536 CE

A group of interdisciplinary scientists and historians got together to look at the history of coinage and found something else—the year 536 CE was the worst time to be alive.

Fascinating findings:

• ·         A fog descended upon Europe and lasted for about 18 months
• ·         With darkness came widespread crop failure and famine
• ·         Plagues took hold after famine
• ·         Summer snow fell in China; 70% to 80% of the population perished
• ·         Scandinavians abandoned entire cities
• ·         These events sealed the fate of the already-weakened Roman Empire
• ·         The Peruvian Moche civilization never recovered
• ·         Coincides with the Mayan Hiatus when expansion and building stopped
• ·         Tree rings around the world show years of slow or no growth
• ·         Took about a century to recover
• ·         World temperatures between 536 and 545 were the lowest in 2,000 years
• ·         Now known as the Late Antique Little Ice Age

Causes: 

• ·         A volcanic eruption in Iceland in 536 was the cause, initially
• ·         Another one near San Salvador, the Ilopango volcano
• ·         Another one in North America
• ·         Two more in Iceland in 540 and 547

Results:

Much of the world’s population was eliminated. Historians think the Ice Age and its resulting famine reduced the ability to fend off disease and a plague erupted in the Byzantine Empire in 541. Not unlike the Black Plague of the mid-1300s that killed 25 million in Europe, also following famine.

Conclusions:

The eternal hand-wringing of the 24-hour news cycle has instilled a sense of dread and panic in people and tragically affected our young people huddled over their smart phones. Compare to 536?

While the warming of the earth is causing disruptions, the last part of this current Ice Age doesn’t seem to carry the death impact of a good old-fashioned world-wide series of volcanic eruptions followed by famine.

A friend from years ago was the first I knew to refer to the current state as a “CO2-enriched” atmosphere. Good for plants. Good for food. Volcanoes/Ice Age—bad for plants, bad for food.

BTW, whatever happened to “anno Domini” (AD) and “Before Christ” (BC)? Now it’s current or common era (CE) and before current era (BCE). As dictated by ISO 8601.

SEPTEMBER

Can’t believe the summer is over, another one in the dust. Little Big Man counted his age by the number of “summers,” and there’s another one gone.

The house in Virginia Beach closed on June 30, two full months ago, but the moving process started earlier than that, so some version of chaos for over four months. It has been the most difficult move of my life, partially because we seem to accumulate more “stuff” all the time and partially because the physical work is getting harder in my mid-70’s.

Actually, the realization that I just can’t do some of the physical work is part of the difficulty of this move.

And then there is the HEAT. Corpus Christi is a very hot place. What the hell did I expect, you might ask, but “heat indexes” constantly in excess of 100 degrees, sometimes reaching 114?!! Yeah, more than I expected.

Read a great book that Marcee loaned to me, “Winter Garden,” that has (ironically, given the weather here) as one of its central themes the fight against intense cold. Specifically, the record cold winters of the early 1940’s during the German siege of Leningrad that lasted nearly 900 days (1941-1944) with over 3.5 million casualties. The civilian deaths in the Leningrad siege exceeded the civilian deaths in Hamburg, Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined. Not the typical book I read, but pretty powerful stuff.

This is a repeat, but I find it to be astounding that Russia suffered 20 million deaths as the result of Stalin and Hitler. Stalin and his Communist regime must qualify as one of the most-evil in history, and the effects were apparent during the Cold War and still today. Fact: Western Europe’s economy is ten times the size of Russia’s. The population is 140 million, one-tenth the size of China and one-third that of the US. Virtually all the men, regardless of age, were either killed in the war or starved (men don’t survive famine as well as women), and today there are 11 million more women than men in Russia. Alcohol is the biggest enemy right now.

I realize that Russia is corrupt and the government is basically an extension of the criminal element, but please, people, can we get our politicians to quit obsessively concentrating on Russia and figure out what to do about China? Fortunately, our military understands that China is THE threat for the future of our world.

Yep, another Russia/China rant. Sorry.

AND JUST LIKE THAT, 1969 WAS 50 YEARS AGO

And in that year of 1969, I was 24 years old, married, college grad (but I didn’t know anything) and the first child on the way.

Now, it’s later. The year 2019, and we are just unpacking in Corpus Christi, Texas where Linda’s son has been posted by the Navy after completion of his command tour (CO of VFA 103, A/F-18F squadron out of Oceana, Virginia Beach, VA). Glad to be here, but sincerely, may have one move left in me, but not many more.

It is likely that we will end up in either the Atlanta area or the Charlotte, NC area as the plan right now is that Danny will retire from the Navy at 20 years in early 2022 and get a job flying for the airlines. There are other potential outcomes, but time will tell. Since grandson Bradley is one of only three people who Linda knows of that share here DNA (most of us can count in the hundreds that we know of), we will be close.

Meanwhile, we are trying to find the time and energy to visit all the grandchildren as much as possible.

Other than being extremely hot (duh—it’s south Texas in August), we have really enjoyed CC so far. For one thing, the people are really nice and very friendly, a departure from the East Coast (don’t get me wrong, we enjoyed Va Beach a lot).

Here is a surprise: we had a 40-year old man, said he was a Mexican, his girlfriend and his buddy help us unload the 26’ U-Haul truck and 12’ trailer that we drug from VA. Again, they were good people and friendly, but the surprise is that they wanted to talk politics, particularly presidential politics. The buddy was a pudgy white guy with a bushy red beard who you would expect lived in his mother’s basement and played computer games all day. The girlfriend was…well, let’s just say she was not a Fulbright candidate but nice enough. To my absolute amazement, without prompting from me they launched into a full support dialogue of President Trump and his policies and total disgust with the Democratic candidates. Special disgust for “The Squad” and the leftist media.

Again, I was not leading any of these comments, and Linda was whispering for me to get them to shut up and just work as we were paying them by the hour. Truly, though, they worked hard and steady.

I thought that was an anomaly. A few days later, cable guy shows up. Mexican. Here for a few weeks to help out, but born, raised and living in “The Valley.” In these parts, that is the Rio Grande valley. You are probably not believing me at this point, but he pursued the conversation on politics, and started it by saying he voted for Trump and so did his parents (his father was born here, his mother in Mexico). He is in his mid-20’s, wants to go back to school, probably to study business. In his words, the media “thinks we’re stupid” and believes that any Mexican or Hispanic person is uniformly a Democrat.

He echoed my observation—Mexicans work hard, know how to work with their hands, go to church and are family oriented. They are not interested in hand outs.

Wanted to let everyone know that we are getting settled, here is the contact info:

Bob and Linda Peterson

6513 Picante Dr

Corpus Christi, TX 78414

Phone numbers the same, 913.238.2298 and 816.885.1849

rpeterson@nbbcompany.com

rpeterson2298@gmail.com

lpeterson518@gmail.com

The Economist

The Economist

Sometime in the 1970’s, I had a subscription to The Economist magazine. Why, in the face of poverty did I find the funds to buy a subscription? I just don’t know, but it was an education. Thank you, The Economist, for sharing erudite information and a unique perspective on the world. For one thing, it began to solidify my skepticism on the state of American journalism.

These people are not only smarter than me, they have good information and they know how to use the language to communicate that information.

For example, this (please be kind about their spelling and capitalization customs):

Why, a strategist from Mars might wonder, do Europeans doubt their ability to defend themselves against Russia without American help? The total gdp of nato’s European members is more than ten times that of Russia, which has an economy about the size of Spain’s. They spend three-and-a-half times as much on defence as Russia, which has lately had to cut its budget sharply because of a broader squeeze on its economy. True, Russia has 13 times as many nuclear warheads as western Europe has, but surely Britain and France, the two nuclear powers, have more than enough to deter an attack?

For decades Europeans did not need to worry about the Martian’s question, because America’s commitment to their defence was not in doubt. That has changed. “The times when we could unconditionally rely on others are past,” Angela Merkel told the European Parliament in November. She echoed the call of France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, for “a true European army”. In January the two leaders signed a treaty between France and Germany which includes a mutual-security pledge similar to nato’s Article 5 (as well as Article 42.7 of the European Union’s Lisbon treaty).

Did you know that NATO’s European members have GDP ten times that of Russia? I didn’t know that. It seems that Putin is not only the leader but the mascot of Russia—puffed up bigger than they are, the Phillies Phanatics of world leaders and nations.

Did you know that Russia has an economy the size of Spain? I didn’t. So why is it a big deal if they sell natural gas to Western Europe?

Texas, on the other hand, has a diversified economy that exceeds Russia’s by about $400 billion. California is much larger.

Why are the Democrats obsessed? Dunno. But they should start to worry about China rather than Russia. China is the real deal, not some puffed up façade. For example, Texas has a GDP of about $58,000 per person; Russia, $8,700. They, the Russians, are, however, among the world’s leaders in corruption.

A final perspective about Russia. They currently have a population of about 140 million, say 10% the size of China. Roughly a third of the US. Between Hitler and Stalin, they lost 20 million people in the WWII time frame. Not a family in Russia escaped violent loss and much of their country was devastated. No wonder they were angry and hard to get along with during the Cold War. Now they have about 11 million more women than men…maybe due to alcohol? They got issues!

Trump said the US provides over 70% of the resources to protect Europe. So-called “fact checkers” despise Trump and will skew facts to support their positions. They cite that the US provides a much lower percentage of the NATO spending. True. But NATO couldn’t exist without our ability to perform air-to-air refueling, provide aircraft carriers, and a whole host of services that do not exist in the other nations’ arsenals. Basically, if NATO were a house, members other than the US would provide the furniture, the US would provide everything else—the foundation, the roof, the frame. You get the picture.

Again, Trump is right, the “fact checkers” are wrong.

Another factoid—only a handful of countries in NATO live up to their pledge to pay their “fair share” which is a factor of their GDP. Greece is one, but it is pretty easy when you have very little GDP. Germany does not. Not even close. But they posture, provocatively.

If you want an informed perspective on the world’s affairs, read The Economist. Worth it.

PERSPECTIVE

Do you ever have trouble maintaining perspective? Sometimes it seems my life is the hardest, the most confusing...and then I talk to someone else.

Danny has been ordered to Corpus Christi, Texas and they will be moving. We will be following, although we will take some time to do some time in an RV. Plans keep changing, we are adjusting.

So, a neighbor stopped to talk. "Ya hear about the shooting? Twelve dead!" He was there. He was paying his real estate taxes. "Oh."  Whaddya say?

How ya doon? His mother-in-law had surgery that went bad, she died in a few weeks. His wife had a brain tumor. The litany went on. I failed to mention that I have had quite a bout of toenail fungus.

Do you ever think about how lucky you are? I should do that.

I should do that. Yep.

COLLEGE GRADUATION

We were invited to a graduation party this evening, a really nice affair for the daughter of our friends who happened to be from Nebraska!

A young person, starting out with an education from a stellar school, the University of Virginia. Surrounded by friends and family.

I remember the hot day in August, 1968, fifty-one years ago when we were invited to stand up; sit down; now you're a graduate. No parading across the stage for us.

The people who attended my graduation ceremony at Pershing Auditorium in Lincoln, Nebraska were few, and it dawned on me this evening that I am the only survivor of that bunch--my ex-wife and my parents are gone. My brother might have been there, too, but he's gone, too. I doubt that he was there, nor his wife, Carol, who is also gone, because it was August and farming needed to be done.

Things change over more than half a century. Here's to the next half century and a flourishing life for Allie, the young lady who just graduated.

CHINA

Last Friday, May 5, China sent a cable to Washington responding to a draft agreement between the two economic superpowers. That cable contained several key changes from earlier positions by the Chinese. The key change involves China's refusal to pass laws that enforce the provisions of the Agreement that would have put teeth into what has been weak promises over the last many years.

The changes required by the U.S.:

• Stop the theft of U.S. intellectual property and trade secrets
• Stop requiring forced technology transfers
• Change Chinese policy that essentially prohibits competition
• Provide access to financial services
• Stop currency manipulation

President Trump speculates that the Chinese are backtracking in hopes of negotiating with Joe Biden or one of the weak Democratic candidates. He, therefore, is instituting an increase in the tariffs from 10% to 25% on Chinese goods in the near future.

The trade war hurts our farmers, especially those hit hard by flooding. Congress must do something to assist those small businesses besides giving them loans that must be repaid with interest (don't get me started on what the government provides to illegal aliens). These boosts also hurt some U.S. companies, like Caterpillar, which in turn is a kick in the pants to Linda's retirement plan.

The estimates of what the Chinese have stolen from the U.S. on an annual basis is in the billions of dollars. Even Trump's provisions do not expect that anything will be "fair" or "even." But what the Chinese have done with alacrity over a long time is ridiculous.

Consider that any tough negotiations will be curtailed if any of the Democratic candidates are elected. The Chinese will be home free.

Oh, and BTW--if the Chinese find the F-35 that the Japanese crashed into the Sea of Japan a couple of weeks ago, they will not get the technology harvest that the press has anticipated. The military did not sell the highest level tech to the Japanese because they are not as stupid as...well, some others.