Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Appreciated Assistance, a short story …

Note: The short story below came to me via email from Dave, along with a warning that it was 39 pages (double spaced) if I would not mind reading it. Dave Klauser is a friend of the blog, and if he wishes he can tell you more about himself in the comments. The thing that grabbed me immediately about this story was that I was familiar with the landscape, as was Dave. The trail head, Lady of the Lake, was the very first hike I did with my brothers in the Absaroka Beartooth Wilderness, maybe 1960 or earlier. I was very young, maybe ten years or less. Dave has the trails, the lakes and peaks correct, and writes as a skilled outdoorsman. As the story unfolded I realized I was in a cliffhanger. It’s a page turner.
This is a completely new twist for the blog. I am happy to run this piece for Dave. I hope the story grips you as much as it did me. I hope if anyone reading this who might have any dusty manuscripts sitting around, that you send them along. Just for fun, as this blog is and always will be non-monetized. If there is a running blog theme here, it is that Mark gets repetitive and needs assistance, and others to provide it.
Enjoy Dave’s writing. He is very good.,
MT

Appreciated Assistance

By DS Klausler

I awoke.

As I listened intently, I determined that I had not heard such a sound–ever. Ah yes… growling. Not human; guttural. Now loud; yes: feeding. No… an attack. Wait, now human… screaming–male. Gurgling.

Whatever; I suited up. Wailing; human. Thrashing and growling; must be a bear. Yes. Crying. Moaning. Silence.

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About that ankle

Some time ago I asked for home remedies regarding a ligament problem in my right ankle. I tried a couple, including DMSO, to no avail. Physical therapy made only a temporary difference. While in Alaska, I quit wearing the brace, as it seemed to make no difference. The discomfort, mild anyway, with or without it was the same. I took to heart the words of the Mayo Clinic website, that eventually, it will heal.

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About those nuclear power plants

“When we generate electricity from a conventional generator, be it coal, gas, oil, or hydro, the machines are all linked together by the transmission system. This synchronizes all of the generators, which in North America is that a speed of 60HZ or 60 cycles per second. To put it simply and without going into great detail, the magnetic force of all these generators in synchronism gives the system stability, both steady state and transient, which keeps the whole system operating in a stable state and able to withstand line trips, generated trips or lost of load without taking the entire system down by loss of angular stability or a cascading voltage collapse. The more of these independent power producers generate back into the grid, and the more we depend on them for energy to feed load, the less stable our system becomes. With all of these energy sources on during the night that do not offer any spinning mass (inertia) to the system, the less stable the system becomes and therefore the less reliable.” (Peter Gibson, 40-plus years’ experience as the electrical utility sector employee)

I clipped that quote from the book The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity: Clearing the Air Before Cleaning the Air, by Terry Etam, a 25-year veteran of Canada’s energy business. The reason it caught my eye was an interview I did with Ab of Fakeologist with Gaia down in Colombia as well. I commented at one point that ExxonMobil and the Sierra Club had worked hand-in-hand in California to shut down the nuclear power plants that existed there, only one (Diablo Canyon) still functioning.

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Sunday fiddlesticks

On being oblivious

We were walking on a trail in Anchorage last week, the day before returning. We were looking for moose, said to habituate the area. Not so, not that morning anyway. As we walked the grandson and I were tossing handfuls of elderberries at one another, my objective with my stenosis-limited arm to land them somehow in the hood of his sweatshirt. There was a time when I had a good strong arm for throwing things, even if inaccurately, as my old softball team members would attest.

I was not doing so well at this improvised contest. When we arrived at the car I found that surreptitiously the boy (and my wife) had been loading up the hood of my rain jacket with elderberries. And I was oblivious to it all.

The thing about being oblivious is that I don’t know, cannot know things that others around me know. Maybe I am the butt of a joke, and that’s OK. I have a good sense of humor and do not take myself too seriously,. The elderberry event was simply more evidence that things are slipping away from me. So be it.

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Editor emediocrus

I used the post down below as a means to write a review of the book, Unsettled, by Steven E. Koonin, severely editing it. I had little hope of seeing my review published by Amazon, as over the past couple of years overt censorship has taken over so much of our lives.

“Overt,” mind you. Not new,. It has always been like this. Technically speaking, we have, as expressed in the Bill of Rights, an inalienable right to freedom of speech. It is not given us by our Constitution. We own it, have it, have always had it. But during my years after schooling I slowly realized that this inherent right to speak our minds is severely limited, that is, if I have an opinion about who should be the quarterback of the Denver Broncos, that opinion easily flows through the censors. It is painless, stupid, offends no one, not even the current quarterback, whatever his name. (Russell Wilson.)

However, if my opinions are of a more serious nature, and especially if they rub up against anyone who has power, say the editor of a small local newspaper, they will be censored. Back in pre-Internet days the outlets for personal opinions were limited to newspapers and radio talk shows, and the gnomes guarding the caves were newspaper editors and talk show hosts.

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Unsettled, the book, and one more interview

“Unsettled” is a book by Steven E. Koonin, former science advisor in the Obama administration. That last part, following “former”, means nothing to me other than such a title offers credibility to normies who might then read the book.

Koonin writes, in the first nine chapters, a devastating critique of so-called “Climate Science”, which he capitalizes to distinguish it from real science. In short order he destroys current propaganda concerning emissions, the role of carbon dioxide (called “carbon” by alarmists), global warming, storms and forest fires, floods, sea levels, and the pending apocalypse.

Then he pulls his punches. He uses the word “hoax” but once, and places it in quotation marks, as if such a thing were not happening as we speak. He speaks of the science surrounding climate as if it is peopled by honest blokes who are mistaken in their alarmist views. True enough, however, he does concede that those scientists who do not go along with the consensus are severely punished.

Here are three quotes he highlights at the outset. offering more promise to the substance of the book than he musters in the end:

“[Inaction will cause] … by the turn of the century [2000], an ecological catastrophe which will witness devastation as complete, as irreversible as any nuclear holocaust.” (Mostafa Tolba, former executive directions of the United Nation Environmental Program, 1982)

[Within a few years] winter snowfall [in the UK] will become a very rare and exciting event. Children just aren’t going to know what snow is.”(David Viner, Senior Research Scientist, 2000)

“European cities will be plunged beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a Siberian climate by 2020.” (Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, quoting a Pentagon report in The Guardian, 2004)

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Big John

We are traveling with our grandson, a delightful boy who is slowly teaching us how to use our iPhones. For instance, we are never to go to maps to find a location. We are to hold down the “Siri button. Further, we are never to say “Hey Siri.” We merely hold the button and issue a command. It sure makes my driving less dangerous to others.

The above video is from another era, a 1962 top-10 hit by Jimmy Dean, yes, the guy who founded the sausage label. That is the only connection now between grandson and him. It is a ballad about John F. Kennedy and his heroic efforts to save his crew after a disastrous encounter with a Japanese warship tore his boat, PT109, in half.

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What I’ve been up to …

This photo was taken on the Katmai Peninsula, Brooks Falls, a world-renowned place to view the Alaskan brown bears feeding. These amazing animals have but three months to fatten up for a six-month hibernation. A run of red (sockeye) salmon helps them along.

We viewed them safely from a platform above. At one time we counted 17 bears present. Standing in the river downstream, perhaps 300 yards away, are a dozen fly fishermen. The forest service lectures everyone to mind our manners, never interfere or draw the attention of a bear. Since we are not a food source, we coexist in tenuous harmony. I stood with a small group outside a restroom as two of these massive creatures wandered by us, not oblivious, but not concerned.

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An interesting Tom Hanks story

This could mean something, but is probably nothing. Nonetheless, I found it interesting.

It has to do with Conan O’Brien. His father is well-placed and a very important man, but I see his genealogy, while not scrubbed, only goes back to the turn of the 20th century. His mother is a Reardon, maybe a peerage name, and her genealogy goes back to the mid-1800s.

Conan went to Harvard, studied hard and got good grades. He happened to join the Harvard Lampoon at the urging of a friend, and found he had a bent for making people laugh. This was not his original calling or his plan for his future. After college, I believe he did some improv, and then ended up as a writer for Saturday Night Live. He was not on-screen talent, and only did rare camera appearances. He did love making the entire writers’ room laugh.

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