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11
Sep
2017
Joan and I were sitting in our hot tub last Monday night, staring up at the stars and wondering when -- if ever -- the rains would return to the B.C. interior, that day being our 66th without perceptible rainfall, when a brilliant flash lit up the eastern sky.
“Lightning?” Joan wondered. “The weather isn’t supposed to change until the weekend.”
I started counting for the boom of thunder. Years ago, I learned that sound travels at roughly a thousand feet per second. If the boom follows the flash by five seconds, the centre of action is safely about a mile distant. (For a kilometre, about three seconds – a little closer.)
I quit counting after ten. Joan claims she heard a rumble, about ten minutes later.
Which would be about right. Because the flash, we learned the next morning, had occurred more than 200 km away, directly over Kootenay Lake. A hunk of rock left over from the formation of our solar system had smashed into the earth’s atmosphere over the little town of Boswell at the south end of Kootenay Lake; it blew up over Meadow Creek, slightly beyond the lake’s north end.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: chance, judgement, Meteoroid, meteorite, bolide, fireball, Kootenay Lake, dinosaurs, probability
6
Last spring, I planted some beans in my garden. I don't know how many, but around 100 beans. Exactly according to the instructions, three inches apart. Four of the beans came up. Just four.
So, about two weeks later, I tried again. I planted another package of beans. About 90, this time. Two more beans came up. Just two.
Total bean plants, six.
But oh my, how those six beans grew.
I estimate, in hindsight, that I harvested around 15 gallons of beans before I pulled those six plants up by the roots.
Looking back, I'm grateful now that only six seeds germinated. We'd have been overrun if they had all grown. Perhaps those seeds knew better than I did how much growth to anticipate.
Disturbing thought – are beans smarter than I am?
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: growth, Beans, expectations
4
There are no statues of Benedict Arnold in the U.S. Because Arnold was a traitor. After a brilliant career in the American forces during the War of Independence, he defected to the British and fought against his former government.
On the other hand, General Robert E. Lee also fought against own government. He led the Confederate forces in the Civil War. Doesn’t that also make him a traitor? But statues honouring him litter the southern states.
Now there’s public pressure to remove statues that honour and promote the Confederacy. Mostly because they fought in support of slavery, which we – well, those of us blessed with a social conscience – now condemn.
Tags: Confederate statues, Confederacy, Robert E Lee, Lord Cornwallis, John A MacDonald, monuments