This is an open letter to our Local Edge Radio on 880 The Revolution, and to all my Liberal friends.

Dear Vonciel;

I wanted to write to you, as it is so difficult to talk to you on the radio. I am Alex, the one that keeps calling about gun control, and, honestly, I feel that I cannot get my point across to you. I am trying to give a reasoned viewpoint of the honest, legal and responsible gun owner, the one who might go hunting, the one who might simply go target shooting, whether plinking or competitive, or the one who simply may have heard about home invasions in the area, and wishes to guard her home against intrusion. I am talking for even the one who fears that terrorists may attack (I know that terrorists will never attack the United States, right? I mean, they never have, right?), and wants to be able to at least attempt to protect her family from terrorists (no American would ever join a terrorist organization, right?), even if the terrorists are sure to be better armed than she. Plus, I am talking for the ones who are fearful of a “gun grab”, which, even as a Liberal (and I am one, just check out my Website and Facebook page), I am all too concerned may happen.

Vonciel, when I call to talk to you, I make one comment, and you proceed to talk over me, making a series of points directly from the ultra-Liberal gun hating... (I won't even call it Left, as I cannot see a true Liberal talking about taking away a right guaranteed by the Constitution) extremists, and then, suddenly “whoops, time to take a break, thanks Alex, gotta go”, and I am left with a dead phone. After the break, you proceed to list all the reasons I am wrong, and continue on. Why is a reasonable, thoughtful, soft spoken voice for responsible gun ownership such a threat? I have heard Blake and Leslie (sp?) keep a Right Wing nut job on through several breaks, letting him make point after point, and as long as he doesn't cuss, he gets a forum. I am disturbed that I can't. Honestly, it is like calling Rush or Bill (or even Glenn), and trying to talk about why unions are important, why we should tax the heck out of the stinking rich, why social programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are important. You will get talked over, and kicked loose at the first break.

It disturbs me that my fellow Liberals are very protective of our Constitutional rights, whether Free Speech (I was on the periphery of the Free Speech movement of the 1960's, dating myself), religion, self incrimination or whatever, but when it comes to the Second Amendment, they want to repeal it! The ACLU, whose stated mission is “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States” will go all out for any American, even so far as going to bat for the KKK in several cases, but absolutely will not make a peep when states, cities or counties ban citizens from owning or keeping guns. This to me is rank hypocracy.

Vonciel, guns are not the problem. A gun is a lump of inanimate metal. It is the people who are the problem, and there is something in our United States that is causing people to break, and that is the problem. I know, “ready access to guns”, but if there were no problem, this “ready access” would be a non-starter. Take away the guns, and the problem is still there. Look up Gary Kleck.

I would call you again, but only if I thought that I could have a reasoned discourse. And, please don't say “nobody is suggesting we take away all guns from everybody; there are people saying that every day.

I am tired of writing, and will write more soon. I am sending this directly to your email, but am going to post it as an open letter on my blog. We HAVE to have a discussion, a reasoned one, and we HAVE to involve gun owners, not just gun haters

Respectfully;

Alex

I was blindsided by the shooting at the school in Sandy Hook Connecticut. I did not find out about it until I went to pick my wife up and found her talking about it, saying all guns should be banned, and the shooter should have been dragged out and drawn and quartered, and it was a shame he killed himself. As we have a 5 year old nephew, she was understandably upset, and so incoherent with rage that I had to go to the Internet for information, and listen to my local Liberal Progressive radio station next day. She simply would not converse with me on this, and we haven't talked about it since. Also, since I listen almost exclusively to a Liberal Progressive radio station, WPEK, The Revolution, I got a very solid left wing view, and the consensus among them was that we need gun laws, or we need an outright ban on guns, we need to amend, rewrite or repeal the  Second Amendment to the US Constitution, or re-interpret it in the light of modern firearms. The justices who dissented in the last couple of cases talked about placement of the comma, and whether, in the light of the absence of any state regulated militia, whether an ordinary citizen should have access to a firearm at all.

Now, folks, I am a Liberal, so much so that I sometimes see our current President as dangerously Conservative. I believe that the 2% should be taxed, purely because they are the ones that have the money, and as the society in which they live has made them rich, they owe a lot more to that society. I believe that the poor are also made so by that same society, so are owed a livable wage for the work they do, and support in hard times which the rich do not need. If we do not care for the poorest or unfortunate in our society as Governor Romney intimated when he said he didn't care about that 45, 46 or 47 percent who wouldn't vote for him, as they "don't matter", then we are a poor excuse for a society. Even the Mormon church disagreed with him, as they are very concerned about the poorest among them. Notice that nowhere did I say that anyone should not work if they are able; as any good Socialist, I do not believe in getting something and not working for it.

I am a Liberal, listen to Left Wing radio, belong to several Liberal and Progressive email lists, and I own guns, several of them. I have owned guns since old enough to do so legally, and have shot guns since a child. Don't worry, any guns I have are securely locked away. Many local gun shops allow you to store guns on premises for a small fee. Gun safes can be bought at Lowes that would take dynamite to get into. I have never shot anyone, never pointed a gun at anybody, and have no criminal record.  I feel that forcing me to turn in my guns because a mad man in Connecticut went into a poorly secured school and went berserk is simply unfair to me and to the millions of legal and honest American gun owners, and incidentally, is simply not going to solve the problem either.

To many people who have never been around guns, they are evil, and are for "only one purpose", which is a very facile and specious argument, and is simply not entirely true; I have shot many a gun that has never killed anything but tin cans, and oddly, that is their purpose, "plinking" (a type of target shooting). But even so, so what? To some, the very act of having a gun in proximity is going to turn an ordinary person into a stone killer, and having an assault weapon is an invitation to anyone nearby to go on a rampage in a school. I submit that nothing is further from the truth. And, addressing mental health, as most of the recent rampages have been perpetrated by the mentally ill, is only addressing part of the problem.

Yes, I submit that there is a problem, and it is not guns. Nor is it entirely mental health, though the people that have done the most recent crimes were demonstrably crazy. We have a social problem, one that causes people to snap, and some use guns, others use explosives, and still others use anything available.

The idea that having a gun around is going to cause a school shooting is simply silly. In my school years, from 1957 to 1969, there were few school shootings, and you could buy surplus M1 rifles and M1 Carbines at Sears.Until 1968 you could mail order a gun! We school kids would never have thought of bringing a gun to school, we did not have school security in the form of a "resource officer", and no one ever worried about getting shot at school. The country had just as many guns per capita as today, many of them semi-automatic (NONE of the weapons used in recent theater, mall or school shootings were "automatic"), and things like this just did not happen. Yes, people were killed, as Kennedy, King, and Malcolm X were, and this prompted the Gun Control Act of 1968, which, as many such laws, punished only the innocent and "law abiding", and did not touch the guilty. No, we have a social problem, and it is going  to take Sociologists and Psychologists to solve it, not guns; they are not the problem! The use of them in many crimes is  a symptom of an underlying disease, not the disease itself.

Back in 1979 I began studying for a Ham Radio license. I had been into Citizens Band Radio since 1976, but was convinced by a friend that Ham Radio had so much more, and he was right. I quickly made it to General class, and got myself a small low powered radio, only a couple of watts, and began looking for a linear amplifier to boost the signal to 100 or so, since as a Ham, I was licensed for 1000. I could not find one, as it was illegal to make one commercially. Since CB was created from a Ham Radio band in 1958, irritating Hams greatly, illegal use of linear amplifiers to boost CB signals from the legal 3 watts as set by the FCC to hundreds and even thousands of watts became common. This led to interference by high powered stations not only on the CB band, but to television reception, business and government radio, and many other problems caused by poorly operated high powered stations. Thus, the FCC, in typical bureaucratic fashion, passed a law that no one could build a linear amplifier that could tune to 11 meters, the band stolen from hams in 1958, so all linear amps (called by the CB crowd "lean-yers" or "lean-yars") had to be blocked from operation on 10 meters, it being so close to the CB band, which was 11 meters, and no amplifier could be made which required less than 50 watts drive, or would amplify a signal more than something like 10 db, which is like amplifying from 100 to 1000 watts. Therefore, I could not buy a commercially legally available linear amplifier for my little rig, even though I was a legally licensed ham Radio operator, legally licensed to operate my station at 100 or even 1000 watts. Oh, and did I mention that this did not at al lsolve the problem? A significant number of CB'ers continued to use old Ham linears, foreign made illegally (poorly made, I might add) obtained ones, badly constructed amps made by other CBers with some electronic abilities, and CB radio still had this problem, there was still interference (actually worse), the FCC still did nothing about it, and I still can't get an amp for a low powered station. And so it goes. The bad people break the law, a law is passed to stop it, and only the innocent and righteous are affected. The crooks, jerks and jacklegs go right on.

One woman who contributes to one of my Left Wing email lists wrote up a petition that said "I don't own a gun, I don't want a gun, and I don't need a gun, and nobody else should either", and was asking for signatures to this petition, saying that the Second Amendment was an antiquated and stupid law, and should be amended or repealed. I would not sign it, as, I said,  "I do, I do, and it matters not whether I need one, for now it is my right guaranteed under the Constitution". Never heard back. You see, this annoying Second Amendment is tied into a series of Amendments called The Bill of Rights, and the one my Liberal friends most defend is the First Amendment, most notably Free Speech and freedom of religion. My feelings are equally strong on these rights, but I fear that the Right Wing would happily take both those rights away from me too if they were able, and a dilution or repeal of the Second Amendment would play right into their hands.

You see, there are many people who would love to control the religious belief in our country today. This is in direct contradiction to the Founders idea of a country not controlled by any religion, and that was free, not only in religion, but in speech, the Press, and in assembly. If any part of that Bill of Rights is diminished, as perhaps a Supreme Court decision stating that the Second Amendment is wrong, antiquated, or repealed, I can see the rest of them falling like dominoes; think of a Court saying "well, the Second Amendment was found not to apply to a modern America, so the others can be revisited also". This is a function in law called a precedent, and this precedent of diluting, rewriting, or in some other way altering an Amendment in The Bill of Rights could establish a dangerous one.

Now, I would like to show you some numbers. Numbers of dead people from 2010.

Traffic       32,000
  Speeding  10,530
  Alcohol    10,228

Guns         31,513
  Homicide 11,105

 This is data from 2010. It shows that motor vehicles kill 32,000 Americans a year, a significant number of them children, but no sane person would suggest banning automobiles. However, notice that both speeding and alcohol each kill about the same as gun involved homicides (the rest of gun deaths are almost all suicides, and trust me, a suicide does NOT need a gun - availability would make little difference). There is absolutely no call for banning alcohol, though it was tried before autos were popular - that is where our organised crime was mostly born, the illegal liquor trade of Prohibition. Plus, I have not heard any cry for banning speeding, and there are even gadgets for helping people avoid a speeding ticket, and songs in popular culture glorifying speeding.
This just makes no sense to me. The need to punish people who are causing no problem (legal and honest gun owners), and giving people who are lawbreakers (speeders and drunks) a slap on the wrist for drunk driving, or a high five for beating a speeding ticket.

We have a social problem, not a gun problem. We have a war on drugs, which is a war on the poor, and that translates into gun violence. Until we solve our social problems, we will not solve our violence problem.

Religion, Politics, and my Yahoo groups

I was going to write this and post it on one of my Yahoo groups, but decided to post it here, and make a link to it, as my groups (Dragonflies and Damselflies of the Southeast, Water Turtles, Southeastern Insects, and others) have specific raison d'être, and I did not want to interject my rant on the group or groups.

A while back, a lady, seemingly a nice one, joined one of my scientific groups, and complemented me on being a generalist, and I replied that my desire in all my life has been to be an all around Naturalist like the old time greats like Ausubon, Alexander Wilson, John and William Bartram, and Charles Darwin. She, supposedly interested in science, wrote back that she did not know of any of those people (Audubon????? OMG!!!), but thought Darwin's thinking was sloppy and just plain wrong. Eh? Well, I kind of knew where this was going, but played along, saying that many people of the Enlightenment era had had such thoughts, and that Darwin was just voicing these ideas, and put them down in book form (before his contemporary and rival Alfred Russell Wallace could publish) so that they were in a coherent form. Well, she kept writing me, making sure she copied the whole group, telling me Darwin was wrong, and how "Creation Science" explained how the Earth was only 6000 or so years old, how Evolution could never have happened, and just going on with this "Creation Science" BS, and most of the group, responsible Biologists (I had started this group for Biologists, later opening it up to hobbyists at the behest of the Biologists) stayed silent, so I asked for some help with this woman, as I am only a lowly BS myself (Bachelor in Science), and there are several PhD's on the group who have seen these specious arguments, and can refute them in their sleep. They joined in, having a discussion of sorts, until she insulted a grand old man of Biology in a major university, and I had had enough, shutting off the discussion, and eventually moderating her posts, as she had begun "testifying", though she maintained (at first) that her "Creation Science" had nothing to do with religion (BULL COOKIES!!!). She finally left, taking a few other religious folks with her (good riddance!.

Now, a few weeks ago, a lady asked for a very simple ID that any Sunday duffer should be able to get out of any field manual. Not really a problem, but this was in tiny script, and her signature file was a diatribe about how Jesus had changed her life, how she was happy, and all this sort of thing, including, as I remember, a diatribe against public schooling (for some reason, they hate public school, and want to dismantle it, and give us vouchers to send our kids the THEIR religious schools - how curious). Well, this offended me, and I wrote a message to her saying this:

 "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion", plus see Amendment XIV.

"no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States" (US Constitution Article VI).

And "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his god, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their "legislature" should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between church and State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties." (Thomas Jefferson)

Plus: "Adams at one point said that Christianity had originally been revelatory, but was being misinterpreted and misused in the service of superstition, fraud, and unscrupulous power. (!!!) (From Wikipedia, author cited in article.)

Oh, and for you "Christians" who like to (mis)quote founding Fathers, and who hate Public Education:
 "The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people and be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves." (Bold my doing.)
 – John Adams, September 10, 1785

And, just read this; too long to quote, all from Jefferson:

http://zenhell.com/GetEnlightened/FoundingFathers/

People keep trying to say that the Founders were "Christian", but in actuality, most were NOT (Deists and Humanists), and most feared the injection of religion into our Government (as happened yesterday here in NC). I find this in-your-face Christian proselytizing irritating and disturbing, and do not think such a signature really belongs on a list devoted to Dragonflies and kin. I do not try to inject religion into any list to which I belong, nor try to blast people with my beliefs; they are mine alone. If you are happy with your beliefs, wonderful! I, however, do not need to  know about it.

I respectfully ask that folks are polite, keep religious views off the list, and respect others. I am indeed a benevolent despot, but a despot nevertheless. Most people who think they are following Jesus are NOT.  I will direct you to Matthew 7: 22 & 23.





Now, as you can see, I do not like religion. That does not mean I am Atheist; I do not see how an intelligent person could espouse Atheism, at least not a Scientist; one cannot demonstrate the existence of an Almighty, nor can one demonstrate the absence by any empirical means. At most, a Scientist can be an Agnostic, but not an Atheist, and Atheist Scientists are espousing a religious "thing" too. No, I am intensely spiritual (I do believe in God, as I understand God, and follow much of Jesus teachings, along with some of Buddha's and others; my religion or spirituality is no one's business but mine own, or those with whom I choose to share it , and no, you so-called-Christians, I do not choose to share it with you!) Religion is responsible for the horrors of the Crusades, the Inquisition, 911, Oklahoma City, and a host of other things; sometimes the bad outweighs the good.
If you are a Christian, especially Right Wing, read this: http://www.right-wing-pseudo-christians.com/


So, what I am saying is, do not come on my lists, especially the scientific ones, and start up with religion; I will go after you. Do not come on a list and go on about Politics, as I will go after you too; I am on the Left of the spectrum, and believe the Right Wing is controlled by money and Satan (see above link), and when I look at some Right Wing politicians and preachers, I see Satan looking out their eyes. I do.
More later.....

     Well, I haven't posted in a while, and that is just wrong. For those following, sorry!
    
Just going over my e-mail, and it looks like the Miami Blue Butterfly is going to be added to the Endangered Species List, and it will affect the Cassius Blue and others, as they look so similar. I sent a notice to the list where I received this telling members they better add this one to their collection before they're all gone. I hope to cause a firefight, as, you see, I have no use for collections of insects, and feel the collectors are just plain wrong. I feel the same way about trophy hunting.
    
      Not that I have anything against hunting, just trophy hunting; you are killing off your breeding stock. No farmer in this world would kill off his prize herd bull, but we do it every season by killing off "record breaking" deer, elk, moose, and what have you. And they wonder why there are so few record breakers in modern times. When you kill bucks with big antlers, you select against that trait, and select for smaller antlers (bucks with smaller antlers live, where the big boys get killed - smaller antlers live to get their genes to the next generation, while the big boys don't. Any other argument has little validity, and is just an excuse for trophy hunting.). Ask any Biologist. Oh, I am a Biologist! People who hunt for food, on the other hand, are hunting for the smaller, younger (and therefore less tough) specimens, and are leaving the bigger ones alone to breed and make healthy youngsters.
   Back to collecting. Same thing here. All the arguments with the notable exception of scientific research have little validity. One prominent group on the Internet (Yahoo Groups) has the motto "We cannot Protect What We Do Not Know". Another argument for collecting of moths and butterflies, and I say "horse apples" With modern photography and the ability to take close up photos of even genitalia, that argument ends in the scrap heap along with oology (collecting of bird's eggs) and plume hunting. And, yes, there are collectors who hunt butterflies commercially, to provide specimens to people who want to "fill out" their collections.


     Now, I figure that some of these folks would be just like the fellows in the early days of our country who collected birds and their eggs, and if it were legal, would happily collect them without a single thought or prick of conscience, and would argue loudly (and these butterfly and moth collectors do, flaming me mightily when I post my views on collecting) if we were to talk about outlawing it, but, alas, birds are protected for the most part by the North American Migratory Bird Treaty Act, and the hunting of game birds and waterfowl are tightly controlled. You see, market hunting (sort of like commercial butterfly and moth collectors) and egg collecting and specimen collection for people's drawing rooms, or even study skins (sort of like people's drawers full of butterflies) had cut many bird populations to almost nothing, forcing the US government in 1918 to step in and stop all of this, forming a treaty with Canada and (later) Mexico. Nothing, however, was ever done about collecting butterflies and their cousins the moths, which goes rolling along without a glitch, and these "responsible" collectors go out and teach young people how to do it, how to set up this once living stamp collection, and how to do it most effectively.

     Now, you see, what bothers me most is that these creatures are living, breathing entities, and people are killing them wantonly to make a pretty collection, in most cases before they even have a chance to breed, as they want "fresh" specimens. Older "worn" ones don't look so pretty, and thus hold less appeal. Of course, if you are good at collection, you will never have to see a worn one, as they won't have a chance to get that way.

     I hope this gives people a reason to think, and I hope they will think a little before attacking me. I do not see why we can't simply enjoy a living creature without the desire to catch it and add it to a collection.

Spring on the Parkway

I finally managed a small trip North up the Parkway from Asheville. It was spur of the moment after visiting my mom at her temporary residence at a nursing facility. If you start out from US 25 from Biltmore Forest, you might see a few Birdfoot Violet, Viola pedata L. on the east road bank. From 70 north, I was able to see a number of wildflowers, including a few Flame Azalea, Rhododendron calendulaceum (Mich.) Torr. (called Wild Honeysuckle by the natives). A few white blooming shrubs can be seen on the rock face near the Haw Creek overlook, which look like Old Man's Beard, or White Fringe Tree, Chionanthus virginicus L. On the way up, it is easy to see little coves with Trillium carpeting the ground. I didn't get out to see what species, but suspect T. erectum L. or T. catesbaei Ell. Will try to get a better look later this week.

Notice that I use scientific names, and give the author of the name. The name is in italic, and the author of that plant's scientific name is after the italicized name, and is not italicized. When you see "L." as an author, it means that the person who named this plant is Carolus Linnaeus, the fellow who developed this naming system, called "binomial nomenclature", a way to classify living things which mostly avoids the confusion inherent in common names. "Michx." stands for Andre Michaux, a prominent French Botanist who did a lot of exploring around here, and "Torr." is for John Torrey, an American Botanist. Note that these are links, to articles on Wikipedia.

Also along this drive, I saw the Giant Chickweed, Stellaria pubera Michx., also called the Star  Chickweed along the roadside and in the woods, and a the tiny Phacelia dubia (L.) Trel. all over the road verge, and seeming to grow right into the road. A look at the rock faces all over here reveals a number of other stress selected plants which I will have to go back to identify, along with a field notebook to keep notes; my 60 yo brain is not so absorptive as in former years.

I terminated my drive at Tanbark Ridge tunnel at BRP mile 374.4 where the Park Service has thoughtfully made some rough parking pullouts, and grabbed my stick from the back of the truck, and started to walk, west across the road and up the little creek there, flowing full and vigorous after all the rain we have had this spring. I was struck first by the Dwarf Crested Iris, Iris cristata Aiton, which lines this trail and stream as far as I could see. A few photos with my cell phone was all I could do, as I left my camera at home. First is a bed of Iris on the trail next to the stream:

Next is a photo of a violet near a fallen log. This one looks like the common violet that is in everybody's lawn, but I think it is another species; will have to take a book next time:

And finally, the stream itself, which I promise, you dear reader and myself, to get a better photo in the future:

The time for these spring flowers is no later than this weekend. I have seen people call these flowers "spring ephemerals", and this is exactly right; in no more than a week they are gone, not to be seen for another year. In fact, the whole cadre of spring flowers is like that, from the Bloodroot, which is one of the first, to the Mayapple, which is one of the last. In a couple of weeks, the hills will be a lush green with just a few things flowering, and you will have to look hard for them.

I will give a further report on this drive, as I hope to have more time and a few nice days. Keep looking, and come back and see us!

Red Maple, or, The Tree that Lives Everywhere.

The Red Maple isn't my favorite native North Carolina tree, I guess; that distinction is reserved for trees like the Sarvice (Appalachian Serviceberry), the Fraser Magnolia, and the lovely cousin of the mysterious and achingly beautiful "Lost Gordonia" or Franklin's Tree, the Loblolly Bay, which is lovely in its own right. No, the Red Maple might not be my favorite, but it has to be in the top five, since it is the first harbinger of Spring in my home land of the Southern Appalachians, lives throughout this state of my home, North Carolina, and puts on a color show from around St. Valentine's day throughout around May, and then puts on the earliest color of all the trees in the forest, except for the Sourwood and Black Gum, though it is not far behind them at all.

Now, if you look at the year as most of us do, we see the year starting in winter time; here in the West we see it starting shortly after Winter Solstice at New Year; some of us attuned to the Natural World see it as starting at Solstice itself. At any rate, the Red Maple starts its year when most other trees are still asleep, and just after the Groundhog has looked out at his shadowy world, and gone back to sleep. No matter. The Red Maple has a schedule, and no furry rodent with narcolepsy is going to deter it. She starts out with tiny red flowers around February 14 (the "real" Groundhog day according to some "Old Timers", or is the "real" St. Valentine's day on February 2? Ah well...), a tiny pulse of life heralding Spring in an otherwise drab world, a tiny show of color that though lost in the gray of Winter, is still sweet points of ruby light in the sombre surroundings.

This is the female flower; they have both male and female flowers, usually on different trees, though they can both appear on one tree.

This photo of a male flower by Elaine Haug @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database and is used with permission.

A Red Maple in bloom in the early part of the year is a very understated and sedate tree. Here is a picture of a pair of Red Maples framing the famous Swannanoa Tunnel near Ridgecrest NC.

The show can come later, when the female flowers have turned to fruit, and are nice and red, though the male trees have turned gray again, as their flowers have dropped. Here is a tree near an old house in the country.

This is a tree getting on into April, and the show has begun with all the other trees now too, so a Red Maple might not stand out, what with the Redbud, Serviceberry and Dogwood, but they hold their own, and in some years, like this one, can really put on a show as can be seen here along the Swannanoa River on the opening day of trout season, a day which should be a National holiday!

As you can see, the one in the foreground is joined by many of her sisters on the other side of the river.

Once the leaves come out, the tree then sheds its seeds, these tiny little helicopters that are wonderfully aerodynamic, floating everywhere, and begin to grow leaves in a big hurry, The leaves are typical Maple leaves, usually with three lobes, but often with five. There is so much variation in the species that it was often described by Botanists as a new species, and many subspecies are described that are probably just representative of great variation in the species. In the Autumn, however, is when the Red Maple gets radical. I don't have a great many ohotos of the colors of Red Maple in Autumn, but I will put them up when I find them.

Now, as for why I say it lives everywhere. This little tree is not a big component of any forest type here in North Carolina, or anywhere, for that matter. You will hear of a typical Southeastern Oak - Hickory forest, a Beech - Maple (Sugar Maple), a Spruce - Fir Forest, a Bottomland Hardwood forest, and all types of forests, but none are specifically Red Maple, but I will just about guarantee that the Red Maple is in all of them. Start out at the coast, with the Maritime forest, with the Live Oak, Bluejack Oak, Yaupon Holly and Wax Myrtle, and somewhere in there is Red Maple. Move inland, to the great Pine Savannahs and their attendant Pocosins. In the middle of both you will find the Red Maple, growing right next to the Longleaf Pine, in the savannahs, and with the Loblolly Bay in the pocosin. Check out the Cypress and Tupelo Gum Swamp. Right there, growing with the great Bald Cypress, with fluted and buttressed trunks, just like the Cypress, you will find the Red Maple, with its feet in the water, just like the Cypress and the Tupelo; I would not be in the least surprised if it made "knees" like the Cypress! Moving on in, to the Piedmont, the great pine forests maintained by the pulp producers, and the Red Maple is there growing amidst the Loblolly Pines, and in the forests that are left to be the typical Piedmont Hardwood forest, they are everywhere, right along with the great White, Red, Post and Black Oaks.

Now for the fun part. Much of our Mountain forest are simply an upland form of the Southern Hardwood forest, and of course, Red Maple is there. In the north facing coves, we have the Cove Association, with a host of different trees, particularly the Fraser and Cucumber Magnolias, Yellow Birch, Buckeye, and of course, Red Maple. Move on up, into the Beech Gaps which can be seen around Craggy Gardens, and you will find Red Maple. Go to the "Flag Forests", forests on the ridges of the Blue Ridge Parkway, as in Craggy Gardens, where the trees, such as Yellow Birch, Mountain Ash and others are flag formed from the pounding of the wind, and there, flag formed with the best of them are the Red Maple. Find yourself a Hemlock grove, something that will become rare in the future due to the Adelgid, and right in there with the understory of Spicebush, Ironwood, and with the occasional TulipTree in the grove is certain to be a Red Maple. And finally, go up to the tallest of our peaks, the more than mile high ones like Clingman's Dome, Mount Mitchell and Waterrock Knob. There you will find the Spruce and Fir association for which these mountains are famous. You will also find the Fire Cherry, maybe a Yellow Birch or two, and of course, the Red Maple.

So, you see, whereever you go in North Carolina, you are likely to see a Red Maple. If you look at a county distribution map for Red Maple in North Carolina, you will see very few counties which do NOT have it, and I would almost bet that if you pokes around in those counties long enough, you could almost certainly find it. It, at least in North Carolina (and I suspect in South Carolina) is truly ubiquitous, thus earning my name of "The Tree That Grows Everywhere (at least in North Carolina)!

The Hillbilly's Thermometer

I haven't been posting much, and am sorry for that, but this cold weather has reminded me of the Hillbilly's thermometer.
Years ago I was attending NC State University and a fellow from the Coast was griping about the cold weather he was experiencing there in the middle of the state - in his home, south of Wilmington, the weather is moderated somewhat by the Gulf Stream - and made an observation that thermometers told you nothing but a number, which, for him at least, was somewhat abstract. He said "somebody ought to come up with a thermometer that reads 'cool, cold, awful cold, darn cold, mighty darn cold, and cold as heck'". These were not the exact words he used, but you get the drift. After thinking a few minutes, I remarked that we did indeed have such a thermometer in my home in the Western North Carolina Mountains. Upon getting incredulous looks from all involved, I began to explain...

This is the flower of the thermometer, a type of Rhododendron, the Great or Rosebay Rhododendron, taken at the Sunburst Picnic Area, Pisgah National Forest, Haywood County NC. Be careful when you come to the North Carolina Mountains and ask where to see Rhododendron; many of the natives, especially the older ones will send you to the high mountain balds of the Craggies, looking for the Purple or Catawba Rhodendron, which is not as good a thermometer, though it has gorgeous flowers around late May or early June;no,  they call this one Mountain Laurel or just Laurel, which is confusing, because there is another shrub with this name, which they call Ivy or Mountain Ivy. Confused yet? These live at all elevations of the Mountains, and often people have them in their back yards. They often live right along their confusing namesake, the Mountain Laurel, which is a very different shrub.

The Great Rhododendron has afforded the Southern Mountaineer a cold weather thermometer for generations, and I will tell you how; you see, the leaves curl when the air gets cold. When it's warm, above 50 degrees, the leaves all are held out at right angles to the twig.

When it gets cool, around 40°F, they start to droop, like this, and when it gets to about 30...

The curl a little. This is cold. When it gets pretty cold, around 25­°...

why they curl even more. When it gets darn cold, around 10°F, they will be curled nice and tight to the twig, and as it gets to mighty darn cold and colder than heck, they just curl tighter, until about 0°F, when they won't curl much tighter. I will try to get some photos of this phenomenon this week, just look for an update.

 Not only is this tree good for a thermometer, it has lovely blooms on it starting around mid summer, and the leaves have been used to make a gray dye that was used for Confederate uniforms in the American Civil War. The twigs make the best whimmydiddles (Whimmydiddle), and I have seen the limbs used as paper holders and other things in a mountain lodge.
So, if you live in the mountains, or anywhere the Great Rhododendron lives, check it out. You can throw that confusing digital thermometer away!

Evolution, philosophy, and religion.

I was castigated by a person in several religions yesterday for my vitriolic criticism of a Creationist. How curious. His Scripture was from Matthew 7: 1-5, and mine was from Matthew 7: 16-20. I do indeed see most Creationists as bearing evil fruit, and I will attempt to tell you why. Understand here that I am not a truly erudite person, nor truly an Intellectual, thus have trouble marshaling my thoughts, and difficulty sometimes putting thought to page, but I will do my best.

In this Creation vs. Evolution debate, I am simply stymied. I was teaching a high school class once, and a young girl told me I couldn't teach her Evolution, due to some law of which I had never heard nor was made aware. I told her that as I was not trying to establish a religion with this teaching, which is the core of modern Biology, I didn't see why I couldn't. She told me that her mother told her, and her preacher confirmed it. Well, Reverend, I am sorry, but even a Bush appointed knee jerk right wing activist Supreme Court had to disagree with you and said that teaching Creationism or even Intelligent Design was actually "establishing religion" (see the First Amendment to the United States Constitution).

My aggravation with Creationists is well known to my friends, and I have never quite understood their shrillness,  because Evolution is NOT challenging anyone's religion, and if anyone's religion is so fragile that it can't stand up to modern science, well, it might be time to examine that religion. This is the rub, I think; they see it as a challenge to their religion, something that might make their religion not look so true, and they have to fight back tooth and nail, even in some cases with actual physical violence. I don't think this squares with Jesus' teachings.

Folks, Darwin had nothing against religion. Though he did lose much of his faith after his daughter died, he was never an Atheist, and his ideas have nothing to do with being against religion. Unfortunately, some modern scholars are in fact Athiests, and trumpet it loudly; there is no need for this, as Stephen Jay Gould suggested in his  idea of Non-overlapping magisteria. Using science to deny the existence of a deity or deities is facile and specious, and there is no need for it. I find it stupid. Taking evolution and trying to say "there is no God" is just totally ridiculous, and shows a lack of reason in my opinion.

Now, for a little of my philosophy, with some of my experiences.

First, "Creation Science" is an oxymoron. There is no science about it. In any scientific investigation, you take observed data and form an hypothesis. If the data fits the hypothesis, and the hypothesis holds up to further exploration, then you have a theory. Note that one of the "Creation Science" arguments is "it's only a theory". Yeah? What is "Creation Science" but a theory, and not a very sound one at that. Next, if everything works out, your theory becomes part of the modern body of science, like Newton's theory (now a "law), Einstein's theory of Relativity, and others. What these people did was take observable phenomena, gather them together, and form an idea of what happened. You find a bunch of fossils of animals that do not live on Earth any more, you see closely related finches on a series of islands that obviously had a common ancestor, what do you do? You say "Hmmm. These dead critters tell me that animals lived that don't any longer, and these finches tell me that a common ancestor must have lived in the past, and no longer does. Thus, a "theory" (later supported by much research and fact) is born.

What does "Creation Science" do? Well, they look at the facts, say "well, this had only 6000 years to have happened, so these finches were created on day 3, (Tuesday?), and these fossils are animals that Noah happened to forget, and were buried in the mud. Oh, and look, I know the arguments; I was raised a Southern (Hard Shell) Baptist. The Colorado River and Grand Canyon were a product of the runoff from The Flood, and happened in only  a short time. (Um, what happened to all that water that covered the Earth? Where did it go?)


Now, imagine an episode of CSI, and see Grissom telling his team not to make an hypothesis with incomplete data. The scientific idea is that you take the data, and make your hypothesis. "Creation Science" does this backward. They go from the premise that the Earth was created 6000 years ago (see: Bishop Ussher), and mash the facts to fit that. How is that scientific?

It seems that these Creationists have been infiltrating serious scientific groups, mainly on Yahoo, but all over (I have seen them on the Carnivorous Plants group), and when anything is said about Evolution, they jump on it as a hawk on a chicken, telling why evolution could not have happened, and offering up "facts" that uphold their "theory", and being totally disrespectful to anyone who does not agree with their junk. They hold forth these :facts", say it has nothing to do with religion, but is based in fact (never mind that their "Creation Science is based on Genesis from the Holy Bible, and not from any other creation myth), and there is no religion in it. However, they never fail to tell you how Jesus has made a change in their life, has sent them visions, signs, and prophesies, and start "witnessing" to you, right after they tell you that "Creation Science" is not about religion. Here I direct you to the ninth commandment about bearing false witness. One lady told me her husband was an agnostic, and believed "Creation Science" for years before he "accepted Christ as his savior". Yeah, I rest my case.

I have nothing against Jesus, don't get that idea. I have a lot against people who claim to follow Him. I often wonder if they are really following Him, or following someone else that they think is Him. Much evil has been done in Jesus' name, and people will threaten to kill you for deviating from their idea of Christianity, which is why, though a follower of Christ's teachings, I hesitate to call myself a Christian.Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were Christians (McVeigh was a lapsed one it seems), as is Eric Rudolph, and the guy that killed Dr. Tiller (Roeder). Bill O'Reilly is also responsible for Tiller's death (his rabble rousing led directly to this killing), as are many "Christians" who consider the killing of abortion doctors "justifiable homicide". (Who are you really following, huh? Matthew 26:52.)

I am a very spiritual person, and have rather strong beliefs, and still can see how majestic the unfolding of our Universe is without having to believe in a creation that happened only 6000 years ago. To envision a Universe that is impossibly old, and a mechanism for the evolution of species that is elegant and messy at the same time, and the laws (gravity etc.) that run it, gives me a sense of awe that I never had when growing up in the Creationist ideas of the Baptist Church.

I will write more on this as I think about it.