To fly or not

I've been trying to sort out airline security vs. airline security practice.  None of us wants to get on a plane with a shoe bomber or the Christmas Day bomber. 

But I'm beginning to come around to the security folks who say that TSA - with the support of our government! - isn't employing security practice, but "security theater" - something that looks good but is ineffective. Like taking off your shoes, or being unable to take cosmetics on board with you, or some baby/children products. For heaven's sake, as soon as the shoe bomber was apprehended, the bomb-makers probably stopped using shoes as a delivery vehicle.

Common sense in the security world says that you cannot defend against unknown events.  The longer the laundry list of explicit events becomes, the more likely it is that no one will spot the event characteristic that requires a countermeasure. And while the list grows longer the public, despite its impatience, will think "Well, something has to be working or we wouldn't have to go through all this."   Remember the joke about the man sent to the psychiatrist because he's constantly snapping his fingers?  "Why?" "Because I'm afraid of the elephants." "I don't see any elephants around." "See?  It works!"

In my darker moments I can think of all sorts of ways a terrorist could strike, and it doesn't have to happen on a plane or in an airline terminal.  And more threats to life, limb and community are caused by "insiders" (Timothy McVeigh comes to mind, as well as disgruntled employees, angry spouses, and some types of political protestors) than by those based on foreign soil.

What has worked to deter terrorist plots is the monitoring of internet channels (and those channels are pretty well identified, and can be pretty well discovered, by the way - we don't have to have all our emails under surveillance).  What has worked is the time-consuming process of infiltrating these organizations.  [edited: Consider the young man who intended to kill people attending the Portland Christmas-tree lighting.  Searching the people who attended wasn't the answer - intelligence work prevented a tragedy.]

What would really work would be the sharing of intelligence within and across security agencies. Heavens! The FBI, the CIA, the DEA, and so on, and international security forces like MI (add your number) in the UK, all working together?  Sharing turf? Sharing victories? Sharing failures (instead of distributing or avoiding blame)? Unheard of, especially on the US side.

A blogger that I read, who often has some very far out ideas, wrote today about BF Skinner's "operant conditioning".  Skinner's behavioral theory has its points.  For instance, given two choices to reach a goal, one unpleasant and one more unpleasant, the lesser unpleasant will be chosen to the point that it will become a social norm.  This acceptance will come despite the fact that neither choice is really acceptable.  Today, if you want to get on a plane, you will choose between two unacceptable choices, and over time one will become acceptable to society at large. 

Freedom is not just being able to do as we please.  Freedom requires that we exercise our right to say "No", whether that is to inappropriate behavior in children, or to domestic violence, or to government actions that insist on subservience or personal denigration. Freedom means making our own decisions about the nature of the greater good, rather than acquiescing to those who would make decisions for us about what the greater good really is.  Freedom means being able to make decisions for ourselves, without imposing our decisions on others.

In the years of segregation, African Americans sat in the back of the bus. "It's not a big deal to me.  If you don't like it, you can always walk."  They had to enter a theater by the back door, and sit in the back rows of the balcony. "It's not a big deal to me. If you don't like it, seeing the movie isn't a required life activity." Enough people said "This is acceptable to some, but it's not acceptable to everyone" that anti-discrimination laws were passed.

Today, we want to be able to fly to take a vacation, to see our loved ones, or to conduct business.  "It's not a big deal to me. If you don't want to deal with the security measures, don't fly."  That's imposing your decision on others.  The response should be "These security measures may be acceptable to some of us, but security measures should be acceptable to everyone." 
 
Our cultural heritage is based on personal choice and human dignity.  Soldiers cannot be billeted in homes without the owner's permission.  Slavery is illegal.  The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution prohibits "unreasonable search and seizure", and this has led to the judicial doctrine of "probable cause." Some security measures are inconvenient, but no security measures are worth the loss of dignity now being imposed upon airline workers and airline passengers.

I don't have an airline flight in my near future.  But I'm thinking about that eventuality, and trying to decide whether I'll make an easy choice between bad and worse, or a more difficult choice about what's acceptable and what's not.

If you want to read that blog, go to http://wandervogeldiary.wordpress.com/2010/11/23/operant-conditioning/

Thanksgiving

For all the blessings I have received, I am truly thankful:

... for a job  ... that drives me crazy and wears me out but continues to challenge me to give my best, and continues to give me great satisfaction

... for my sweet sons, who keep including me in their lives, even though we are many miles apart

... for my sweet daughters-in-law, who let me share their lives, and who know what's best for their husbands

... for Alice, whose boundless cheerfulness is infectious, and who I need to see more of

... for my home with its view of the Vermont hillsides

... for my car mechanics (who laughed with me when they learned that the funny sound in the car was the extra lug nuts rolling around)

... for my garden, which gives me so much pleasure, my refuge that lets me get away from the trials of the day

... for the bloggers who give me something to think about every day

... for Vermont Public Radio

... for my Monday night knitting group, whose smiles and warm welcomes are priceless, and whose work encourages my own

... for Ernie, my good companion and Chief of Staff  ("dogs have owners, cats have staff")

... for Celia and Claudia, who deliver the mail and talk gardening and life with me

... for Jeri and Sabine, who are always happy to see me, and who gave me a key to the house

... for the Howards, who will always be as near and dear as real kinfolk

... for Thelma Murray and Betsy Kelley, their friendship, and our Sunday mornings and church suppers

... for being able to live in Vermont

The Cutest Dog in Vermont

Alberta Wallen (My Equine Expert) and Ray Peck (Our Road Foreman!) are my next door neighbors.  Berta is an animal lover, especially rescue animals.  She has three horses (one rescued, and how many can you ride at once, Berta?), a new kitten (from the vet), and two dogs.  One is a huge rescue Rottweiler named Quinny.  The other is the cutest dog in Vermont, for sure.

He's a yellow dog with a curvy tail and big triangular ears. Name? DINGO!  What else? 

Ray and Berta have spent a lot of time training Dingo and Quinny to stay home, and by and large they do.  I don't think I've ever seen them in any other yards except mine (I'm the Dog Treat Person) and Jamie's (where 3 other dogs live).

They did such a good training job that for about a year Dingo was scared to death of everyone else, but he's super confident now, perhaps because I'm the Dog Treat Person.  This afternoon Dingo decided to come for a visit.  We played: I make threatening noises and he rips and tears around the yard; then he flops on the ground for Tummy-Rubbing Time.

It's very hard to get a picture of this dog.  If he looks you in the eye, he wants to be in your lap.  Mostly he looks elsewhere.

Dingo is very quiet, very alert, and very fast.  I think he's delegated all the barking to Quinny.  He rules the roost, too.  Quinny is twice Dingo's size, but Quinny won't go anywhere unless Dingo is there.

I can't get a picture of Dingo handing me his paw because I can't take his paw, give him a treat, and take a picture all at the same time, with only two hands.  I can't take a picture of a smiling Dingo showing the charcoal gray spots on his tongue, because he moves too quickly.  I can't get a picture of Full Alert Dingo (ears forward, tail erect and curved, all four feet well-planted) because when Dingo is on Full Alert I'm getting Ernie out of his way.

But I finally got a nice "portrait" of the Cutest Dog in Vermont.

Forgive the little white stuff that looks attached to his neck.  That's a stray scrap of paper in the grass.

The Churchills are trying to let go of dairying

I went to Thelma's this morning and during the usual conversation, she said "Your neighbors are selling their cows."

Oh my.  I'm not surprised I didn't know.  Vermonters are generous with information if you ask a question (many jokes notwithstanding), but are reluctant to talk about themselves to anyone they haven't known for more years than I've lived there. Nonetheless, I stopped at the house late this afternoon. Lori answered the door and I asked if I could ask about what I'd heard, that they were selling the cows. And they are.

A lot of it is about the price of milk.  But most of it is about the work, and the work to keep dairy cows going is huge. You want to minimize how much grain you feed cows, because you can't grow the grain yourself.  What you can grow is your own hay or corn, and the hay work (after you wait out the rain and get three days of warm sun) is exhausting. Hours on the tractor, mowing.  Hours on the tractor, chopping, or tetting and raking.  Hours on the baler, and all of this is in hayfields that aren't all that far away, but are by no means next to the house.  And loading the hay into the hay barn and getting it stacked up.

 Then there are the barn chores. Cows don't care how dirty they get, and udders have to be cleaned prior to milking. Milking machines are heavy. The person doing the milking is bending over all the time.  The milk parlor has to be cleaned top to bottom after each milking. And the hay has to be fed out, and the barn mucked out (horses are a piece of cake compared to cows). And equipment repaired. And cows aren't very trainable.  Docile, yes.  Trainable, no.  If you have to doctor a cow, you're wrestling with her. Ray and Lori have a hired man, who works hard, but he's no spring chicken, and for the last few years his job has been to manage the milk room and the cows in the barn.  Everything else is pretty much up to Ray and his son-in-law Paul.

A farmer stops dairying because of injury in a farm accident, or because the farmer wears out, and that's what's happened to Ray.  His back is gone.  He had some discs fused in 2001, and that gave him relief for a while, but the farm work started undoing that result about 3 years ago.  Ray can't stand up for more than about 15 minutes without leaning on something. He's in constant pain again. The pain and the work mean that he's running on empty all the time.

This is a business and continuing-health decision, but it comes at a great emotional cost.  Ray and Lori were high school sweethearts, and both are from dairy families.  For Ray to give up dairying changes the course of their family's histories. 

But there's a herd history that will end too.  Ray and Lori's herd started with Ray's first cow, Candy.  Starting when Ray was a Junior Showman, Candy took blue ribbons at Tunbridge Fair for a number of years.  Many of the current cows are descendents and grand-descendents of Candy.  The cows are very much their own family, not patched together from an auction here and an auction there.  And they're part of the Churchill family. 

26 cows are sold, and Ray and Lori are trying to seal the deal on 25 more.  They're relieved that the 26 have gone to a young woman in New Hampshire with a degree in dairy management, who loves the Jersey cow, loved Ray's cows, and paid him "the right price".  They will be her foundation herd, not just 26 more in a monster herd, so they've gone to a good home.  Even so, Lori is taking this hard, because the breakup of families is hard to deal with, even though the decision makes very good sense if Ray is to keep his health.

It's hard to think of not seeing Jersey cows in those fields, and next to my house. Several years ago another local farmer gave up dairying because his back gave out, and he says that decision has kept him out of a wheelchair. I think Ray sees that wheelchair rolling toward him.

Ray and Lori would like to keep a small herd of 16-20.  They have private milk customers that they'd like to keep.  Ray says he can do the haying, but Paul really does not like the milking part of farming (although he will do it). Ray's daughter Brenda has a full-time job, so she can't take the milking over.  Lori  doesn't do milking, and I'm sure there's a good reason, because she isn't a slacker. They are going to try the small herd until the fall of next year, and then decide what to do.  Paul would like to run beef cattle, and there is a growing market for local beef. 

Farming is gratifying to those who do it successfully, but it is difficult beyond words. However long and however well you farm, the work, day after day after day, never stops. And it wears you out.

Did you say it was 6:38 am?

Oh for heaven's sake.  Despite a couple of well-placed Post-It notes, I forgot.  The alarm went off, I got up, did the morning breakfast routine for self and cat, turned on the radio and wondered why the program was not what I expected.  Chalked it up to the pre-coffee morning fog.

Fired up the computer and sat down (with coffee) to check email.  What? 6:38 am? That means I got up at 5:15 ...

Well, the clocks are now properly adjusted, and there will either be an afternoon nap or an early bedtime.  But it's nice to have morning light an hour earlier.

Leftovers can be wonderful

What to make for dinner?

• some sweet Italian sausage that needs cooking
• half a jar of pasta sauce that is about 50% home-made sauce
• some aging fresh mushrooms (shriveling up)
• leftovers from a small bag of pizza cheese (actually, half a bag!)
• some peas (in the freezer) that I had forgotten about
• a cup (uncooked) of penne pasta that's been staring at me for weeks
• the "special ingredient" : the last (close to one cup) of the roasted veggies - eggplant, onion, zucchini, mushroom, red pepper, tomatoes
  
  Cooked the sausage, added everything else (except the cheese) to the sausage and reheated it.  Then turned it into a casserole dish and mixed in the cheese.  Baked, covered, 25 minutes. Served with salad.  Oh boy was that good.

And what's for dessert?  Apple/Pear crisp

• Equal amounts of (peeled, sliced) apples and bosc pears
• A handful or so of dried cranberries
• A handful or so of chopped walnuts
• sugar, cornstarch and nutmeg (as though to make a pie)
• Turn into a baking dish
• Top with (1/2 c flour, 1/2 c brown sugar, 4 Tbsp butter, cinnamon, nutmeg)  all cut together and mixed with 1/4 cup lightly toasted  regular oatmeal.
• Bake at 375 for 30 minutes. Let rest at least 20 minutes before serving.

Election Day has come and (thankfully) gone

Well, Vermont has a governor.  The voters saw their duty to decide, and not to leave it up to the legislature.  But it was not decided until about 10 this morning, when the Republican candidate conceded.  It was a very, very close race (we're talking only a couple of thousand votes, if that) and apparently it became clear this morning that the towns whose results were not in could not bring in enough votes for the Republican to catch the Democrat candidate.  I dislike them both so much that I will not call them by name.

Thankfully we still have our very small but very effective Vermont congressional delegation.  Bernie Sanders did not have to stand for re-election to the Senate.  Patrick Leahy, our Senate veteran, was declared the winner about 15 minutes after the polls closed at 7 pm, and Peter Welch, our House representative, was declared the winner at about 8pm.  That is a relief.  The results for local legislative races are trickling in.  I've heard nothing about our district, which probably means no substantial changes, and that's OK.  Down in the Royalton area, the race is showing a one-vote difference.  They need a change down there from a long-serving, big-talker-do-nothing representative. The challenger is young and with no prior experience, but she has the issues nailed.  I hope she pulls this off. Edited later: Apparently, she has.  And, true to form, the incumbent is complaining that it's not his fault.

There's no point in me weighing in on the national elections.  You all know whether your congressional representatives will work for you or not (except for the poor DC people who are victims of a system they have no say in).  Politicos in Vermont are convinced that no money will flow from the feds to the states until after the 2012 election , and states with budget trouble (Are there any that aren't? VT has a multi-million dollar budget shortfall in the upcoming year) will continue to be in serious trouble.

Several local politicos and national ones as well are of the opinion that there will be two years of legislative stalemate in Washington, since the Republican's stated agenda is not focussed on the needs of the American people, but on ensuring that Obama is a one-term president.  This implies no new job initiatives, no improvements (and possible retrenching) on healthcare, no financial sector reform (which leaves people with troubled mortgages in real trouble), and so on.  Nothing that would appear to make the current administration look the least bit successful.  And the consequences for anyone else be damned.

There are no winners in this election.

Don't overuse your credit cards and do everything possible not to lose your job. That's the bottom line until another election cycle comes around.  Am I being cynical? No. Just disgusted.