Monthly Archives: November 2019

A Ground-Source Heat Pump Nation

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It’s early afternoon on top of the Langjokull glacier (Langjokull means “long glacier” so I’m being a little redundant here perhaps) in the Highlands of Iceland. The ice is about 1,900 feet thick below us as we stand on the second largest ice cap on an island named for ice. We are about five hundred feet short of being a mile high.

And we are standing on top of two volcanic systems. But we’re relatively safe. There have only been thirty-two eruptions in the past ten-thousand years. We do not think when there might be a thirty-third.

This is a land of fire and ice, of long dark nights and long bright days, of heat and snow, of Northern Lights in the winter and whales and Puffins in the summer. It is a country the size of New York with a population equaling that of Anaheim, California. About 266,000 of the country’s 360,000 people live in one town, Reykjavik.

Iceland has about 130 volcanoes, about thirty of which are considered active. Glaciers melt from the bottom here because of the warmth of the ground. The water is pure and cold and it spills over dozens of waterfalls and careens through canyons carved through the volcanic rock laid down through thousands of years of eruptions.

In some places it’s boiling hot and there are geysers. Visitors are cautioned to stay on walkways lest they break through the thin crust and encounter boiling water. More than ninety percent of the homes in Iceland are heated with geothermal water heated by the underground magma that is part of the ecosystem of this fascinating country, an entire country that is, in effect, a ground source heat pump.

In other places, steam from geothermal sources generates electricity that provides lights to much of the island.

Heat and cold. Light and dark. The darkness of winter is setting in fast in Iceland. During our visit, we could make out outlines of mountains on the horizon about 9:15 a.m. and it was fully light by ten.   But by three o’clock we were headed back to our hotel because darkness was coming on fast.

Christmas lights go up early in November and they stay until February, not because Iceland celebrates Christmas for four months but because the people NEED THE LIGHT.

Actually, Iceland celebrates Christmas for about two weeks, beginning December 23 and running through Epiphany on January 6 with traditional events linked back to ancient Norse customs and figures such as the thirteen Yule Lads.

The lads are trolls, children of Gryla, a part-troll and part animal who lives in the mountains with her husband and the black Christmas Cat. At Christmas time she and her family come down out of the mountains looking for children who’ve been more naughty than nice. She likes to boil them in her cauldron while the boys go around visiting the homes of children.

Icelandic Christmas custom has children putting a shoe in their bedroom windows each evening for the thirteen days before Christmas. Each night, one of the lads comes by and leave small gifts—candy is always popular—for the good little girls and boys. But the child who has been a pain in the neck that day can wake up the next morning and find a rotten potato in the shoe.

The Yule Cat prowls the countryside and eats people who haven’t received any new clothing before Christmas Eve.

Those of us who live in the less harsh but soft and more temperate and light world of Missouri have a fat old man in a red suit who flies around with the help of reindeer.

The country has an officially established church, a state church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Some folks will attend holiday services at Hallgrimskirkja, the church of Hallgrimur Petursson, a seventeenth-century poet and clergyman (although that’s a statue of Leif Ericson in front of the church instead of Pastor Petursson). This modern church is the largest church in the country and at 244 feet is one of the tallest buildings in all of Iceland.

 

 

 

 

 

Simplicity is its beauty. Workers started building it in 1946 and did not complete it until 1986. The original design was for a building not as tall as this one. But it grew in design when the Church of Iceland insisted on a spire that would be higher than the cathedral of Iceland’s Catholic Church.

Yes, we saw the Northern Lights.

Our cameras saw them better than our eyes did. To our eyes, the lights were barely visible. But our digital cameras with slow shutter speeds captured the lights and (if you look closely) the Big Dipper. We had gone out on a Northern Lights tour in a boat the previous night but they didn’t materialize. The second night, we took a bus an hour into the dark interior of the island. We were on the verge of giving up when the first slight glitter caught our attention.

But on our boat trip we did see a light—Yoko Ono’s Imagine Peace Light that is turned on during the winter for various periods.

This year, she went to Reykjavik to turn it on in honor of husband John Lennon’s 79th birthday, October 9. It will be turned off for the season on March 27. “Remember, each one of us has the power to change the world,” she wrote in a message in October. “Power works in mysterious ways. We don’t have to do much. Visualize the domino effect and just start thinking PEACE…

It’s Time of Action.

The Action is PEACE.

Think PEACE, act PEACE, Spread PEACE.

PEACE is power!”

It was late at night when I took that picture and I’m surprised it turned out as well as it did. It looks lighter than it was because of the slow shutter speed. And we were riding on a boat. Actually there are fifteen searchlights that form the column. The stone monument housing the lights features “Imagine Peace” in two-dozen languages.

Now—back to the glacier, back to where we started. Standing on a glacier is one thing. Going inside one is something else. But we did.

With sixty feet of ice over hour heads and hundreds of feet of ice and volcanoes beneath our feet we explored the interior. The tunnel was designed by a geophysicist and snakes through the glacier far enough that the trip through takes about an hour. We were given spikes that we stretched over our boots; some of our group had toe-warmers that they inserted inside their boots but it wasn’t all that bad (we thought), especially as long as we kept moving. In fact, it was warmer inside the glacier than it was outside.

There are some rooms carved into the ice, including a chapel where weddings are held from time to time, not something we could ever anticipate doing because of the hassle, if nothing else. Plus, we observed, who wants to start a marriage with a frigid spouse?

In the middle of our tour, one of our group was startled by the ringing of his cell phone. Somebody from Jefferson City was calling.   We’re sixty feet underneath the top of a glacier in Iceland, for goodness sakes, and a cell phone still found him.

The geology that shapes the island and the people who live there and the environment in which they choose to live produces some amazing lifestyle developments (at least amazing to us).

This is the biggest greenhouse we have ever seen, at Freoheimar. And it’s only one in a complex that covers about 1.25 acres that grows tomatoes and cucumbers and has restaurant facilities scattered throughout the vine-growing area. A computerized climate-control system takes care of temperature, humidity, lighting and carbon dioxide. Geothermal water heats the greenhouses. Pure cold water irrigates the plants. Plants are protected from pests by biological controls and bumblebees that care nothing about humans help pollinate the plants.

We’re not sure how tall the plants are—more than fifteen feet, we suspect. Visitors can have tomato soup and home-made bread for lunch. And, oh, is it good soup! And the bread is to die for. Each of us tasted a little tomato and this consumer who tolerates tomatoes on hamburgers tried one. Very low acidic content. It was almost sweet.

And the plastic container that these folks market their small tomatoes in: After the purchaser has eaten all the tomatoes, the container can be held under hot water and it disappears.

Iceland, where people live on volcanic lava rather than good rich (or not so rich) dirt could teach us Americans a lot about efficient, low-waste, natural living.

Two or three final things: Remember we mentioned the Christmas lights going up early and staying up late because people in long winter-dark time need light? How about this gas station/car wash?

Gas was costing about nine dollars (US) a gallon there. But people don’t drive little bitty cars. In fact, Iceland has an amazing variety of cars available from Skodas made in Czechoslovakia to Volkswagens from Germany and Jaguars from England, Subarus from Japan, and Fords from the United States, among others.

The Icelandic language is very old. It has no dialects. Old Icelandic is a derivation of Old Norse. The oldest written documents in Iceland date to about 1100 CE. Most modern Icelanders can read those documents because their language has been so unchanged. The Icelandic alphabet is based on the 12th Century First Grammatical. It also has six letters our alphabet doesn’t have.

Reykjavik also is the home of the only museum of its kind in the world. You’ll have to go to Google Images to see more about it. I cannot imagine the public reaction in most of this country if somebody opened a museum like it here. I did take some pictures of it (although I didn’t have time to get any farther inside than the gift shop—and some of the gifts would have made interesting objects on the airport luggage security cameras). Actually, it’s called The Iceland Phallological Museum but it’s best known by its sign.

Almost all of the land and sea mammals found in Iceland are represented. Including, uh, Homo Sapiens. In all, there are 282 specimens from 93 different species of animal. Should anyone want to create one of these museums in this country, we suggest locating it in Olean, the Miller County town of about 125 or so souls who have held an  annual Testicle Festival, which we understand has moved to another town.

So, we went to Iceland a couple of weeks ago. And we found it intriguing for several reasons. It’s about six hours from Chicago if you are so unfortunate as to want to leave from O’Hare International.

It was kind of an anniversary celebration for us. A week after Nancy and I got back and got the unpacking and the laundry mostly done, we celebrated our 52nd wedding anniversary.

Would we go back?  We have other places on our list but a maybe a summer visit when the whales and the Puffins are there…..

 

 

 

Our sub is back at sea

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The USS Jefferson City, a now-“improved” Los Angeles-class attack submarine, is back in action after five years in dry dock at Pearl Harbor for extensive repairs. The boat is coming up on thirty years of age (launched August 17, 1990).

More than five years ago it left its base in San Diego for a reported six-month deployment in the western Pacific but went to Guam for emergency repairs for what the Navy said was a small water leak from a valve in one of the reactor propulsion systems.

But the sub stayed at Guam longer than some folks, including crew members’ families, thought was necessary to fix a small water leak. The Navy said the leak was so small and so internal that it took some time to track it down. Some spouses in San Diego complained the Navy was giving them no indication when the Jefferson City might get back to San Diego.

At one time the Navy was not planning to pay the crew up to $495 a month in Hardship Duty Pay, a plan that was reversed after the Navy Times started asking questions.

Five months after reaching Guam it went under its own power to Pearl Harbor for a major overhaul, originally scheduled for twenty-two months. It went into dry dock on April 1, 2015 and didn’t get cleared for sea trials until November 12. And to make matters worse for crew families, the Navy decided in November, 2014 to switch the sub’s home port to Pearl Harbor. The Navy said at the time that the switch had been planned for 2015 anyway, when the sub was scheduled for the extended overhaul it has now received.

The crew remained with the sub and continued training even while the submarine was immobilized for repairs and updates.

Commander Steve Dawley, a Joplin native, sent a note yesterday to the local support group that the sub has been through “several weeks of final testing and certification” before the sea trials that ended Monday. “The crew did an amazing job operating the ship after a five-year availability and spirits are high onboard,” he said.

The Jefferson City will get a few more fixes before heading to sea again for training exercises ahead of the Christmas holidays.

180511-N-LY160-0016 PEARL HARBOR (May 11, 2018) – Cmdr. Steven Dawley is piped aboard during the Los Angeles-class fast-attack submarine USS Jefferson City (SSN 759) change of command ceremony at the USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, May 11. Dawley relieved Cmdr. Kevin Moller as the 14th commanding officer of Jefferson City. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Michael Lee/Released)

Dawley became the fourteenth commander of the Jefferson City in May, last year. He had not planned to be in the Navy but the terrorist attacks in 2011 changed his mind. He had planned to go to medical school after getting his degrees in math and chemistry at Missouri Southern State University but changed his mind after the attacks. He told the Carthage newspaper that Navy recruiters talked him out of his interest in being a pilot and, because of his college degrees, steered him into submarines.

Dawley’s wife is the executive officer on a guided missile destroyer.

From time to time the sub commander and some of the crew members visit Jefferson City. And from time to time some folks from Jefferson City get to visit the sub—an experience your observer was given several years ago.

A lot of folks don’t think they could serve on a submarine. And there are some drawbacks. But think of this: Most of us get up and have breakfast, go to work, some home, have dinner, watch a little TV or get on the computer, call it a night and go to bed. And then we get up and have breakfast—–

The biggest difference is that we get to go outside when we go to work, most of the time. But routine life in a submarine isn’t that much different from routine life on land.

But on a submarine, you can’t be sloppy. You can’t leave your shoes on the living room floor. Or magazines on the table next to the recliner chair.

But you do work with some extraordinary people. Really extraordinary.

It’s good to hear our sub is back to doing what it’s intended to do.

(Photo Credits: U. S. Navy)

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Who is insulted more? The animal or the person?

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For some, it’s an honor. To others, it’s an insult when an animal is named for them.

For Prince Charles, the word that a tree frog had been named for him (Hyloscirtus princecharlesi) was an honor (or as he might say “honour.”). He has worked to protect tropical rainforest habitat.

As far as we know, President Trump has not found it tweet-worthy since his name was attached to a creature by a British company interested in environmental issues. The company paid $25,000 in an auction for the rights to name a legless, blind, tiny burrowing amphibian from Panama “Dermohis donaldtrump.”

If you think we are going to offer some clever comment about that, think again.

But apart from scientific names involving famous people, we don’t often hear of regular animals being named for people in the news or historical characters very much. At one time it was a pretty proper thing to do. In fact, Lucy Wales, who ran Columbia’s first school for women, used to take her students to the county fair and have them discuss the famous people whose names were carried by the livestock on display.

A fellow named Ed. H. Smith, the former publisher of a newspaper in the small Livingston County town of Chula, once suggested that Missouri needed a law restricting the right of Missourians to name animals for prominent people. He wrote to the Chillicothe Tribune in 1909:

 I don’t know how to frame a bill, but I am going to try to tell you in my weak way what I want and give you a few reasons why a law of this kind ought to be passed. Now, you will notice at this time of the year the papers in small towns and even in cities like Chillicothe are full of advertisements of breeding stock. Fine horses—Belgians and Percherons—and big mealy-nosed jacks, Herefords, etc. These are all noble animal, and I know full well what these splendid new breeds are doing for old Missouri. That’s all right. What I object to is the names they give these animals. It don’t look quite right to name a jack after a senator without his consent. At any rate it don’t hurt the jack or the senator, but there is something unpretty about it.

 Suppose now, I was sent to the legislature and Jim Raney would name his bull calf Ed H. Smith and print a lot of bills with a picture of the calf and say (our) names under it. How would I like it? I tell you, Mr. Editor, about half the fine breeding animals in the country are named after celebrated people. There was a rooster at our poultry show named Herbert S. Hadley. A man up by Chula has a pig named Carrie Nation. I tell you where the greatest objection to this rural nomenclature comes in. And when I am done you will be of my opinion about this matter.

 Comes now a man to your print shop and wants a horse bill printed on manila cardboard. This bill contains a description of the splendid horse and his pedigree, which reads as follows: Jos. Cannon was sired by Grover Cleveland, dam Ida Tarbell, she by Hod Scruby, dam Mrs. Langtry.

Now, you print them bills with good job ink and this man tacks one on a telephone pole in front of Swetland’s drug store. Suppose now, the next day there is an eruption of Shalehill at Utica, and Chillicothe is buried five hundred feet deep with ashes and limestone and shale and lava, and sandstone and hell fire and brimstone. Two thousand years from now comes a band of geologists from some big university and they did down to find old Chillicothe. They strike the top of a telephone pole and follow it down. They find this bill tacked to it and quit work at once. You get. They have made a find. They have founds something that upsets all ancient history they have ever learned. All over the land the school children have been taught that the Scrubys were a fine old English family in no way related to Grover Cleveland and Ida Tarbell’s name in all histories is written Miss. School marms all over the country will say, “my goodness gracious,” or words to that effect. Millions of schoolbooks will have to be destroyed and new ones printed. family histories and biographies will be knocked galled west. You know it. So there you are. You see what I want. I can’t frame the bill but don’t you think Fred Hudson and Hod Scruby ought to take it up. They are more interested than I am.

I don’t think anyone will ever name a clay pigeon after me. It is altogether an unselfish motive which prompts me in this matter, and a bill like this preventing any one from naming their breeding animals after our great men, ought to pass with a whoop. I rest my case.

Joseph Cannon was an Illinois congressman who was the Speaker from 1903 until 1911, the longest-serving speaker until another Illinois congressman, Dennis Hastert, eclipsed him. Grover Cleveland is the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms. Ida Tarbell was one of the biggest names among muckraking journalists of that era. “Hod” Scruby was Horace P. Scruby, the state representative from Livingston County at the time. Mrs. Langtry was the famous actress Lilly Langtry. Fred Hudson was the state senator representing the county.

The issue Ed Smith raised so long ago isn’t something we confront much today. But animals often show up in our editorial cartoons, sometimes bearing names of our leaders, sometimes representing broader themes.

Wonder when President Trump will comment on the Panamanian amphibian.

 

Unity

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We offer today a vision of a different world, a plea to recognize that good things come from working together in common cause. In this time of division and derision, perhaps we can find some comfort in these long-ago words that sought to bring us together for our mutual benefit.

We found this poem in an 1894 newspaper published in the small town of Higbee and in several other communities in Missouri.

All Men Are Brothers

We are all a band of brothers, And should have regard for others, And with sisters, fathers, mothers, We should work for all alike.

Yes, we’ll work for all together, Both in clear and stormy weather, And our labor without measure Shall supply the wants of all.

For there’s room enough for all, And there’s plenty at our call;  No misfortunes will befall While in friendship we unite.

So we’re brothers all united, And our wrongs shall be righted, For our word we all have plighted, That our union shall endure.

Nature treats all men as brothers, Does the same for us and others, So, with sisters, fathers, mothers, Let us live in unity.

Am I the only person who hears these words as a potential hymn? Perhaps they are a song heard and forgotten, we don’t know. The sentiment might be unrealistic in these times of political crudeness and rudeness. But there seems to be a longing in many people’s hearts for this poem to prevail in our discourse.

But here comes what will be the bucket of cold water for some who have read these words and found them wistfully welcome.

This poem was published in the Higbee Altruist. The newspaper also was published as the Sulphur Springs Altruist, and the St. Louis Altruist. There might have been other communities that published it as an addition to local reading material in the days when reading prevailed, before radio, television, the internet, and hand-held devices intruded into thoughtful sentiments.

Alcander Longley published the newspaper from 1885-1917, the year before his death, and a predecessor with a different name from 1868 until changing the title to Altruist. He’s not widely recalled in Missouri newspaper publishing history despite that half-century career.

Longley’s newspapers were aptly named because he really did believe in the words of that poem. And he did more than just write about it. He founded communities based on the philosophy at the end, “Let us live in unity.”

Longley was living in a rapidly-changing post-Civil War Missouri. The growth of industry was changing the economic climate; the healing of war wounds was altering politics; and the movement of people from rural to urban areas was among the economic, social and political alterations to the Missouri in which Longley had grown up (he was almost thirty when the war began).

Robert Jeffrey David Wells wrote his master’s thesis at Missouri State University in 2008 about Longley and his newspapers. He recorded that Longley founded the secular utopian community of Reunion in southwest Missouri’s Jasper county in 1868. It winked out three years later. He created the Friendship Community in Dallas County a year later. It failed in 1877. His next attempt was the Friendship Community of Bollinger County, in 1879, the Principia Community in Polk County in ’81, The Mutual Aid Community in Jefferson County, which lasted from 1884 to ’85, followed by the Altruistic Society of 1886 there. In 1889 he formed the Mutual Aid Community of St. Louis before forming The Altruist Community in several locations between ’89 and ‘91. He established the Altruist Community in Randolph County in 1895 and Altro 1898, which lasted until 1900.

Missouri has had s number of communistic societies. Travelers driving through the few that survive, Longley’s or anyone else’s, might never know the unusual ideals behind their foundings unless there are signs.

The St. Louis Communist was his first newspaper, before the Altruist that contained the poem. Longley died in 1917, the year of Russia’s Bolshevik Revolution that re-defined “communism” in dark, repressive terms. Perhaps it is best that someone who believed life is better if everyone contributes to the mutual benefit of all did not live to see Lenin’s longer-lasting definition become reality.

Today the words “communism” and “socialism” are political swear words. But once upon a time, they were sincere ideals. And, after all, what’s wrong with a poem that sounds like a lot of the songs in church hymn books today?

Nature treats all men as brothers, Does the same for us and others, So, sisters, fathers, mothers, Let us live in unity.