ALL THE BEST FOR 2024

It’s hard to believe that it’s been over three years that I wrote my last blog post. Illness intervened, then it was just hard to get started again. But here I am, back again, healthy (knock on wood!) and looking forward to a new year. I hope we all have a wonderful, peaceful, healthy and prosperous 2024!

Art Feeds the Soul

It's hard to know what to say in this time of such total upending of all our lives – at least, what hasn't already been said. We've been told a hundred times to wash our hands, stay at home, practice social distancing, etc. But what about feeding the soul?

That's where art comes in -- either making it or viewing it.

There are many museums that have virtual tours of their galleries, which is wonderful. True, it's not the same as seeing it in person, but . . . we'll take what we can get. Great art feeds the soul and expands our horizons. It reminds us that "this, too, shall pass."

Making art feeds the soul, too. Do you think you can't draw? All children have total confidence in their drawing and painting ability. They take it for granted. . . until they are told that you draw a tree like THIS and a house like THAT. And a person isn't purple and a cat isn't taller than a house. In short, until their confidence and joy in making art is shriveled up like a raisin. When they become adults, they "can't draw."

If that happened to you, take back your creativity!  If you have extra time on your hands while you're "sheltering in place," grab a pencil and some paper and just make marks!  No expectations. No criticism – just you and the pencil and that little ember of joy in your heart that still pulses when you think about creating.

We'll get through this pandemic – and maybe not just endure it, but gain something too.  Be safe. Kudos to those courageous people who are continuing to do their jobs on the front lines.

WHAT FUN! A WORD MUSEUM! →

What a great idea! This spring a new museum is opening in Washington, DC to celebrate language.

Their Vision: "Language is what makes us human. From earliest childhood we weave our words into speech to communicate. At Planet Word we inspire and renew a love of words and language through unique, immersive learning experiences."

The museum plans to show the fun of words and language everywhere in the building – from cafeteria to stairwells to bathrooms.  They welcome all, regardless of age, language level, or whether they even speak English. Some of the interactive experiences include watching yourself make a famous speech, participating in research in the language lab, and signing up for classes on songwriting, storytelling, and sign language.

The impetus behind the museum is the fact that in this country, 21% of adults read below a 5th-grade level, and 31% of 4th-graders can't pass the "basic" level on national reading tests.

As they point out, literacy skills are more important than ever in the 21st century. A literate population is needed to support our very democracy and without basic literacy, many people are being left behind in the economy.

I remember when I tutored literacy many years ago – people couldn't read their Bible or a medicine label, and selected canned goods based on the picture on the label. It was difficult to navigate the world, even dangerous; many tried to hide it. There are many literacy programs now, staffed by volunteers, and in many small communities. The testimonials of the now-reading students bring audiences to tears.

The museum is located in the historic Franklin School at the corner of 13th and K Streets. The building has been extensively renovated in accordance with its national landmark status.  Here's the website so you can find out exactly when the museum is opening.

I can't wait!

ANIMAL LANGUAGE

I just finished reading a fascinating book: Chasing Dr. Dolittle by Con Slobodchikoff, PhD. He makes a very compelling case that animals have their own languages and can communicate critical information to other members of their species.

The "prevailing wisdom" is that all animal communication is the product of mindless instinct.

For many years it was "prevailing wisdom" that animals couldn't feel pain, make tools, be self-aware, etc. etc. But research moves on . . .

Dr. Slobodchikoff cites research in many species, but I was especially fascinated by the information on prairie dogs. As we know, prairie dogs don't get much respect – they are seen as vermin, whose holes trip up cattle and horses.  And yet . . . they have language.

They are safe in their burrows, but have to come up to eat and socialize. And they are very alert to predators – dogs, coyotes, humans, hawks, eagles. When an enemy appears, one or more of the prairie dogs produce alarm calls to warn the rest of the colony.

It's not just a mindless instinctual call of "Watch Out!" There is a different segment of the call ("word") for each predator – human, raptor, coyote or dog. They distinguish between large and small; walking, running or flying; how fast the danger is approaching; and can distinguish among different colors.  These constitute a kind of grammar – nouns for the predators; adjectives for size, shape, and color; and verbs and adverbs for how the enemy is traveling.

There is a lot of information in the book on other animals with language – birds, bats, lizards, dolphins, bees, even ants. It's absolutely fascinating, and is written for the layperson. His writing style is casual, but very informative. I urge you to read it.

Best Wishes for the New Year!

Photo by Roven Images from Unsplash

A slightly belated New Year's wish -- belated because my computer was sick. First it told me it was updating my X-box . . . except that I don't have an X-box. Then it said it was updating my pictures, and I couldn't open them because it was updating, etc., etc.

So I called the Geek Squad. You know you're in trouble when THEY say your problem is "weird."  Microsoft came through, however. After three hours of remote control by a lovely man in New Delhi, the computer is working better than ever.

Instead of resolutions this year, I've decided to set goals – such as spending more time in my studio, exercising more, and finishing up all the little irritating things in my house.

But I'm going to break down these goals into doable monthly bites. In an online marketing class I took with Lisa Call (a fantastic teacher and coach!), we wrote down monthly goals then did a review at the end of the month. Not just artistic or business goals, but health, family and friends, self-growth, etc.

The trick is to set a goal that is doable. Not "clean out every closet in the house" but "clean out the bedroom closet and under the kitchen sink." There is such a sense of accomplishment at the end of the month. And if you didn't meet your goals, you can analyze the reasons and make corrections for the next month.

Try it! You might be surprised at the end of the year how much you accomplished! And have a wonderful, happy, productive 2020!

All the Best for the Holiday Season!

Whatever holiday you celebrate at this time of year, it’s one of love and family and peace. Let us all do our best to be open, kind, and loving. And forgiving — we all need forgiveness at one time or another. And know that forgiving others allows us to drop a huge burden in ourselves. Let us listen with our hearts rather than our heads. Our time on this beautiful planet is way too short to waste in anger, hatred, and sorrow. I don’t remember where I read this, but it’s so true: “Be kind. Everyone is traveling a hard road.” The best of holidays to all.

Gratitude

We are moving into the season of gratitude. Gratitude is not amiss in any season, but this is the season of communal gratitude — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, Eid, welcoming the New Year. It’s a good time to stop and think about what we are grateful for, and to tally up our lives to see if there are more good things than bad in them.

I’m grateful for many things.

There is the usual gratitude for friends, family, health, enough to eat, a roof over my head.

I’m also grateful for medical advances: think how awful to be without anesthesia, antibiotics, vaccines, modern surgical techniques, diagnostic tools, and pain medications.

As much as I curse my computer and its spawn, I am grateful for technology. How amazing to be able to look up anything online, converse with people all over the world, send documents in seconds. Technology helps paralyzed people communicate, sends humans into space, and lets us play cool computer games!

I’m grateful that I live in the USA, where, despite setbacks and disappointments, we inch along the road toward our aspiration of justice for all.

And I’m grateful for this beautiful world of ours — with all of its oceans, mountains, deserts, forests, and so many other fascinating creatures we share it with.

The Humble Letter Opener

The humble object in the photo is, as you can see, a letter opener.  It was my father's, and the handle broke. Instead of throwing it away, he cut two pieces of scrap wood to size, fitted them onto the steel tang, and secured it with a few old screws.

It is very dear to me. The edges of the wood have worn soft and it's just the right size for my hand.  I was very close to my father and it pleases me to use his letter opener. I'm sure it pleased him to use his hands to repair something instead of buying new.

Another reason I like it is that it represents an antidote to our throw-away society. My parents lived through the Great Depression and World War II. They lived by the slogan, "use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without."

That adage is not much heard any more. The new attitude is we consumers must have the  trendiest, the fastest, the flashiest, the newest!  We line up for blocks to buy the very latest cell phone, which is probably not much better than the one we toss.  Sadly, the elements used in them are mostly obtained by mining in countries that have no environmental controls or child protection laws, or where the proceeds are used to wage war. That is to say nothing of the billions of gallons of fresh water used in their manufacture.  

The term "throwing away" is so misleading. There is no "away." It's all still here, in dumps or landfills or the ocean, wasted and polluting.

We certainly are consumers – we're consuming the Earth.

SOME GOOD NEWS ABOUT PLASTIC!

There's an article in the August 5 Plastics News, a trade publication for the plastics industry, about recycling plastic into building blocks for schools.

For some reason, certain plastics are hard to recycle, and it's hard to use mixed combinations of plastics, but the company Conceptos Plasticos has figured out how to do it.  There are three recycled plastic schools in Colombia as of now, and plans for twelve more by the end of the year.

At the end of July, the company teamed up with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) to build a factory in Ivory Coast to make the plastic bricks for local use. In the meantime, nine classrooms have already been built in Ivory Coast from the Colombian bricks.  During the next two years, they expect that the local factory will turn out bricks for another 500 classrooms.

The plastic bricks look sort of like Legos, with a tongue-and-groove shape, and don't need any adhesive to stay together.  They contain 70-80 percent of recycled plastic, plus some proprietary ingredients.

In the Ivory coast area, there is an estimated 280 tons of plastic waste every day, and only five percent of that is now being recycled.  The typical school built in Colombia used about 8800 pounds of waste plastic; so it's not the total solution.

But it is a win-win-win situation for all involved: local women will be paid to collect the waste plastic, generating some additional income; there will be less waste on the ground and in waterways; and there will be more classrooms for children.

It sounds good to me -- kudos to UNICEF and Conceptos Plasticos! This is the kind of innovation we need to solve many of our environmental problems.

How Much is "Enough?"

I've heard it said that the first half of your life you accumulate things, and the last half you let go of things ("de-accession" is the word that museums use – it sounds much nicer than "tossing stuff out.") Well, I'm in the "de-accessioning" phase.

I've been doing a major cleanup/cleanout of my house and studio, looking at all the things I own and making tough decisions. I remind myself that those who come after me will not have the same sentimental feelings about my things. Far better to place them now than have them tossed out later.

I find it very difficult to just chuck things into a landfill. If someone else can use it, great! — sell it or give it away. Give beloved things to people who will cherish them.

Fortunately, my nieces appreciate the reproduction porcelain dolls my mother made, as well as her old cut glass and china. Ditto for my grandmother's beautiful crocheted doilies, tablecloths and bedspreads.

Other things I will put into a friend's upcoming yard sale. Last year, a woman was thrilled to buy my mother's old sewing machine –  it was the same model she learned on. There is a "free" pile; and local thrift shops will get what’s left over.

While cleaning out, I discovered that I have 55 pairs of scissors. I like scissors, and like to have them readily available. But 55 pairs? That seems a bit excessive. I posed them for the photo (all but the electric pair), and will soon decide how many are "enough."

How do we decide how much is "enough?" That's a personal decision, but after a certain point, things do not bring you love or joy or personal connection. We "must" buy the latest, newest gadgets, but it's not necessarily good for us – and it's not sustainable for the earth.

For a charming and practical guide on how to unclutter, get Marie Kondo's book, The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.

oops . . .

TEENY TYPOS WITH HUGE CONSEQUENCES!

Photograph by Jelleke Vanooteghem of Unsplash

I found an interesting article a few weeks ago on typos. Just a typo, we say, no big deal. So typos are no big deal . . . except when they are a big deal. How about some of these?

1. Big Bargain on Japanese Company Stock.  In 2005, the Japanese company Mizuho Securities Company made an innocent typo. They listed 610,000 shares of stock for one yen each, rather than one share for 610,000 yen.  Unfortunately, the Tokyo Stock Exchange doesn't take do-overs. The company lost $225 million.

2. What Kind of Vacation??  In 1988, Banner Travel Services, in California, placed an ad in the Yellow Pages intending to promote an "exotic" destination. Yep, you guessed it – it was listed as an "erotic" destination. Lots of young people inquired.

3. Out of Business After 124 Years. In the UK, there were two companies with similar names: "Taylor & Sons" and "Taylor & Son."  The former was a prosperous engineering firm. The latter was going out of business. The UK bureau that keeps information about businesses, Companies House, listed the wrong one as having closed in 2009. Due to the confusion, customers stopped coming to the engineering firm, and it closed its doors in 2014, after 124 years in business. (Yes, they sued Companies House and won the equivalent of $11.5 million.)

4. If You Can't Spell, How about Looking at a Dictionary?  In the fall of 2018, Australia printed 46 million bank notes and misspelled "responsibility," leaving out the last "i."  The word was in a quotation from a speech in 1921 by the country's first female member of parliament. The bank said it would fix the typo next time around, but 46 million bills will be around for a long, long time. At least it didn't cause any disasters.

As they say. . . mind your "Ps and Qs."  (And your "As," "Bs," "Cs," etc.)

SAVING ENERGY

No, I don't mean taking a nap! Although that wouldn't be so bad. We have a chronic sleep deficiency in this country. Lack of sleep contributes to accidents, disease and obesity; and interferes with learning and making good decisions. (Hmmm, maybe that's what wrong with our politicians!)

Back to saving energy . . . and speaking of politicians, they mostly aren't interested, especially on the federal level, in saving energy. Either they misunderstand clean energy, or they are supported by the extractive industries, or maybe they think that if it was good enough for the 1950's, it's good enough today. They are on the wrong side of history.

The extracted resources are finite, they pollute air and water, and are dangerous to workers; pipelines leak and threaten fragile ecosystems . . . I could go on and on. The future is clean, renewable energy – wind, solar, geothermal – and more efficient use of it. "We the people" understand that. And we're taking the matter into our own hands.

Local towns are changing to LED bulbs for public lighting; you see solar panels sprouting on many roofs; planning boards are approving large solar arrays for sale of electric to local people. I have friends who have a house built in the 1800's; when they renovated it, they added geothermal heat. No mess, no smell, no disruption of a beautiful house, just the invisible use of earth's natural heat.

All over the world, all kinds of innovative ideas are being tried. The passive cooling system in a building in Zimbabwe was inspired by termite mounds. New buildings are being certified by LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) at the rate of 1.85 million square feet per day. Plug-in electric cars are gaining market share year by year. . .

Ordinary people and local groups are quietly sliding the rug out from under the oil, gas and coal industries. Sometimes we forget that WE have the power, and that the government is answerable to US.

P.S. You CAN watch TV when the sun isn't shining and the wind not blowing – it's called energy storage.

Thousands of Tiny Pieces . . .

. . . make up a mosaic.  I have always been fascinated by mosaics. Something about the use of tiny pieces to build up a scene is very appealing to me.

I have seen wonderful mosaics in Europe. While other tourists were photographing walls and statues, I had my camera pointed down at mosaic floors. There's a wonderful mosaic on the floor at the entrance to a house in Pompeii. A dog is depicted with the legend "cave canem" ("beware of dog") around it. It seems very modern!

For a serious sensory overload, go to St. Mark's Basilica in Venice, and look up. As far as the eye can see, there are colorful religious pictures in glass tile. The tiles surrounding the motifs are made from REAL GOLD LEAF fused between two layers of clear glass. They shimmer. It is a stunning display of the centuries-old Venice glass industry married to masterful artistry.

According to Wikipedia, the original ceilings were completed by about 1270; but in the 19th century, many of the tiles were "reset" (to modernize, I guess) and the changes were inferior to the original. Perhaps so, but, not having been around in 1270, it's still spectacular to me.

I've been working with ceramic tiles for my mosaics – and they are sharp enough when cut. I can't imagine using glass and still retaining all of my fingers.

I'm currently working on the shower stall in my home, with an underwater scene. It's been unfinished for quite a long time, complicated by carpal tunnel syndrome. But a simple brace for my right wrist works very well – so I'm racing along with it now. It's fun because I'm doing it only for me – it's like playing

In a former home, I did a whale mosaic in a double-wide shower stall. There's a photo in my new studio newsletter. Here are some photos of my current project.  

CLIMATE CHANGE

I heard a teenaged boy being interviewed on NPR the other day, about the protests young people are staging against climate change. I had to smile a bit, as every generation complains about the world left to them by earlier generations. But in this case, there is every right to complain -- climate change is the number-one threat facing all of us on earth.

Warming weather; sea levels rising; low-lying cities, islands and even countries being inundated; more violent weather – is it possible that we puny humans are really damaging the earth so badly? Unfortunately, YES.

The Fifth Report by the UN panel on climate change (IPCC) was released in November 2014. Hundreds of scientists and other experts in all different fields concluded that it is "extremely likely" (95-100% probability) that human activity has been the primary cause for the warming of the earth since 1950.

As explained on this NASA site, greenhouse gases (water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide) act as a thermal blanket for the earth, not letting heat escape. The biggest offender is the burning of fossil fuels, which creates carbon dioxide.

So why are we not racing to stop climate change in its tracks? History tells us that after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, American factories changed from consumer goods to war materiel practically overnight. The threat was recognized as real, and we scrambled to defeat it. Why not the same with this far greater threat?

Because it's a disaster in slow motion, a slow suicide, you might say. It's hard to get our minds around the magnitude of the problem – not helped by politicians who either don't understand or pretend not to.

So, to hell with the politicians. We the people have always had the power anyway. Yes, each of us makes only a tiny difference, but if we all work together we CAN and WILL change the world – literally.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

1. CUT DOWN ON FOSSIL FUELS. Drive less, carpool, group errands into one outing. If you can, buy food produced close to home. Consider a hybrid or electric car. Look into solar panels and geothermal heating.

2. LOOK FOR WAYS TO INCREASE YOUR ENERGY EFFICIENCY. Use LED light bulbs, get a home energy audit to make sure your house is properly insulated and tight. And think -- do you really need to heat your house to 75? (wear a sweater!) or cool it to refrigerator temperatures?

3. SKIP MEAT/CHEESE ONE DAY A WEEK. Animal agriculture emits a lot of greenhouse gases. If everybody in the US had a meatless day, over a year, it would be the equivalent of taking 7.6 million cars off the road, according to  the Environmental Working Group.

4. REDUCE AND REUSE BEFORE RECYCLING. Recycling is great (although we Americans do a lousy job of it – 9% of plastic – really?), but better yet to avoid having to recycle. Use a cloth bag for groceries, don't buy water in little plastic bottles, skip excessive packaging.

5. PLANT TREES. They suck up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

6. PAY FOR YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT. This is really cool. Go through a short questionnaire on a UN website to estimate the size of your carbon footprint; then support environmentally friendly projects in other countries. I sent $33 to a small hydro plant in Brazil. The UN just acts as a conduit, not keeping any of the money.

7. TALK TO YOUR FRIENDS. There is evidence showing that people are more likely to make good environmental choices when they see others doing it.

WE CAN ALSO PRESSURE OUR POLITICIANS. I know I said to hell with them, but we also have the power to force changes in public policy. Tell them these are your priorities and you VOTE.

Pressure them to take climate change seriously – put strict controls on utility emissions; stop fossil fuel subsidies; reinstate tax credits for buying clean energy systems; increase funding for research and development for improving clean energy; force fossil fuel companies to stop spreading lies about climate change.

WE CAN DO THIS!

STRESS

No, not the stress that causes chest pains and panic attacks. I'm talking about the stress on syllables in the English language. You may know that old joke about putting the "emPHAsis on the wrong sylLABle." Doing so can render a word almost unintelligible.

I am currently listening to a CD from The Great Courses called "Language A to Z." If you don't know The Great Courses, you should take a look at their website.  They have college-level courses on every subject imaginable – language, science, math, history, religion, philosophy, literature, art, music – you name it.  

And they always have fabulous sales at great prices. No, unfortunately, I'm not getting paid for this promotion. I just like the products.

Anyway, this course is taught by Professor John McWhorter from Columbia University, who has a PhD in linguistics. One of the segments is called "C for Compounds" and it points out a remarkable thing that native English speakers don't even notice, as we do it so automatically.

When a word or phrase becomes a "compound," we put the stress on a different syllable.

For example, if you see a bird that is black, you call it a "black BIRD." If, however, you see the bird known as a blackbird, the emphasis is on the first word  -- we call it "BLACKbird."

Even where the two words do not unite to become one different word, the principle applies. Think of a house that is white. We call it a "white HOUSE." But the home of the president is the "WHITE house."

I was surprised by this observation, but I was so startled by his next point that at first I didn't believe him.  

Think about giving directions. You send someone to "Maple ROAD" or "Maple LANE" or "Maple AVENUE" – but not to "Maple STREET." It's "MAPLE Street." And nobody knows why.

As the professor says, "Sometimes languages just throw things at you that don't make sense – or at least not yet."

Grasping at Straws

For Christmas, I gave three of my favorite people a rather strange gift. To each I gave two stainless steel straws (one straight and one bent) and a cleaning brush, and made little holders out of pseudo-suede. They were somewhat gag gifts, rather like the proverbial gold toothpick for the person who has everything. But they do highlight a problem with our indiscriminate use of plastic.

You may have seen the video of the poor sea turtle having an embedded plastic straw removed from its nostril – not pretty.  And the statistics are daunting – it is said that Americans use 500 million plastic straws per day, many winding up on beaches and in the ocean.  There is a huge island of plastic in the Pacific; some estimates put it at twice the size of Texas.

Straws are important, but they are just the tip of the plastic iceberg. Even 500 million straws per day (if that figure is correct) adds up to a tiny percentage of the plastic that  winds up in landfills or the ocean. According to the group Ocean Cleanup, 46% of the plastic in the Pacific comes from lost or abandoned fishing nets.

Most of the consumer plastic in the ocean pours in from developing countries that literally have no garbage collection or landfills – and certainly no recycling centers.

Straws are feeling the heat because there are so many of them, their length of service – minutes -- is so short as to be frivolous, and they are everywhere. Many restaurants now have signs that they will give out straws only on request.  Laws are being passed in areas as diverse as Seattle, California, Taiwan, and Scotland. Even Starbucks is creating a sort of adult "sippy cup" lid for its coffee.

I hope that this trend doesn't act as a relief valve, to make people think they are solving the problem by refusing straws, when there is so much more to be done. Let it be the "gateway" for harder stuff – cutting down on the use of all plastics, recycling (only about 9% of plastic is ever recycled in the U.S.), and supporting measures to clean up land and ocean.

In the meantime, if you don't need a straw for medical reasons, there's no harm in avoiding putting even more junk into the ocean. And there are fun alternatives: metal, glass, straw (yes, real straw!), bamboo, paper. . . And maybe they are the perfect gift for someone who has everything!

Letterlocking

So . . . you are writing a letter -- and naturally you don't want it to be read by the general public.  But envelopes haven't been invented yet. What to do?

Mary Queen of Scots had that problem on February 8, 1587. She was writing a letter to her brother-in-law, Henri III, King of France. It was her last letter, as six hours later, she was executed.

Many other persons, such as Galileo and Marie Antoinette, along with those less renowned, had the same problem. The solution? Letterlocking.

The term was coined by Jana Dambrogio, the Thomas F. Peterson conservator at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)  Libraries. It refers to the many different ways that letter-writers folded and wrapped and sealed their missives to deter prying eyes.

A recent article in Atlas Obscura traces Ms. Dambrogio's career, from the Vatican Secret Archives, where, fresh out of grad school, she started noticing slits and fold marks and wax seals on the old letters.  She gradually realized that she had founded a new area of research.

She has spent almost two decades figuring out the locks worked. It hasn't been easy. Most of the methods damage the letter when it is opened, bearing witness to spying – but also obscuring some of the techniques.

In 2012, a treasure trove of old letters, including 600 that have not been opened, was found in the Netherlands. In those days, the recipient paid the postage; so the postmaster held onto the letters, hoping that some might be claimed and the postage paid. This horde is being analyzed by Ms. Dambrogio and a collaborator, Daniel Starza Smith. It could take years.

In the meantime, they create replicas that they hand out at their workshops, teaching history and conservation to young and old.

As you can see by the photo, I've been trying out some of the techniques from instructional videos. It's fun!

Tiny Islands Support Big Marine Reserves

In 2015, the tiny Pacific island nation of Palau – smaller than New York City -- set aside 193,000 square miles of ocean for a marine reserve, allowing no fishing or mining in the area. While Palau is smaller than New York City, the protected area is larger than California.

In 2016, the UK created a similar reserve around Pitcairn Island, of Mutiny on the Bounty fame. The island, home to only 50 people, now has a protected area of 320,465 square miles, larger than Turkey.

The newest reserve – confirmed in a referendum in September 2017 -- is around Rapa Nui (Easter Island) owned by Chile. This area is 286,000 square miles, larger than France.  

Between 2015 and 2017, more ocean – all in the Pacific -- was protected by newly created marine reserves than ever before.  

Why should we care?

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), oceans are of tremendous importance:

• Oceans store more than 90% of the carbon dioxide on the planet.

• They remove 30% of newly created carbon dioxide.  

• They provide critical food supplies to many people.

• Barrier ecosystems (such as coral reefs or mangrove forests) help protect the land from natural disasters.

But the pressure on oceans is also tremendous:

• More than 60% of people live on or near a coast.

• Some 80% of tourism is in coastal areas.

• Close to 25% of fishing in developing countries occurs near coral reefs.

This is not even counting the garbage and pollution that we humans pour into it every day.

How do marine reserves help?

• They protect key ecosystems, such as coral reefs, which are nurseries for young fish and other species – and they attract tourism, providing jobs and income for local people.

•   More than 70% of the world's fisheries are in trouble. No-fishing areas allow small fish to grow and reproduce, ultimately improving fishing for everyone.  

•   They protect biodiversity and allow threatened species to reproduce in safety. They are critically important for conservation and sustainable development.

Unfortunately, at this point only about 1% of the ocean is protected – but these new marine reserves are  steps in the right direction.

90 Years -- The Oxford English Dictionary

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the most comprehensive work of its kind, is celebrating its 90th birthday in 2018. The originators expected the work to take 10 years. Hah! In five years they were as far as "ant." It finally took 70 years.  And the minute it was published, they started on an update!

We are so used to "looking it up" that it is hard to realize the first real dictionary as we know it wasn't published until 1755, by Samuel Johnson. It remained the standard for a century – but it was not comprehensive.

In 1858, the London Philological Society decided to create a better dictionary. The project stumbled along until 1878 when Prof. James Murray was appointed as editor. It became his life's work, but sadly, he didn't live to see its publication, dying in 1915.

The genius of this dictionary is in its comprehensiveness. Each word has its origin, first written use, definition(s), and quotations that illustrate each and every nuance of the word.

Murray sent out flyers for people to read literature from the 16th century onward and start "catching" words – writing in a specific format on half-size sheets of paper. Thousands of slips started pouring in.

One unusual contributor was Dr. William Minor. The story is recounted in The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester.  Minor was a well-educated American who served in the Civil War. Some speculated that what he saw and did there drove him mad; but late in his life he was diagnosed with what we now call schizophrenia.

After the war, he went to London, and suffering from paranoid delusions, shot and killed a man. He was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sentenced to Broadmoor, a new asylum for the mentally ill.

As he was polite, intelligent, non-violent, and had a pension from the U.S. Army,  he was treated quite well. He had two cells, a fireplace, extensive shelves filled by books he ordered from London, his flute, his painting supplies – almost all the comforts of home.

He found one of Murray's flyers, and he responded. With nothing but time on his hands, he organized a particularly efficient system, and sent thousands of slips. After finding out why Minor didn't accept his invitations to visit, Murray visited him frequently at Broadmoor to discuss what words or information were needed. They collaborated for some twenty years.

Now the OED is computerized – it's amazing that a 20-volume work weighing 150 pounds can be reduced to a computer disc. It is in the process of another total revision – but I'm sure it won't take another 70 years!  If you want to subscribe, there is a limited-time special rate of $90 for a year.