Season Over

Well, the houseboating season is over.  The boat is over at the marina awaiting pull-out for its winter rest.  We had a good weekend trip. the weather report for next week looked pretty bad so we thought we'd better get this last trip in and get it over to the marina.  I haven't got the pictures off the camera yet, but will post some tomorrow.

A cautionary Tale

We got a fire call last night at about 10 pm.
Someone in a boat on a lake south of here saw a fire on shore and called it in on his cell phone as a cottage on fire.  We got the call from the dispatcher as a "structural fire" which means; get everything you have there as soon as possible. Which was no easy job. Four guys from Station 2  got there first with three units, a pumper truck, a tanker, and a van. As we drove out from Station 1 we listened to them on the radio as they tried road after road to find this fire. (the dispatcher didn`t have an address of course)

They found it before we got there with our four units, the chief``s 1/2 ton, a pumper, a rapid attack truck and the wild fire truck (the one I was driving). All together, seven vehicles and 13 firemen converged on this poor guy. Of course, we had to inch through two miles of very narrow, twisting access road to get there.

Turns out that the guy was only burning brush, which was wet and caused a lot of smoke. But, and here's the cautionary part, he didn't have a fire permit.
The chief, advised him that that little fact could cost him some money... in fact, $350 for each unit plus $45 for each fireman.  I think it totals up to around $2800.  enough to put a real damper on your weekend (a fire permit costs $10 and everyone is advised with their tax bill that they need one to burn).

The bad part of those false alarms is that you could have a real fire while you're all out on some back road. And, we did get another call, just after we started home, a tree on fire back near Station 1, so we high tailed it back home as fast as we could.  It turned out to only be a tree across a hydro line causing arcing and a little fire, but it too was at the end of  mile of winding, twisting bush trail. To get out we had to back the big pumper up all the way out.

One of our biggest problems here is that so many people like the feeling of isolation in their cottages.  But they never think that they might someday need a fire truck.

Anyway, most of us got home at midnight... three stayed at the site waiting for the hydro guys to arrive. And, in the end, the Chief took pity on the poor chap and only fined him $350, and then only because he wasn't entirely truthful in his responses.

A Drowning

We had a very sad drowning here on Saturday night (not that any of them are happy).   We went to bed at 1 a.m. and the call came in on my fire pager at 2:05 a.m. to respond for a water rescue. Three guys had jumped off the Sioux Narrows bridge after an evening of drinking in the pub next to the bridge.  One didn't come up.   We keep the fire boat at a marina 7 miles from the bridge down town, by water.  An interesting trip in the pitch black, (no moon that night), at high speed, well, 33 mph - not quite full throttle. Richard kept his face pressed against the window while another guy watched the GPS map and the radar.  I was with Richard, peering out the window.  Interesting that despite being a gadget junky, Richard still prefers to see it with his own eyes rather than trust the radar and GPS.  But the trip only took us about 12 minutes.  It's also interesting how many firemen show up when the fire boat is involved.... we had 8 of us on the boat and another one drove the fire truck to the scene.  We're lucky to get 4 or 5 to a car accident.   Despite our conviction that the guy had gone straight to the bottom, we searched the shoreline for over 3 hours just in case he got carried away by the current and was passed out somewhere on the shore. Not a pleasant experience, and one that brought back a few unwelcome memories. Besides the fireboat, there were 4 other boats searching, including one with the local cop on board.  At about 5 a.m. the OPP from Kenora arrived with their boat and an underwater search camera.  They found him by about 6:30 a.m., right below the bridge, where he had jumped.  (I'm sure  our fire chief, will be putting an underwater camera into the next budget).   It's a pretty risky thing to do, jump off a bridge like that, especially on a night as black as that was, and when the water temperature is only 17 deg.  The water there is only 32 ft. deep, but I doubt that he would have hit the bottom.  He probably took in air in the initial gasp reflex and then got disoriented in the dark.  He probably panicked as well.  I don't know how high the bridge is off the water, but it could be 30 ft., I suppose.   He was either 22 or 27 or 32, depending on which news report you believe.  He apparently had a wife and a kid.  He was from North Dakota, as was one of the other guys.  I guess his family has been coming up here for years, and staying at The Rod and Reel, at the other end of the bridge. The third guy was a bartender from the pub... he's only been here for two days so may not have been warned off jumping.  He says he'll never do that again.   The guy who died had probably jumped off the bridge before . . . it seems to be the macho thing to do around here, and despite the efforts of the pub staff to stop it, many are still doing it.  In fact a few days earlier, a guy dove off the top of the superstructure,  possibly a 60 ft. dive,  but he apparently knew what he was doing.  Even a lot of young kids do it. One 9 year old we know, broke his leg landing on a rock a few years ago. No one has died doing it before, although there have been more than a few broken bones, sprains and, in one case, an all-over bruise on a native chap, who for a few days could really be called a "red man" after he did a belly flop from the bridge.  Fortunately for him, the pain was dulled by a large infusion of alcohol.   Anyway,  I got home at 7:30 a.m. to find Anne sleeping on the sofa so she could hear the fire radio we have in the living room.  I then went to bed at 8:00 and slept until 1:00 p.m.   They brought a police diving team in from Thunder Bay on Sunday and they retrieved the body late Sunday afternoon.   The photo of the bridge shows the orange float marking the spot where the body is on the bottom, while waiting for the diving team to arrive.

 

  

Not only in Texas

Try searching "Texas school textbooks" on the Internet...    This is really hard to believe. 

The Texas school board, for the entire state, has just made something like 100 amendments to the school curriculum, mostly to history and biology.  They have, for example, removed the word "democrat" entirely from the curriculum (most of the board are republicans), they make sure that  people such as Newt Gingrich (Spelling?) are seen a heroes and anyone with book learnin' are vilified. It goes on and on like that.  They got in "experts" to help them make decisions on the history curriculum, experts such as a minister who's hobby is Texas history. One of the key people that I heard discussing it was a republican who believes in "intelligent design".

The thing is that Texas is one of the biggest textbook users in the US (California uses more but can't afford to buy any for  the next few years), and they actually sit down with the publishers to lay out what they want.... so you can imagine that negotiations go even beyond what the new curriculum will lay out.

Now, this shouldn't affect us, much.  But, we have Harper.  On CBC radio today they interviewed a woman who was born in the US, went to a lot of schools there, and is now a Canadian and somehow involved with education in Ontario.  She pointed out that (as others have) that since Texas uses so many books, the publishers tend to produce for them and use the same books for all of the US (this apparently isn't quite so much of an issue these days with digital publishing techniques).  As she pointed out, the christian right is moving more and more to the right in the US and getting bigger. The effect this has on us is that people who claim to be moderate conservatives (like Harper) can easily move more to the right and still claim to be moderate because they are not like "those crazies down south".  One other thing she pointed out is that school may not be the only, or even the major, influence influence on the youth. The media is also a big influence.... but, as she said, it is just as bad, or worse. But, she said that even as a 10 year old in school in the US, she remembers wondering where they got all the crazy ideas she found in the school textbooks.

Anyway, if you'd like to know more check out these sites, or just do a search..... scary stuff really.

Looks like we're in for it.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - A prominent hard-line Iranian cleric who said promiscuity and immodest dress cause earthquakes says God may be holding off on natural disasters in the West in order to let people sin more and consign themselves to hell. Kazem Sedighi sparked widespread derision with his pronouncements in a prayer sermon last month linking earthquakes with women's dress. In a new sermon Friday, he has defended and elaborated on his claim.
Sedighi notes that some might ask why there aren't more earthquakes and storms striking Western nations that are "up to their necks" in immorality.
He says the answer is that God allows some of those who "provoke His wrath" to continue sinning "so that they (eventually) go to the bottom of Hell."

Its a mystery to me

Now this one has got to make you wonder.

"FORT WORTH — A North Texas family is racing to stop a hospital from amputating a patient's foot, saying the procedure violates their religious rights.

The situation is now so tense that Angela Wright's husband has been barred from the hospital where she is being treated.

Wright had her first heart attack two months ago. Her family immediately began calling prayer groups, asking fellow Christians to appeal to God.

They kept praying through five more heart attacks.

"It's everything," said Dwight Wright. "It's the reason my wife's still here, I believe."

Angela Wright remained at Baylor All Saints Medical Center Fort Worth Friday as the toes on her left foot blackened. Family members say doctors want to amputate, possibly going as far up as her knee.

That evaluation has led to a showdown. Family members say prayer needs more time to work, and an amputation would violate their religious rights; doctors say the amputation is medically necessary."

Now, let me get this straight.
She had a heart attack. 
They delayed treatment to give prayer time to work.
She's had 5 more heart attacks in the interval
Now her toes have blackened, presumably due to lack of circulation.
And the prayer is keeping her alive???????

Now, you might justifyably ask yourself why, if God gave her the heart attacks in the first place, they think that they can change his mind???

You might also ask if they really think that prayer is having any effect at all considering the 5 additional heart attacks.

You might also wonder a bit about the kind of sense of humour this God fellow has.

Neanderthals

What do Christians think of Neanderthals? Do they not consider them human? 
I wonder if the religious contradictions explain why many anthropologists are so adamant that Neanderthals were not capable of symbolic thought, and therefore not human. Whatever the reason, some anthropologists have vigorously opposed any suggestion that Neanderthals wore any kind of jewelry or created any kind of decoration or images, and thus were not human.

Up until now they have been able to cast doubt on any finds that link Neanderthals with such artifacts.... up until now. Just recently a chap named Joao Zilhao (try saying that quickly 10 times) dug up unequivocal evidence, in a site in Spain, of Neanderthal symbolism (ie body paint and jewelry), 50,000 years ago.

The conclusions resulting from this are of the "career-altering" kind for anthropologists.

For example.

• If Neanderthals could think symbolically, then they were mentally on par with "behaviorally-modern humans".

• Given that fact, you have to ask how and when did they acquire that level of mental ability.

• They either developed it independently 50,000 ya, or it was present in the common ancestor of both humans and Neanderthals many years before that.

Both possibilities have significant consequences.

• The independent scenario would mean that humans probably acquired the use of jewelry etc., by imitating the Neanderthals since humans did not exhibit these characteristics 50,000 ya, before leaving Africa, but the Neanderthals did.

• The common ancestor theory, is equally troubling because it pushes back the emergence of "behaviorally-modern" humans to earlier than 200,000 ya... (many careers have been built upon that occurrence being only 50,000 ya)

 It is amazing what two little holes in a sea shell and a bit of pigment can do to bring down years of well fortified theory.