circle.”(1)</div></blockquote><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">With polar temperatures warming twice as fast as the rest of the planet, I’m afraid I agree with Greta Thunberg, who says we have less than ten years to change the environmental history of the planet.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I talked about feedback loops last month, but I’d like to talk about the poles this month. Many years ago, I took a class online from a Canadian University. Sorry, I can’t remember which one, but it was a GREAT class. One thing I had never thought about was the salt content of the oceans. Salt drops to the floor of the ocean when the water freezes. Ocean currents pick it up and carry it all over the world. But what if less water freezes? </p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p6" style="background-color: white; color: #202020; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px 0px 16.6px;">Salinity levels are important for two reasons. First, along with temperature, they directly affect seawater density (salty water is denser than freshwater) and therefore the circulation of ocean currents from the tropics to the poles. These currents control how heat is carried within the oceans and ultimately regulate the world’s climate. Second, sea surface salinity is intimately linked to Earth’s overall water cycle and to how much freshwater leaves and enters the oceans through evaporation and precipitation. Measuring salinity is one way to probe the water cycle in greater detail. (2) For a detailed explanation of oceanic warming, this web site has colorful graphics to show you: <a href="https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/ocean-warming#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%20US%20National,over%20the%20past%20100%20years"><span class="s1">https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/ocean-warming#:~:text=Data%20from%20the%20US%20National,over%20the%20past%20100%20years</span></a>. IUCN stands for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">In the last month, two events have surfaced in my life. First, the Chicago Gifted Community Center is hosting a Kids’ Climate Summit on April 13th. For more information, look here: <a href="https://www.chicagogiftedcommunity.org/KCS-2021"><span class="s1">https://www.chicagogiftedcommunity.org/KCS-2021</span></a>, then I got Bill Gates’ new book in the mail, and watched his interview with Trevor Noah. </p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Today, after I wrote this, Science Friday interviewed a climate scientist who shot my theory down. Oh well.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"> I have been an environmentalist since the 1960s but I am still learning. Hope you are, too.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/weather/ct-met-polar-vortex-climate-change-20190130-story.html"><span class="s1">https://www.chicagotribune.com/weather/ct-met-polar-vortex-climate-change-20190130-story.html</span></a>, accessed 2/27/21.</li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 12px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><a href="https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14092020/ocean-saltwater-climate-change-extreme-weather/"><span class="s1">https://insideclimatenews.org/news/14092020/ocean-saltwater-climate-change-extreme-weather/</span></a>, accessed 2/27/21.</li></ol>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-5851082931433346012021-01-16T12:44:00.003-06:002021-01-16T12:46:25.811-06:00Climate Change 2021<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: center;">Climate Change</p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The theme I chose for this year is Climate Change. I had hoped to learn and write about it last year, but it was impossible not to get sidetracked. I’m not going to address people who don’t believe it is occurring or even those who don’t believe mankind is causing it. This is for people who believe in the science and read what scientists have to say about it.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">There has been a benefit to the containment caused by the COVID-19 epidemic and that is that we have all had to rely on technology to see our friends and learn about the world. I had the pleasure of watching Greta Thunberg and the Dalai Lama discuss climate change with two climate scientists at my breakfast last week. Susan Natale<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>(renowned Arctic scientist with Woodshole Oceanographic Institute) and William Moomaw (lead author on reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change/IPCC, and the co-recipient of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize) each gave a glimpse into their research and talked about feedback loops that aren’t even considered in the Climate Change international agreement. There are three videos that help to visualize what is going on ecologically.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Natale discussed her studies in the Arctic and the feedback loop being created there. The permafrost is thawing and temperatures are rising twice as fast as the rest of the planet. When the permafrost thaws, it releases gas that has been frozen. In addition, the ground collapses like a slow mudslide. Twice as much carbon is released in permafrost as in the rest of the planet.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Moomaw discussed his research on forests. When temperatures rise, plants release more CO<span class="s1" style="font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sub>2</sub></span>. This increases droughts, pests and fires. Fires release more carbon<span class="s1" style="font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sub> </sub></span>and dead trees don’t absorb any CO<span class="s1" style="font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sub>2 .</sub></span> Carbon began to increase in the atmosphere in the 1750s with industrialization. Half of the carbon in the atmosphere was created since 1992. Eleven billion tons of carbon have been released, but there are only five billion tons still there. The rest has been absorbed by the oceans and plants. Carbon is stored in dry wood, leaves and soil. Of the carbon stored in the Northern Hemisphere, 50% of it is located in temperate forests. He called for us to rely on wind and solar power, and save and expand the temperate forests, wetlands, marsh and grassland.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Why are these not included in carbon budgets? One reason may be that not many people live at the poles. It is also hard to get data from the poles.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Dalai Lama noted that the snow is disappearing from the mountains of Tibet. Ecology is looking into the future and favoring preservation over “progress”.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Since the first Earth Day, I have heard the argument that we can’t sacrifice our economy for Mother Nature, and I have always thought that Mother Nature will have her revenge if we don’t think about what we are doing.</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Serendipity: from “The Thread,” My two must-reads in early 2021 on climate change are: David Pogue’s “How to Prepare for Climate Change” and Bill Gates’ “How to Avoid a Climate Disaster.”</p><p class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><ol class="ol1"><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Dalai Lama <a href="https://www.facebook.com/339188887615/videos/262379708552887/"><span class="s2">https://www.facebook.com/339188887615/videos/262379708552887/</span></a></li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">David Pogue <a href="https://www.publicmediamarket.org/blogs/blog/how-to-prepare-for-climate-change-by-david-pogue?utm_campaign=The+Thread_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_&utm_content="><span class="s2">https://www.publicmediamarket.org/blogs/blog/how-to-prepare-for-climate-change-by-david-pogue?utm_campaign=The+Thread_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_&utm_content=</span></a></li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">David Pogue <a href="https://authory.com/DavidPogue"><span class="s2">https://authory.com/DavidPogue</span></a></li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Bill Gates <a href="https://www.gatesnotes.com/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Disaster"><span class="s2">https://www.gatesnotes.com/How-to-Avoid-a-Climate-Disaster</span></a></li><li class="li3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The Thread, https://www.mprnews.org/arts/books?utm_campaign=The+Thread_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_source=sfmc_&utm_content=</li></ol><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><br /></span></span></div>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-20480363660983561562020-12-06T10:46:00.002-06:002020-12-06T10:50:37.090-06:00Still Waiting<p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It seems like a decade has passed in the last year. Living alone has been a blessing and a curse. I went to Florida in January and found it lonely, although my good friends and I were able to visit. I walked four miles a day on the beach and never found it boring. My return trip was stressful because I realized I had forgotten my “tech” bag in the hotel. God bless Hilam Patel for returning everything to me intact. <span class="s1" style="font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></sup></span></p><p class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 11px;"><sup></sup><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">I stocked up on groceries and waited two weeks for my tech, then rested a bit from the trip and the worries. By the beginning of March, our leaders were telling us to stay home because of COVID-19. When I had to go get groceries, I would notice everything I touched. I sanitized and washed my hands at every opportunity, although items for sanitizing disappeared from the shelves. Of all things, toilet paper and yeast were scarce, too. I quilted most days and read a lot, walked a couple of miles a day and called loved ones. Without human contact, I struggled to find a reason for living. Overnight, I realized that I could not control when I lived or died, I could only control how I lived, and that would be in service to others. </p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Summer came, and we were able to get together on our decks and at some restaurants. We felt in touch with nature again, when the heat didn’t drive us indoors. In the city, riots broke out. In my opinion, the heat and the stress from “Rona” were the triggers, as well as the high cost in lives in minority neighborhoods.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">By fall, people were openly ignoring the mask requirement and the disease spread throughout the suburbs as well as the city. I experienced the illness as a migraine-like headache, nauseau, diarrhea, lack of smell, taste distortions, muscle pains, fatigue, and a foggy brain. The initial symptoms lasted just a few days, but it was a full 7 weeks before I was free of fatigue and muscle pain. To keep busy, I found a renewed interest in genealogy.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A few weeks later, my son experienced symptoms and tested positive. He was ill for about a week, I believe. (Long-distance runner, stair-climber, marathoner) Luckily, his symptoms cleared up and he doesn’t seem to have any long-term damage.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">November was another lonely month, and I tried to busy myself with sewing and reading and writing. Thanksgiving dinner was canceled and I got a cold. Such joy! Just a cold! In a week, it was gone. Good news in the form of a vaccine has come along and now the fighting begins to see who gets it. It looks like the greedy, wealthy countries are once again shoving to the front of the line. Will human nature never change?</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">December is upon us and the plague rages on worse than ever. We are social animals. So social, we will die rather than miss our loved ones. Once again, I turn to my sewing machine, genealogy, books, and writing. One of the lucky ones.</p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p><p class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="s1" style="font-size: 9.3px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;"><sup>1</sup></span>Americas Best Value Inn Kimball, TN</p><p class="p4" style="background-color: white; font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 16px;"><br /></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-91442303123921575302020-10-17T12:39:00.003-05:002020-10-17T12:44:47.913-05:00Rona<p>It has been three months since I have blogged and I can't tell you why. It seemed as if everything was the same, day after day, week after week. Yet our knowledge of this virus changed often and it was still the only thing my friends talked about. I wore masks when I had to buy groceries, used sanitizer when I touched things, and stayed home much more than I liked. So how did I get the coronavirus? I don't know. All I know is that I went in for a test to make sure I wasn't positive before I suggested a visit with my daughter. I went on about my business. </p><p>It has begun to get cold here, and restaurants have separated tables by at least six feet. I went out to eat in two indoor restaurants after I had the test because I had what I thought was a migraine and my usual colitis, only to find I had tested positive. </p><p>My test was on Friday, October 9, which is my older brother's birthday. I got the results on Tuesday morning when I called to find out my results. My first reaction was denial. I think it was a good thing that I found out I had the virus <i>after </i>the worst of the symptoms. I called my brother and kids, then proceeded to call everyone that might have gotten it from me. After all, we don't know how long I had it before I tested positive. So far, two neighbors have tested negative, whew! Others could not get tested because the lines are suddenly two hours/days long. </p><p>I am staying home and my friends are overwhelming me with kindness. I keep busy so I don't think about the other effects of COVID 19 that may yet occur. This is the second week, so I am hoping I don't tank, the way some people do. Luckily, last spring I had purchased an oximeter because there were no tests available. So I am keeping track of my temp and my oxygen and hoping all the prayers of friends will carry me through this safely. </p><p>Last spring, I had some symptoms similar to COVID, and imagined what it would mean if I didn't make it. I decided it was time to divest myself of a lot of material assets. I chose to give away books and quilting supplies. There is still too much "stuff" but now I worry about giving away virus with items. </p><p>So the topic I had chosen for the year was to be "Climate" and this little tiny virus has completely taken over our waking hours. Our country's leaders have allowed over eight million people to get the virus and 217,918 people to die (as of October 17, 2020) through the inept handling of the Republicans. Our economy is in dire straits and Republicans have only given money to large corporations, which has kept some people employed until now. </p><p>Add to that 8 hurricanes, 25 storms, with people being removed to shelters. Don't forget to add those moved to shelters in California because of the record 4.1 million acres being burned up by forest fires.</p><p>Some of the symptoms I have had are headache which caused me to lay on the sofa all day, diarrhea, chills, food tasting bad, smell coming and going, fatigue, and brain fog. I've been lucky enough to feel okay, and I hope it continues. </p><p>My favorite method for coping has been to keep busy and not think about what's going on in the world. So much tragedy. There have been many great jokes on social media, but there have been some digital improvements. Lots of classes have been moved online, and we can "see" our friends on Zoom, FaceTime and Facebook. </p><p>As the holidays approach and I don't know what to plan. Planning is overrated.</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-89246067733577327722020-07-27T19:13:00.000-05:002020-07-27T19:13:42.258-05:00Progress<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
It has been 5 months since we became aware of COVID - 19's ability to spread ubiquitously. A friend and I were comparing our motivation at the beginning and now. At first, we tackled cleaning closets, cleaning our houses, finishing quilting projects that had been hanging around for a while, and generally doing those things we never thought we had time to do. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I was tense, worried about everything I touched when I went for groceries, including door handles and cardboard boxes. As Kristopher Jansma put it, "<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "chronicle ssm a" , "chronicle ssm b" , serif;">What a month ago might have been a careless exercise in routine home maintenance now means confronting my own mortality." (1).</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "chronicle ssm a" , "chronicle ssm b" , serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
We wore masks from the beginning, because we were in the high-risk group. All of my appointments were canceled as of March 15, because the entire state shut down. I was appalled to learn that our president was withholding supplies from Democratic areas. States were compelled to buy supplies on the international market, competing with the federal government. My daughter had returned to New York with her husband and child in April and it was better, but still a hot spot. My oldest was ensconced in his home, taking care and working from home. My middle child and his family were in a rural area and angry about the stay-at-home, mask orders. They have been home-schooling for years, so that was not adversely affected by the lock-down. </div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
Fast forward a few months. Most people in our state have adjusted to wearing masks, using sanitizer and washing their hands often. My friend and I have both adjusted our need to clean (nobody's coming to visit) and are enjoying having time alone. Because of our hobbies, we have not been bored. I am grateful for time to clean out clutter, sew whatever and whenever I want, and even order pizza once in a while.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
I find myself often in a funk. Foggy. What day is it? Although days seem to be going slower, weeks fly by. Next weekend it will be August. I would be planning a fall trip somewhere. Will I get to go to Macchu Picchu next year? Will I care? No one knows when we will be able to travel again. I like to think, I was going to travel this decade, but God said "No."<br />
<br />
It may be that we have to restructure our entire civilization before we can get through the suffering. Certainly, the economy is hurting those who can survive it least. The first big bailout went to giant corporations, including airlines and cruise lines. Unless they can find a way to sanitize their air currents and plumbing, they will go under, the millions given to them wasted. Now the unemployed, who lost their healthcare, are losing their homes. Will they be able to vote in November? <br />
<br />
So many questions remain unanswered as the first trials of a vaccine begin. Once again, large companies have gotten millions to produce this, before it's even done. How many more will die?</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="background-color: #fafafa; color: #1a1a1a; font-family: "chronicle ssm a" , "chronicle ssm b" , serif;">(1)Jansma, Kristopher, "Out of the Ordinary,"</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/535/out-of-the-ordinary">https://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/535/out-of-the-ordinar</a>y, July 2020.</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="height: 0px; text-align: left;">
x</div>
</div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-87477483312218974532020-06-04T14:27:00.000-05:002020-06-04T14:27:06.387-05:00In the Throes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One of my problems this month has been the week of news covering racial discrimination all over the world. I was ready to move on to solutions. I thought I had heard it all and protested it back in the 60s, yet somehow we were again facing that brick wall that is racism. Discrimination against blacks and other minorities seems to be ensconced at all levels of government. Whether it's the President of the United States being rude to a female black reporter or a neighbor who shocks you with "Us whites have to stick together," it feels like there is no solution.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Add to that months spent inside sequestering by an invisible virus that only kills 1.3 % of the people it infects. (1) Unless you are a member of a minority. Then it is 3.12% for blacks and slightly less for other minorities.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Add to that the forty million people who have lost their jobs. You have to check out the graph on this page (2) to see the shocking results of the virus on employment.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Add, finally, a week of record high temperatures here in the Chicago area, that often accompanies civil unrest. Undoubtedly, that is a result of global warming. (3)</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's like we are having four crises at once.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">So, where do I find hope in all of this? As usual, it's the next generation. They are using social media to communicate worldwide. They have chosen peaceful methods. They are standing up for human rights. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Yes, my generation got Civil Rights laws on the books in the 60s. This generation says, "Enforce them!" I am so proud of my former students who are making the world better.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(1)</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">COVID-19: Study reports 'staggering' death rate in U.S. among those infected who show symptoms, <u>Science Daily. </u><a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200518144915.htm" style="background-color: transparent;">https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200518144915.htm</a>, accessed 6/4/20.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(2)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Labor Force Statistics from the Current Population Survey</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <a href="https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000" style="background-color: transparent;">https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000</a>, accessed 6/4/2020.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(3)</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-weight: 500; line-height: 1.1; margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Union of Concerned Scientists, Global Warming FAQ, </span><a href="https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/global-warming-faq" style="background-color: transparent;">https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/global-warming-faq</a>, accessed 6/4/20.</div>
</div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-84482173197233722902020-04-21T10:40:00.000-05:002020-04-21T10:40:01.836-05:00Pestilence<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: left;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">In honor of National Poetry Month.</span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Pestilence</span></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px; text-align: center;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">First, the news of deaths in China.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Bat meat, they say.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Gatherings here disappear, but not before I wonder</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">if I will lose any friends.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Pestilence spreads with travelers everywhere.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Countries close borders, though viruses do not respect borders.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Invisible specter, lurking just where we least expect it.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I forget that I am sequestered,</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">tell a friend to come over, remember we can’t do that.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Fever and congestion cause worry.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I spend my days inside</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">worrying that today will be my last.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Walk outside every day.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">All of this waiting.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets worse.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">No symptoms in its stealth phase, then</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">a mushroom cloud of sick needing hospitals</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">and morgues.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Scarcities rule the market, our government hoards resources,</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">doctors and nurses begin to fall.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I notice how many things I touch when I go out.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets worse.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Businesses shutter, workers have no income,</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A quiet settles over cities.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Essential businesses still open<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">begin to lose workers.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news is all-COVID all the time.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Home-made masks are better than nothing.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets worse.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We begin to mourn those whom we have lost.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Musicians, athletes, ordinary people who work in public.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">I stare down the existential questions.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Why am I here? What is the purpose of my life?</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Answers come in the solitude.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Granddaughters run fevers, send me to my knees.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news is mixed.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Tweny million people have lost their jobs.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">With their jobs, their health care.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The nation has rallied.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">We share food, meet in cyberspace.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Drive by shootings are replaced by<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">drive by birthday parties.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets better.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A drop-off in new cases in New York City,</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">people healing from the disease.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">A light at the end of the tunnel.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Hope that people will go back to work<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">begins to spread.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">China lifts its travel ban.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets better.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Other countries are going back to work.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Spring flowers promise a future</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">with beauty and heavenly scents.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Vaccines begin to appear in labs.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Store shelves fill again.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Government checks arrive in homes.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The news gets better.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Governors coordinate plans</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">in the absence of federal guidance.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Happy homemade videos counterbalance</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">network news negativity.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The world breathes a sigh of relief.</span></div>
<div class="p4" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">It will end.</span></div>
<div class="p3" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 16px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-3596621296871188122020-03-26T19:40:00.000-05:002020-03-26T19:40:08.242-05:00Unexpected Massive Suffering<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Since my last post on February 13, the world climate has changed. A massive pandemic is ravaging our population and we are powerless to stop it. We are doing our best to provide health care for each other, but among the general population, people could not imagine an epidemic. It had been a century since the general population had suffered like this. We should have known from AIDS or ebola or even SARS, but it had to be severe enough to get our attention. Even this month, there are people who are out celebrating their freedom to gather, which hurts our herd immunity. While it is exciting to be a writer during a plague, it is stressful, too. My children are grown and do not need me any more, but they get very angry at any hint that I am not trying to survive.</span></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">My thoughts have wandered to the poorest of the poor, the refugees. After leaving a home where their lives were full of poverty or violence, they find themselves unwanted by any country. Living in crowded tent villages, they are now to undergo an illness that kills 3.4% of those who are affected by the “superspreader.” Without clean water, how are they to wash their hands? Without medical care, will their mortality rate be higher?</span></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">The character of our country is at stake here. Will we learn from this humbling experience and collaborate with scientists and doctors around the world? Or will we choose the “every man for himself” individualism that pits state against state and country against country?<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Our emotions are ruling the day. Confined to our houses, we vacillate between feeling safe, worrying about our health, worrying about our relatives and friends, and worrying about money. </span>Keeping busy was always a strength of mine, but now even that is not enough. Thankfully, we have technology that allows us to communicate visually as well as in writing. Various people are posting songs, reading sonnets, and offering encouragement online. People are donating food to hospital workers, money for protective gear, and homemade face masks to nursing homes. Let us use this time to search ourselves for the strength of character to weather the illness and the economic chaos it has created. We have never needed each other more.</div>
<div class="p2" style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue"; font-size: 11px; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; min-height: 12px;">
<span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></div>
</div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-44703785944366926782020-02-13T11:45:00.001-06:002020-02-13T11:46:05.221-06:00Our Social Climate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<style type="text/css">
p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 14.0px Geneva; color: #000000}
p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 14.0px; font: 14.0px Geneva; color: #000000; min-height: 19.0px}
p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Geneva; color: #000000; min-height: 19.0px}
p.p4 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 14.0px Geneva; color: #000000}
span.s1 {font-kerning: none}
span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none}
</style>
<br />
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">We hear so much today about conspiracies involving evil people, I felt I had to write about my experiences with people who have gone out of their way to be kind to others.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">For starters, I live in a multicultural neighborhood with a lot of immigrants from many countries (China, Jordan, Poland, Russia, India.) I also have one family of Muslims living in four of the townhouses in my development and a Jewish neighbor who is one of my best friends. She told me a few<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>years ago that she had been diagnosed with cancer. She has had it three times, but this was the second time, I believe. One of our Muslim neighbors told her to ask for help if she ever needed it. They said their religion requires them to help others.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">Marcie herself helped me avoid a job loss with her skills in human resources.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">When I moved to be near my parents, I had no job and no money. The first gift I remember was a member of my church giving me frozen chicken breasts to help feed my children.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">That Thanksgiving, I received a free basket of food and the person who had created it put a Christmas hand towel on top. That act of thoughtfulness stayed with me all these years (31) and I now collect Christmas decorations for those in our community who live in poverty.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">There have been so many others through the years, I will limit this to just a few to illustrate my point. In November, I traveled to Queens, NY to see my daughter. We saw a woman trip and fall on the cobblestone street. My daughter pointed out that a dozen people stopped to help her, and said that people in New York are always helping each other. I have noticed since then that our natural inclination is to help each other. Giving directions to someone who is lost, helping a person with a technology problem, making quilts for charities, pouches for kangaroos injured in fires, providing clothing for immigrants with little or none. It is human to assist others when we can. We do not have less when we give to others. When we share, we all have enough.</span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1">I recently drove from St. Petersburg, Florida to my home near Chicago. I made it halfway between Chattanooga and Nashville the first day. It was a small town named Kimball, Tennessee. I woke up at 3:00 AM in a panic attack thinking about dicey situations I had driven through, like high-speed intervals between two trucks with a crazy lane-changer going in and out wherever there was space. I didn’t get back to sleep until 4 or 5, then woke up at 6:15. I decided to try to drive the rest of the way home if possible, no pressure. I did, in fact, make it home by supper time but had forgotten the bag with my technology in the hotel. The hotel owner is sending my computer, and I am so grateful I don’t have to change all my passwords. I couldn’t afford a new computer easily either. So I am grateful for honest people and am sending him a reward, and to the housecleaner.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1">I had also lost my debit card that day. When I tried to look at my online banking, there was a problem with my browser. The bank had two people helping me for at least 20 minutes. They were patient and kind and I finally got things working.</span></div>
<div class="p3">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p4">
<span class="s1">I will get preachy here, so forgive me. People are good! The best part of our social interactions was the confirmation of my belief that we are all here to help each other, and that the wisest people know this.</span></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<span class="s1"></span><br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<span class="s1">1) Social Climate Research, Bennett, J. B., <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0885"><span class="s2">https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9780470479216.corpsy0885</span></a>, accessed 1/31/2020.</span></div>
<br /></div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7210194924328724080.post-31048372071549306452020-01-09T11:32:00.001-06:002020-01-09T11:32:21.494-06:00Let's Talk About Climate<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<br />
“Climate means the usual condition of the temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, and other meteorological elements in an area of the Earth's surface for a long time. In simple terms climate is the average condition for about thirty years.” (Google easy definition)
<br />
I have chosen climate for the theme of the year because I want to learn more about it and because I think it is time to begin a thorough discussion about the many types of climate that determine our actions.<br />
<br />
We are affected by what is going on around us from the time we are born. Since I am a baby-boomer, that is the demographic I identify with the most, but feel free to comment about the climate that has affected you. There are basically two different meanings that refer to climate, the one listed above and also the cultural climate. I’m going to start learning about the first definition and see if I get to the second kind.<br />
<br />
Several years ago I took a class online about climate which was handled by a Canadian university. As with many things, I have no idea where that is (on the Web). It was fascinating and went into global climate patterns. I learned that a certain portion of the polar ice caps melts every year, adding fresh water to our oceans. This water circulates around the planet, warming some parts of our land and cooling others. I had never thought about the fact that ice is fresh water and the oceans are salty. I certainly learned other ideas but that one effect on our climate has stayed with me. What happens when too much fresh water enters our oceans? What happens if the oceans warm and create more precipitation? I would love to take another class because I seem to need deadlines to accomplish learning that takes effort.<br />
<br />
Another word that is often used in conjunction with climate is sustainability. Once again, Google says: the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level, also, avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. In Europe, several years ago, everyone was going into the field. They will be light years ahead of other countries who have not yet realized there are real opportunities in the field.<br />
<br />
Wikipedia says climate is affected by “temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, which includes the ocean and ice on Earth.[1]"<br />
<br />
Latitude, terrain and altitude also play large roles, as do bodies of water. Although New York City and Chicago are on similar latitudes, the ocean gives New York milder winters, a fact I learned in person when my daughter moved there.<br />
<br />
There are systems of classification of climate, fields of study, such as paleoclimatology, and climate models to simulate what is happening globally. There is a scary chart on the Wikipedia page that shows a steady rise in world temperature over 140 years. Finally, there is a list of 15 related topics and 57 footnotes if you want more information. I will be spending time on the wiki page for the next few weeks. If you are interesting in learning more about the climates all over the world, please follow along this year.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.google.com/" target="_blank"> 1)</a> Google, https://www.google.com/, accessed 1/9/20<br />
<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/noaa-n/climate/climate_weather.html" target="_blank"> 2)</a> Planton, Serge (France; editor) (2013). "Annex III. Glossary: IPCC – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change" (PDF). IPCC Fifth Assessment Report. p. 1450. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-05-24. Retrieved 25 July 2016. This is a direct copy of the Wikipedia footnote. I hope it’s not plagiarism to use it.</div>
Linda Wallinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07223225956052967905noreply@blogger.com0