My god, finally ran through the entire video production sequence in FinalCut Pro / QuickTime, etc., to get a simple sketch piece to the blog. It’s not optimal as the original footage is from an old iPhone versus a newer iPad Pro and such, but … First time in a couple years, it’s always such a hassle to start with raw video, an idea, and squeeze that through an endless series of constant externally-imposed permutations on editing platforms and exporting formats/codecs/resolutions that are currently acceptable to most browsers and servers. Especially when memory is compromised! gah!
This, a circuit (aka, cycle) around the center of the universe, something I ritually perform on each visit. I have used the circuit/cycle concept to ascribe the presence of place and presence within that place. It dates back to the very early piece “memories of three infinite half-spaces” filmed at the site of a huge jökulhlaup in Iceland in 1997.
The audio is a simple ambient track recorded from the base of a telephone pole near the center, droning on in the -20F winter night chill of the Valley.
14 September 1944, Thursday afternoon: In the evening, without having heard or read the reports herself, Eva came home with the [contents of] the latest bulletins: In the German military bulletin: English attack on Aachen; in the English one: in the course of the attack on Trier, the German frontier crossed on a 22-mile front. A new offensive is also said to be under way in the East. — The fact that the enemy is on German soil will make a tremendous impression. … In the cellar, Neumark had an old copy of the DAZ, which he had found by chance and which included a page summarizing the events of 1943.
In February 1943, the fall of Stalingrad; in the spring, the Führer holds discussions with the King of Bulgaria, with Antonescu—Count Ciano is appointed Italian ambassador to the Vatican… What an impression it all made on us! Ciano shot, Bulgaria and Romania changing sides, Stalingrad as remote as a fairy tale… But something else made a greater impression on us—it was the same for both Neumark and myself: the impotence of memory to fix all that we had so painfully experienced in time.
When—insofar as we remembered it at all—had this or that happened, when had it been? Only a few facts stick in the mind, dates not at all. One is overwhelmed by the present, time is not divided up, everything is infinitely long ago, everything is infinitely long in coming; there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, only an eternity. And that is yet another reason one knows nothing of the history one has experienced: The sense of time has been abolished; one is at once too blunted and too overexcited, one is crammed full of the present. The chain of disappointments also unfolded in front of me again.
[…] Ever since Stalingrad, since the beginning of ’43 therefore, I have been waiting for the end. I remember asking Eva at the time: Do you think it is a defeat, or do you consider it to be the defeat, the catastrophe? That was in February ’43. Then I had not yet done any factory duty. After that, I was a factory slave for fourteen months. And now it is almost three months since I was released, three months in which I find it ever more difficult to wrest useful work from my so-called free days.
Words can be like tiny doses of arsenic: they are swallowed unnoticed, appear to have no effect, and then after a little time the toxic reaction sets in after all.
Klemperer, Victor, and Martin Brady. The Language of the Third Reich: LTI Lingua Tertii Imperii: A Philologist’s Notebook. Bloomsbury Revelations edition. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Weaponization of Language: Euphemisms and politicized terms are used to obscure truth or polarize discussions.
Power of Repetition: Repeated slogans and phrases reinforce ideologies, even when oversimplified or misleading.
Language of Division: Dehumanizing or exclusionary language fosters conflict and “us vs. them” mentalities.
Emotional Manipulation: Fear, pride, and resentment are evoked to sway opinions and shut down rational debate.
Media and Authority Vigilance: Pervasive bias and mistrust in institutions highlight the need for critical thinking and media literacy.
African savannah elephant (Loxodonta africana) grandmother, newborn calf, and family. Photo credit: Phyllis C. Lee, Amboseli Trust for Elephants.
Earth’s old animals are in decline. Despite this, emerging research is revealing the vital contributions of older individuals to cultural transmission, population dynamics, and ecosystem processes and services. Often the largest and most experienced, old individuals are most valued by humans and make important contributions to reproduction, information acquisition and cultural transmission, trophic dynamics, and resistance and resilience to natural and anthropogenic disturbance. These observations contrast with the senescence-focused paradigm of old age that has dominated the literature for more than a century yet are consistent with findings from behavioral ecology and life history theory. In this work, we review why the global loss of old individuals can be particularly detrimental to long-lived animals with indeterminate growth; those with increasing reproductive output with age; and those dependent on migration, sociality, and cultural transmission for survival. Longevity conservation is needed to protect the important ecological roles and ecosystem services provided by old animals.
Kopf, R. Keller, Sam Banks, Lauren J. N. Brent, Paul Humphries, Chris J. Jolly, Phyllis C. Lee, Osmar J. Luiz, Dale Nimmo, and Kirk O. Winemiller. “Loss of Earth’s Old, Wise, and Large Animals.” Science 387, no. 6729 (January 3, 2025): eado2705.
Thoughts unreel, leading nowhere in particular: parrots leading monkey-brain. So many sketches started—more than one hundred drafts in the ‘pending’ zone—while lacking the embodied discipline and focus to finish any. Blah, blah, blah.
My situation is moving rapidly towards a major change, assuming I can manage, and that is the main focus of a very blurry existence. Blurred by fractured attention, internal and external stressors: societal instability, monetary insecurity, psycho-spiritual transience, mortality, inexorable cosmological flow, etc.
Reflecting on the four-year tenure here in rural western Colorado, the “Western Slope” as it is called, being on the west side of the main range of the Rocky Mountains. It’s been a mixed experience. Initiated in the depths of a bad cancer prognosis, it had a harsh essence from the beginning. Three of the past four years was spent, primarily, working full-time/remote for the CGS. Two of those years were with the most miserable excuse of a boss, the former State Geologist. With new management, the final 16 months were far better, but the profusion of way too many responsibilities simply burned me out. After a disturbing interaction with one of my colleagues—one whose work was an essential support element to mine—who had confided to me that he wasn’t going to do anything at work unless forced to, I decided to pull the plug with just three weeks notice. Precipitous, yes, but somehow necessary, given how life-time was/is slipping away at a rate that continues to disturb tranquil thought every day. It was a bit surprising how easy it was to ‘retire,’ and how quickly the job vanished in the rear-view mirror. How all that time spent since 2016 evaporated almost without a trace. I did leave the highly organized legacy in the form of their information/dataspace, built with my life-energy. That along with putting in place workflows that guaranteed—to the degree possible at my level of responsibility—the highest quality of their public-facing information.
“So what?” Richard Pryor asks.
The other focus of attention was to the house and the 13.5 acre property, the land. Once I left the job, the countdown started on the retreat from this place, first back to Arizona, and thence back to Iceland/Europe. All along, since I bought the property here, I’d spend hours each week day, many more on weekends, working on clearing up something or other. Cutting and collecting dead wood, pruning trees, moving rocks, weed-whacking, clearing defunct fencing, encouraging re-wilding, selectively reinforcing aging out-buildings and root cellar, removing vast amounts of detritus from same, improving the water drainage situation, setting up a large composting system, and re-doing the house interior and exterior to some degree (roofing, kitchen, bedroom, and bathroom especially). I have made a couple thousand images from the property, but rarely explicit before-and-after images, there is some evidence of the improvements. The main goal was to stabilize the physical infrastructures and fix things that bothered me or obstructed optimal enjoyment and operation of the facilities. This became, cumulatively, the dominant creative act. In retrospect, I could have done more careful documentation and explication here on the blog, following my efforts, but there wasn’t the will. If nothing else, the move from Golden saved me from paying $50K in rent over the years. I do have a potential buyer.
I do watch the sky here. With a 360-degree panorama (the property has few trees) and a view up to a hundred miles (the San Juan Mountains to the south, the Uncompaghre Uplift to the southwest, Hells Kitchen directly west, and Grand Mesa to the north), there is always much to contemplate in the sky. And aside from a paranoid neighbor from Southern California who recently installed a ridiculously bright night light on his garage, the area is known for its dark skies. This will be the greatest adjustment, as my place in Arizona is deep in the ponderosas. I’ll have to wait for Iceland to ponder and enjoy big skies again.
The economic demands of this particular period of existence, from 2016 until now, have impacted life in ways that confirmed my long-standing perspective on the pursuit of money—as Blake expressed in Laocoön—“Where any view of Money exists, Art cannot be carried on, but War only.” Formal creative pursuits were sporadic, and amounted to little more than recording fragments of life along the way, this blog being the only public venue aside from aporee::maps and participation in a few international streaming projects.
Contemplating my next situation includes mulling the question of how the physical dislocation and change will go down. The next temporary physical landing place is known, but far away, and the inertia of being here is now exceedingly large as precipitated by time and age. That and TOO MUCH STUFF. The Archive weighs heavily on mind, and, once moving, on body. In a cosmos that is transitory at all scales, the attempt to stop entropic decay is almost completely pointless. And through aging, The Archive becomes something of a retroactive creative crutch where delving into it is a poor substitute for actively creating *now*. At the same time it presses down heavily with the message that there is enough stuff in the world: no need or reason to make more. Best to simply live and spend time with Others instead.
Stay tuned. Oh, but wait, there will be stiff competition for eyeballs here, what with the ongoing socio-political conflagration about to receive another corpulent splash of gasoline… Sigh. I’d advise dropping social media.
Noting, gah, another sad passing—a couple days before President Carter’s—this of a friend in the BrainStorms-MetaNetwork virtual community that I’ve been participating in for more than 25 years. A sudden passing: he ended his life. (Hard to see and read that phrase, it seems to have brutally incorrect meaning.) Scott was a multi-talented, kind, humane be-ing. Though buffeted by many challenges he always expressed that kindness towards those he encountered—while resisting those who were intent on the oppression of others. He sought vital, personal, local, and community change/evolution within the often harsh nature of Amurikan society.
“It’s all about priorities,” he was known to say.
Scott “Scoop” Butki 1969-2024. Photo credit: Nancy Stefanik, Austin, Texas, March 2021.
It is with heavy hearts that we announce the untimely passing of Scott Andrew Butki, who departed this life on December 27, 2024, at the age of 56.
Scott is survived by his mother, Joanne Butki; his brother, Jay Butki (wife Ju Kyung Butki); and his sister, Ellen Butki; his nieces, Natalia and Marina; his nephews, Arne and Jonno, and an extended family of friends and colleagues who will forever cherish his memory. He was preceded in death by his father, Arnold Butki, in 1999.
Scott grew up in Riverside, California, where he graduated from Riverside Poly High School. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications with a Journalism emphasis from California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and later pursued a Master of Arts in Teaching at Frostburg State University in Maryland.
Scott began his professional journey in journalism, a career that allowed him to live in multiple states; California, Arizona, Arkansas, Maryland, Texas, and work for various organizations. His passion for storytelling was deeply rooted in his desire to inspire empathy and combat apathy among readers. He also sought to expose wrongdoing in local government and businesses. After more than a decade in journalism, Scott transitioned into education, focusing on special education to support marginalized communities. For over ten years, he dedicated himself to mental health work, often assisting teenagers with autism. Among his most cherished roles was teaching a Harry Potter-themed class at the University of Texas for adults with special needs.
Scott’s commitment to social justice was unwavering. Inspired by figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., he sought to live a life of non-violent activism. Through his involvement with the Unitarian Universalist church in both Hagerstown, MD, and Austin, TX, Scott worked on anti-racism education initiatives and partnered with local groups to promote equity and understanding.
A voracious reader, Scott set an ambitious personal goal of annually reading 50 books and interviewing 25 authors, a goal he met for many years. He also found joy in walking and running, playing backgammon, indulging in rocky road ice cream, listening to music, connecting with friends on social media, and tirelessly working to fight hate, not necessarily in that particular order. Everyone will miss his sense of humor and his weekly online questions on social media, such as ”What are you grateful for?” and “What made you smile today?”.
Scott’s life was defined by compassion, advocacy, and an enduring love for reading and learning. May his legacy continue to inspire all who knew him. He will be missed dearly but forever held in our hearts.
On July 31, 1976, a powerful thunderstorm over Colorado’s Big Thompson Canyon unleashed a deluge that became one of the state’s most catastrophic natural disasters. Known as the Big Thompson Flood, this event claimed 144 lives, caused significant damage to infrastructure, and left a lasting impact on both the physical and social landscapes. This flood serves as a case study of the interplay between geologic conditions, meteorology, and human activity in a high-risk environment.
Front page of the Rocky Mountain News following the catastrophic flood in Big Thompson Canyon in August of 1976.
The Meteorological Trigger
The Big Thompson Flood was caused by an intense, stationary thunderstorm that dropped more than 12 inches of rain in just four hours over the steep canyon. The localized nature of the storm, combined with its high rainfall intensity, overwhelmed the Big Thompson River’s drainage system. This type of weather event is not uncommon in Colorado, where summer thunderstorms can deliver large amounts of precipitation over short periods. The semi-arid climate, combined with the region’s high topographic relief, creates conditions that are particularly conducive to flash flooding.
Thunderstorms of this magnitude occur when warm, moist air is forced upward by the mountainous terrain, cooling and condensing into heavy rainfall. In the case of the Big Thompson Flood, the storm’s stationary position ensured that all the precipitation fell within a confined area, greatly intensifying the flood’s impact.
Geological Setting of Big Thompson Canyon
Big Thompson Canyon, located in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado, is a steep and narrow valley carved over millions of years by the Big Thompson River. The canyon’s geology is dominated by granitic bedrock interspersed with loose sediments and colluvium, materials that are easily mobilized during heavy rainfall. The steep canyon walls and limited floodplain amplify the destructive potential of flash floods, as water rapidly accumulates and accelerates downhill.
House precariously undercut by lateral scour on the Big Thompson River a quarter of a mile below Glen Comfort, Larimer County, August 1976. Photo credit: Ralph Shroba.
One of the key factors in the severity of the 1976 flood was the canyon’s geomorphology. The steep gradient of the river increased the velocity of the floodwaters, allowing them to carry massive amounts of sediment, debris, and rock. This debris flow not only caused direct damage but also increased the erosive power of the water, undercutting slopes and triggering landslides that further contributed to the destruction.
A few months after the release of the first html-based ‘web browser’ (Mosaic) in 1993, working with folks at ISMENNT (the Icelandic Educational Network), I was able to establish the first Icelandic educational institution’s website (for the Myndlista- og handíðaskóli Íslands (MHÍ) – Icelandic College of Arts and Craft) and along with that server access, established the initial hopkins/neoscenes web presence. Through many iterations, upgrades, platforms, and technologies I’ve somehow kept it running and proliferating. Hasn’t been cheap, nor lacking enormous floods of frustration with the shifting vicissitudes of arbitrary tech development, but it’s my primary creative output at this point.
Hitch a ride if you like, SUBSCRIBE to the MAILING LIST:
I started this post back in March, titling it gut punch from the Feds, but I never finished it. Here we are at the end of the year and that gut-punch—a fiscal one that drained the life out of me this whole year—has been pulled. And pulled retroactively, no less, to the end of 2023: good deal! And, as well it should have!
Since entering the Amurikan to workforce in 1975, I worked enough ‘quarters’ and payed into the system to qualify for Social Security (SocSec). Not a whole lot, but some. So when I was planning what my meager retirement finances would look like, I used the numbers that SocSec officially generated for me based on those earnings. As I lived overseas for a much of my adult life, I had acquired a small pension in Iceland, an even smaller one from Finland, and recently a few dollars from the state of Colorado: together these totaled a few hundred dollars. However, unbeknownst to me—okay, shitty due-diligence on my part—there was a law on the federal books called the Windfall Elimination Provision which dictated through bilateral agreements with, for example, Iceland and Finland, that my SocSec in the United States would be penalized by 60% of the total value of my other pensions. Suddenly I was confronted by the realization that my Social Security in the US would shrink by more than $400/mo. that’s a lot of money when the total was only $1000/mo to begin with and the total of all pensions is less than $1500/mo before taxes.
Because the law mainly applied to anyone receiving a pension in the US—several million people—the 118th Congress, after 20 years of wrangling, came to the conclusion that there were too many valuable constituents getting screwed by this ‘provision’—teachers, police, fire-fighters, other municipal workers, and folks like me with international pensions. I still don’t understand the original rationale for the initiation of the WEP in the 1970s, like any of us were really making a huge ‘windfall’ … ever, while working or now in ‘retirement’. Sheesh. H.R.82 – Social Security Fairness Act of 2023 was passed last week by the House and Senate, and signed into law by the President. It is retroactive to December 2023, right before I parted from the CGS and had to pull the trigger on my SocSec, so I should get all the withheld funds back.
On a side note, I want to recognize the Icelanders who run their pension system, how professional, quick, accurate, informed, friendly, and efficient they have been to work with. It took all of four minutes to get set up at their office in Reykjavík. Same with the Finns, a humane experience with their very funny sense of humor. To the contrary, as I was navigating this issue at the beginning, the woman in the Denver SocSec office, with whom I could only *fax* (!!!) was quite the nasty character. The offices have an armed Federal guard (oh, wait, that’s supposed to make me *feel safe*?), and the *fax* technology issue was simply incomprehensible (and completely unacceptable in 2024!).
I was going to thank the politicians who made the repeal happen, but research into that made me nauseous. The Social Security Fairness Act was submitted to every Congress back to 2000! Duly noted: how, towards the final vote, most Republicans started to pile-on for a free ride of positive press after they had long-opposed passage. Pragmatic and corrupted power-seekers all, no kudos to any of them that I hope to receive my just payments—as I *should have* at the beginning. That modest increase will help cover ever-rising utility, medical, and food bills!
I finally pulled the plug on Twaddle, aka eX, deleting my account last month. Long overdue, and I would call on anyone else who is still propping up one of the least socially-conscious oligarchs on the planet to cease-and-desist. Meanwhile, I’ll cheer that misfit on to Mars. As for the rest of them, well, let them eat cake.
Back in the ‘aughts’ I routinely early-adopted social media platforms to maintain current experience for my teaching on what was then still called “new media”. A decade into the World-Wide-Web, 2003 or so, Web 2.0 had arrived, signaling the evolution of general ‘interactive’ web platforms that allowed for user-driven and collaborative experiences. Web 2.0 transformed the internet from a generally static platform into a space where users could dynamically create and share content, but its rise also brought about critical (social, behavioral, personal) concerns that I explored in many of my workshops and lectures. This era’s defining features—social media, user-generated content, and algorithms that tailor information, and now AI—have amplified both personal expression and misinformation, often blurring the lines between fact and opinion. While Web 2.0 promised a democratized digital space, it has led to powerful tech companies amassing vast troves of user data, raising privacy issues and consolidating control over information flow, features almost completely unregulated in the US. Surveillance Capitalism anyone? Algorithms designed to maximize engagement have also been criticized for promoting social echo chambers and polarizing content, contributing to social divides. It’s all about eyeballs in the ‘attention economy‘. Through their perversely inverted efforts to be user-centered, the oligarchs of Web fostered a landscape where manipulation, privacy concerns, and misinformation are increasingly prevalent: it’s user-centered alright, but the user is merely the object of extracted wealth.
Yup, here we are. I hadn’t been active on Twaddle for some years aside from attention paid to the CGS work account up until last year, and a very occasional glance at my feed. It was functional for a time, but the ‘new ownership’ indeed sent it to 100% shit, stimulating the departure. The entire arc of evolution completely confirmed my hypothesis how those who control a communications protocol control both the form(s) and content of the communications occurring. Not only that, but the protocol and its ‘owner’ actually tap off a certain amount of power—real social power—from those using the platform. The X possessor is a case in point, and a case that threatens the stability of the social system. I long ago departed from FazeBuch (2010) and mostly from InstaHam (still have an account but don’t post and rarely look at it).
What about BlueSky and Mastodon? They provide more direct user control without a central governing entity. Back to distributed models versus centralized models: a deep conflict that’s been raging since computing began!
Of course, in the end, there is no privacy left in the US social sphere. What you consume—from food to media, everything; where you go; who you communicate with; what you say; what you do; how much money you have; what medical issues you have; where you work; what you studied; your interests and beliefs; your voting history; your criminal and court records; ad infinitum …
Not only that, all those terabytes of data are subpoenable in a court of law: What’s your level of confidence in the justice system in the US these days?
On the related topic of concentration of wealth, that this infographic is more than ten years out of date makes it even more disturbing:
Klemperer, Victor. To the Bitter End: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1942–1945. 1st ed. Vol. 2. 3 vols. New York, NY: Random House, 1999.
One hundred pages in, now into the fall of 1942 as, unbeknownst to Klemperer directly at the time, the “Final Solution” is being implemented by the Nazis. Hearsay begins to accumulate. Klemperer’s microscopic view, no, his immersion in life as a Jew married to an “Aryan”—a ‘special’ case in the Nazi hierarchy of depravity—is at once thoroughly banal as a daily journal while riveting as an unmasking of Arendt’s “banality of evil.” The horrifying details of the increasingly oppressive restrictions accumulate incrementally within a framework of conflicting logics each day, while random visits from the Gestapo destroy any vestiges of normality as the wider German population seems largely clueless by choice.
A partial list derived from the book encompassing some of the punitive laws and conditions in place by the early summer of 1942:
Mandatory Identification: Jews were required to wear the yellow Star of David visibly on their clothing. It could not be pinned on, it had to be sewn on a heavy outer coat, making the wearing of it even more unbearable in the summer.
Travel Restrictions: Jews were prohibited from owning cars or bicycles, and they faced severe restrictions on public transport usage. Travel between cities required special permission.
Property Confiscation: Jews were stripped of personal property, including homes, furniture, and valuables, which were often confiscated or forcibly sold at low prices.
Housing Restrictions: Jews were forced into overcrowded “Jewish houses” (Judenhäuser) and forbidden from renting or owning other properties.
Employment Bans: Jews were excluded from most professions and could only work in jobs deemed acceptable by the regime, typically low-wage manual labor.
Food and Shopping Restrictions: Access to groceries was limited, with Jews only allowed to shop during restricted hours, often when stores were nearly empty.
Education Prohibitions: Jewish children were barred from attending public schools, and higher education was entirely closed off to Jews.
Social Isolation: Jews were banned from many public spaces, including parks, theaters, cinemas, and libraries.
Medical Access: Jews could not visit non-Jewish doctors or hospitals and were denied most medical care except from a few Jewish professionals.
Curfews and Movement Limits: Jews were subjected to curfews and confined to specific areas.
Marriage and Relationships: Marriages between Jews and non-Jews were outlawed, and existing mixed marriages faced intense scrutiny and pressure.
Cultural Erasure: Jews were barred from owning radios, telephones, and typewriters, further isolating them from the broader world.
Confiscation of Pets: Jews were forbidden from owning pets, and any existing ones were often confiscated or destroyed.
Bank Account Monitoring: Jewish bank accounts were closely monitored, with savings often seized.
Deportations: The ultimate restriction was the ongoing deportation of Jews to ghettos, concentration camps, and extermination camps.
These measures, constantly being ramped up, aimed to dehumanize, isolate, and impoverish Jews, stripping them of their rights and dignity as part of the Nazi regime’s genocidal agenda. The diaries provide an invaluable firsthand account of the escalating persecution during this period. And, obliquely, how the wider population either participated in the process or remained purposely ignorant.
I will probably suspend reading this volume in the stead of first understanding the more insidious evolution he documents in the first volume where the initial Nazi take-over of Germany proceeds:
Klemperer, Victor. I Shall Bear Witness: The Diaries of Victor Klemperer, 1933–41,. Vol. 1. 3 vols. Westminster: Random House Publishing Group, 2016.
For decades, the west side of the Colorado School of Mines (CSM) main campus had subsidence issues related to historical mining activities. At one point, in the 1990s, one of the married student housing units in that area was so badly damaged that it was condemned. In the early 2000s, after the school converted the subsidence-prone area into intramural-athletic (IM) fields, ongoing subsidence-related issues were still being reported.
Clay mining in Colorado dates back to the mid-1800s and Golden was a particularly good location for clay found in the Laramie Formation. This clay has been used for a variety of industrial purposes over the years including construction (bricks, structural tiles, sewer pipes), terracotta, refractory clays, and earthenware. The mining of kaolinitic claystones in what was later to become the western area of the Mines campus left backfilled/collapsed mine workings and the possible presence of underground void spaces. To complicate matters, that same area was also the site of coal mining in the 1880s and 1890s. In particular, the Pittsburg Coal Mine entry shaft may have been located in the vicinity of one of the observed subsidence features. This mine reportedly operated between 1876 and 1880, but is un-recorded by the State. The mining operations were thought to be on three levels at depths of 100, 150, and 225 feet running parallel to the mountains.
The condition of the Rockwell clay mine immediately south of the CSM campus and 19th Street along US 6 in 1977 before more recent reclamation as a golf course. Note the near-vertical dip on the up-turned sedimentary layers. The green area to the top left is part of the IM field where the subsidence occurred in the 2000s. Photo credit: Colorado Geological Survey.more “Case Study: mine subsidence, CSM”
The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear. It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion, which some had trusted for a cloud that would sprinkle fertilizing rain on their fields. What old people say you cannot do, you try and find that you can. Old deeds for old people, and new deeds for new. Old people did not know enough once, perchance, to fetch fresh fuel to keep the fire a-going; new people put a little dry wood under a pot, and are whirled round the globe with the speed of birds, in a way to kill old people, as the phrase is. Age is no better, hardly so well, qualified for an instructor as youth, for it has not profited so much as it has lost. One may almost doubt if the wisest man has learned anything of absolute value by living. Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, their own experience has been so partial, and their lives have been such miserable failures, for private reasons, as they must believe; and it may be that they have some faith left which belies that experience, and they are only less young than they were. I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors. They have told me nothing, and probably cannot tell me anything to the purpose. Here is life, an experiment to a great extent untried by me; but it does not avail me that they have tried it. If I have any experience which I think valuable, I am sure to reflect that this my Mentors said nothing about.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. Boston, MA: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.
The whole of Walden is relevant to Life, such as it has come to be in this, the Age of Oligarchs and Desperation.
Not only sands and gravels
Were once more on their travels,
But gulping muddy gallons
Great boulders off their balance
Bumped heads together dully
And started down the gully.
Whole capes caked off in slices.
I felt my standpoint shaken
In the universal crisis.
But with one step backward taken
I saved myself from going.
A world torn loose went by me.
Then the rain stopped and the blowing,
And the sun came out to dry me.
The fear for me is far greater than just acknowledging the Windigo within. The fear for me is that the world has been turned inside out, the dark side made to seem light. Indulgent self-interest that our people once held to be monstrous is now celebrated as success. We are asked to admire what our people viewed as unforgivable. The consumption-driven mind-set masquerades as “quality of life” but eats us from within. It is as if we’ve been invited to a feast, but the table is laid with food that nourishes only emptiness, the black hole of the stomach that never fills. We have unleashed a monster.
Ecological economists argue for reforms that would ground economics in ecological principles and the constraints of thermodynamics. They urge the embrace of the radical notion that we must sustain natural capital and ecosystem services if we are to maintain quality of life. But governments still cling to the neoclassical fallacy that human consumption has no consequences. We continue to embrace economic systems that prescribe infinite growth on a finite planet, as if somehow the universe had repealed the laws of thermodynamics on our behalf. Perpetual growth is simply not compatible with natural law, and yet a leading economist like Lawrence Summers, of Harvard, the World Bank, and the U.S. National Economic Council, issues such statements as, “There are no limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind at any time in the foreseeable future. The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit is a profound error.” Our leaders willfully ignore the wisdom and the models of every other species on the planet—except of course those that have gone extinct. Windigo thinking.
Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. New York: Milkweed Editions, 2013.
[ED: During a visit to his apartment/studio in Denver last month, I asked Jim if he would consent to showing this piece on neoscenes. His art oeuvre is always challenging, humorous, playful, and both linguistically and algorithmically sophisticated!]
THE CRAZED JANITOR, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 18 in X 36 in”, Jim Johnson.
The Crazed Janitor is a pangram, a sentence employing every letter of the alphabet. Pangrams are frequently used to display a specific typeface, in this case, one of my own design—Magic Squares. The letterforms are colored systematically by letter frequency usage, coloring consonants with a range of grays from black to white and assigning spectral colors to the vowels.
The T is colored black as it is the most frequently used consonant in the alphabet. White is assigned to the Z because it is the least frequently used consonant and all of the rest are assigned incremental values of gray between black and white according to their frequency of use. The vowels are assigned colors according to their respective wavelengths, thus Red (of the longest wavelength) is assigned to the E which is the most frequently used vowel. The remaining colors are assigned according to their respective wavelengths and usage, so that Violet (the shortest wavelength) is assigned to Y, the least frequently used vowel.
That the pangram might also represent a form of synesthesia, where some people see individual letters as specifically colored (not all black), is an unintended consequence of the composition.
In response to a number of queries regarding commenting on the neoscenes/tech-no-mad blog, I have reactivated the commenting option. To do so it will require readers to subscribe to the blog via another option. “Subscribe? I thought I was.” Well, yes, you are subscribed to the announcement emailing list, *not* to the blog itself. Long technical explanation…deleted
So, if you want to comment, just go to the blog and on the right sidebar under the mean time widget there is the Register option.
Create a user name, add your email, and submit. You will receive a link to set your password. That done, you are then a “Subscriber.” To comment, you will need to be Logged in to the blog under that same mean time widget menu.
Spam still proliferates within the WordPress world, so your comment will be checked first, then cleared for posting, assuming you’re not a snark monster.
Prior to a platform rollover in 2014(??)—one of a number over the years—the blog was open for commenting, and had several hundred subscribers. For a variety of technical reasons, that subscriber base widget stopped functioning, and I later decided to shut down commenting in the face of relentless spamming.
With the latest rollover two years ago to Reclaim Hosting, the site has stabilized and is slowly regaining subscribers.
Looking forward to your comments, I will reply when appropriate! If you have any issues or questions, you can contact me directly: neo at neoscenes.net.
[ED:This brief report from 1995 was written by Jon White, (Senior Engineering Geologist, emeritus). It looks at a specific rockfall situation in the central Front Range town of Manitou Springs. There are hundreds of similar instances like this where gravity rules in mountainous terrain. Geotechnical solutions are of some help in the long-term scale of the hazards, but are extremely expensive to implement. Development pressures that are affecting building in areas threatened by natural disasters—of small and large scale—continue apace in the US West.]
Manitou Springs occupies a narrow valley where Fountain Creek emerges from the foothills northeast of Pikes Peak and west of Colorado Springs. The valley slopes are composed of interbedded resistant sandstone and conglomerates (i.e., gravelly sandstone), and weaker mudstones and shale. The outcropping sandstone is most prevalent on the steeper slopes on the north side of the valley.
During the wet spring of 1995, rockfall and landslide incidents increased throughout Colorado, some resulting in fatalities. In Manitou Springs, a fortunate set of circumstances occurred before the Memorial Day holiday weekend when local residents observed the movements of a large, dangerous block of rock before it actually could fall. The observation set into motion an emergency declaration by the town, resulting in a compulsory evacuation of homes located below the rocky slope, the closing of the road in the area, and an immediate rock stabilization project. During this emergency situation, the Colorado Geological Survey was asked to provide expert assistance to help stabilize the rock. The emergency evacuation decree remained in effect until the rock was stabilized and the area subsequently declared safe.
There are far more spectacular shots out there in the web, given the continuing development of astrophotography tech. The sensitivity of CCDs and the precision manufacture of the optics seem to be the main drivers.
The nights where the brightness of the comet was at a maximum—at 0.4—I was in Echo Park where the view of the western sky was blocked by the canyon walls. When I got back home it was overcast until the 19th where it showed up, still easily visible to the naked eye, though the apparent magnitude had already dropped significantly. The full moon and the non-dark-sky-lit Delta, Colorado didn’t help, lighting up the clouds and brightening the general background darkness of the sky.
Small but significant areas of Colorado are underlain by bedrock that is composed of evaporative minerals. These are salts and sulfates that precipitate out of salt-concentrated surface waters. In the geologic past these minerals were deposited in shallow seas within closed or restricted basins where the seawater evaporation rate exceeded the replenishing supply. Current environments that are similar include the Great Salt Lake in Utah and the Dead Sea in the Middle East. These minerals are predominantly anhydrite (CaSO4) and halite (rock salt – NaCl) at depth, and gypsum (CaSO4*H2O) near the surface. Over geologic time, the evaporative minerals filled the sea basins and were subsequently buried beneath younger sediments. Through burial diagenesis, these deposits become evaporite bedrock. After the Rocky Mountains rose, millions of years of subsequent erosion and downcutting of rivers has now exposed some of these evaporite rocks at the surface.
Two characteristics of evaporite bedrock are important. One is that evaporite minerals can flow, like a hot plastic, under certain pressures and temperatures. The second, and most important to land use and development, is that evaporite minerals dissolve in the presence of fresh water. It is this dissolution of the rock that creates caverns, open fissures, streams outletting from bedrock, breccia pipes, subsidence sags and depressions, and sinkholes. These landforms are described collectively as karst morphology. Karst morphology originally referred to limestone areas known for characteristic closed depressions, sinkholes, caverns, and subterranean drainage. Evaporite karst comprises similar morphology where these features develop as a result of dissolution of the evaporite minerals.
One example of evaporative bedrock in Colorado is the Permo-Triassic Lykins Formation redbeds that contain massive gypsum deposits, up to 50 feet (15 m) thick. Dissolution of those beds and some of the thin algal limestone within the unit is responsible for many sinkholes and ground subsidence features inside the main Dakota Sandstone hogback that marks the boundary of the Eastern Plains and the Front Range.
Munroe Quarry near Livermore, Colorado in Larimer County, which produces gypsum from the Permo-Triassic Lykins Formation. Photo credit: Colorado Geological Survey.
ED: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon. Also, a complete library of neoscenes contributions to the aporee::maps project is simultaneously uploaded to https://archive.org.
In the process of phonographic listening/recording along Upper Pool Creek west of the Chew Ranch property, I came across this scenario. No clues as to what led up to it. The body seemed to be fresh and whole, life gone that very day perhaps? I didn’t disturb the scene: doubtful that such a nutrient/energy source would remain unconsumed in this wild environment for long.
It did bring back the memory of traveling to Dinosaur back in 1988 with Pablo where we visited his friend Renzo and wife Lisa. Renzo had recently taken the position of wildlife manager for 40,000 sq mi of the Monument and northwest Colorado. One morning, pre-dawn, we set out in his work truck and after a long drive, parked in the low sagebrush steppe and from a distance watched, in the greying Light, a lek where the dramatic mating ritual between dominant male and female Greater sage-grouse unfolded.
ED: For new subscribers, selecting the red dot in the middle of the map will start the audio sample which can then be controlled using the play-bar and volume/mute (speaker) icon. Also, a complete library of neoscenes contributions to the aporee::maps project is simultaneously uploaded to https://archive.org.
On the afternoon of 27 August 2024, the area including Upper Sand Canyon, a relatively small drainage in Dinosaur National Monument, experienced a major precipitation event. The fifteen mile Echo Park access road, in part, runs the full length—about three miles—down that canyon, much of it in the fluvial hazard zone. Long stretches of the road were completely washed out, and it was only the heroic efforts of the guy re-grading it that re-opened access to Echo Park some days later. I recently made it back up to Dinosaur for a short sojourn after an interminable and blurry five-year absence.
Earlier bush-walks along the dry washes in the area, the curious effects of flash-flooding as well as other, slower, changes are noted. I’ve come across dried-mud-caked trees in Upper Pool Creek Canyon more than 20 feet higher than the dry creek bed, yikes! And in some areas of Hells Canyon, boulders the size of small cars are seen piled up and ground together in violent proximity.
With the 27 August incident in mind I did a long bush-walk along the east-west axis of the Ruple Point-Red Rock Anticline that forms the Weber Sandstone hogbacks running perpendicular to Upper Sand Canyon.
