ANOTHER DAY IN PURGATORY

Day 181 of the Lower Puna Eruption, although there is absolutely no volcanic activity anywhere on the island.

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Soon after I moved in, I wondered:  Could 15 Craigside be Purgatory?  That was more than four years ago.  I still return to the concept on occasion when I'm in a fantasy mode, for the Blue Revolution, Hydrogen Economy and Fusion Energy are, too, currently beyond conventional reality.

It was raining when I awoke, but my water lily was there to wish me a good morning and great day.

I joined June (McKinley High School classmate), Howard (resident and poker partner) and Audrey (resident) for bridge.  They are all good bridge players.  I'm not.

I noticed that the tai chi class was performing in our Solarium.  I once was part of this group, and picked up a key point that adds 20 yards to my golf drive.  I quit after three sessions, but value that lesson.

15C had an early dinner outing, to The Surfing Pig in Kaimuki.  Let me quote from Honolulu Magazine (below, General Manager David Sakai):

The Kono’s family of restaurants are known for their signature 12-hour slow-roasted kālua pig and service with extra aloha. Driven by a never-ending pursuit of excellence, Kono’s has been named as one of USA Today’s 10 Best Kālua Pig Sandwiches, Hawaii Magazine’s No. 1 place for breakfast, plate lunch and cheap eats, and earned Star Advertiser’s coveted ‘Ilima Award for Best Casual Restaurant. With fun team members, surf-inspired atmosphere and mouthwatering food, Kono’s has captured the heart of Hawaiian casual dining. Kono’s has 3 locations on O‘ahu, plus a new full-service restaurant and bar in Kaimukī, The Surfing Pig. They plan for continued growth here at home and on the mainland.

I ordered three items, Kampachi Carpaccio, Truffles Fries and 3 tacos, all pork-based:

Dave said he created many of the dishes.  They were inventive and worthy of your exploration.  If you go before 5:30PM, that large glass of Kirin beer is only $2.  He did not charge us for the fancy iced tea and even threw in that Kampachi for free.  He has lived an extraordinary life opening new restaurants throughout the Orient, and comes from Pearl City High School and the University of Hawaii.

The 15 Craigside group enjoyed our meal.  I'll be back again someday.  Here, Dave showing us out the door.  One of the advantages of living at 15 Craigside is that our van takes us out and picks us up.

The evening ended with poker, featuring the most compatible group I've ever been around.  Howard, who you saw above, and I play the craziest games, and one of mine last night involved considerable betting, leading me to win $15 just on one hand, so that I ended up only losing a couple of bucks, which everyone contributes to the pot anyway for our occasional dinners.

Rainy yesterday, but this morning was absolutely gorgeous:

I noticed that another water lily bud was peeking out:

That is my neon tetra aquarium to the left:

I have another one of red fish on my lanai:

Finally breakfast, which I rarely feature in this blog.  This is what I actually ate this morning:  cereal, fruits, yogurt and milk:

But this is Wednesday, which is when a Japanese breakfast is served, so I went down to the dining room to pick up all of what you see:

The take-out charge was $1.50, but this assortment costs a lot more, which I would have wasted, and can spread out over the next few days.  Such is life in Purgatory-

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The strongest ocean storm of the year, Super Typhoon Yutu, is now only a tropical storm in the South China Sea, but I thought this graphic from NASA was worth an inclusion;

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IS THERE ANYTHING TO ENERGY MEDICINE?

Day 180 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and you still can't close to viewing the damage.  However, it looks like officials are planning to ease restrictions in about a month.  To summarize:

Along the way, lava from Kilauea opened 24 fissures, covered more than 6,000 acres of land in Lower Puna, destroyed nearly 720 homes in the Leilani Estates and Kapoho areas, and buried or isolated more than 1,600 acres of farms.

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This is one of those days when I had no idea on what I would be posting.  Then I read the Star-Advertiser and noticed a two-page PAID ADVERTISEMENT section between pages A2 and A3:  More Health, More Energy, Less Meds, No Effort?  Half of each page is focused on Dr. Sandra Rose Michael, inviting you to a FREE (really, worth $75) lecture (at least some real estate cons give you a free lunch)...and space is limited.

She appears to be a real medical doctor, at least according to her releases.  She seems to have some connection to Hawaii, and specifically indicates being a kuhuna, but maybe that was a typo, for the proper term is kahuna.  There are gaps in her background that are similarly confusing, or purposefully misleading, for I can't seem to find anything called the Scientific Council for National Bio Science, nor any World Summit on Integral Medicine.  With regard to Energy Medicine, here is a quote from Wikipedia:

While early reviews of the scientific literature on energy healing were equivocal and recommended further research,^[10][5] more recent reviews have concluded that there is no evidence supporting clinical efficiency.^{[11][12][13][14][15]} The theoretical basis of healing has been criticised as implausible,^{[16][17][18][19]}research and reviews supportive of energy medicine have been faulted for containing methodological flaws^[20][21][22] and selection bias,^[20][21] and positive therapeutic results have been dismissed as resulting from known psychological mechanisms.^[20][21]

I've regularly reported on these types of ads, usually trying to sell you gold, inducing enhanced sexual performance...the whole range of life enhancements for not all that much.  So far, they have all been scams, or close to them, and I've long wondered why a daily newspaper needs to resort to this type of revenue source.

Snakeoil comes to mind, but can there possibly be a new way to reduce pain, improve memory, induce sleep, turn your hair black, cure arthritis, eliminate depression, reduce diabetes and cure Parkinson tremors?  A photo of the Dalai Lama is shown, suggesting that the process is credible.  The fact that she has been around for more than a decade must mean that she can't be illegal and her money-making system is profitable.  Here is TV clip from ten years ago.

There are a couple of Ripoff Reports, one from the owners of that technology, and another from an unhappy customer.  Her web site, Energy Enhancement System, sells things like bracelets and EEChakra Alignment Sets.

I can hardly recommend that you follow up, but maybe I should.  I could be wrong, and this might actually be entertaining.   You can register here, or call 808 628 8784, for possible openings on November 1, 2 or 4.  Maybe I'll see you there.  It will just be a five-minute The Bus ride for me.

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Typhoon Yutu slammed into Luzon and is now in the South China Sea:

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FREE SOLO: My Most Meaningful Movie of the Year

Day 179 of the Lower Puna Eruption, and nothing new is happening.

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I mostly went to see Free Solo yesterday because Rotten Tomatoes bestowed outstanding ratings of 98% (reviewers) and 95% (audiences).  There were only a few in the theater and the movie placed 15th in Box Office Mojo this weekend.

In short, Alex Honnold free-soloed El Capitan in Yosemite National Park on 3June2017, a 2,900-foot climb in 3 hours and 56 minutes, which was made into this National Geographic film by climber/photographer Jimmy Chin.  I well remember his 2015 Meru, documenting his team's climb of the Garwhal Himalayas in India.  Rotten Tomatoes gave them 89%/91% ratings.

Note that the meaningfulness of the film was personal.  However, reviewers exuded superlatives like truly dazzling and outrageously harrowing.  

For me it all began in 1958 when I began my freshman year at Stanford, 150 or so miles away from Yosemite National Park, home of El Capitan.  That year three climbers using ropes and all that climbing gear took 47 days to ascend from base to top.

In 1959 I joined El Capitan, an eating club, and daily saw the face of that most famous free-climbing mountain in the world in a painting.  (I might interject here that half a century later, in 2009, Stanford abolished all the eating clubs.)  El Capitan, the eating club, is no more.

In 1968 Royal Robbins (right) was the first to make a solo ascent of this majestic granite cliff, and it took him 10 days with the usual assorment of accoutrements.  In 1979 Ray Jardine and Bill Price succeeded in a free climb, meaning no ropes and stuff, in six days.  Thirty climbers have lost their lives attempting to reach the top, including two this year.

Leading up to Honnold's attempt:

Climbers have been speculating for years about a possible free solo of El Capitan, but there have only been two other people who have publicly said they seriously considered it. One was Michael Reardon (left), a free soloist who drowned in 2007 after being swept from a ledge below a sea cliff in Ireland. The other was Dean Potter (right). who died in a base jumping accident in Yosemite in 2015.

Then last year came Alex Honnold.  Why would anyone dare to climb straight up a cliff using only your fingers and shoes?  One slip and you're dead.  He accomplished this feat in three hours and 56 minutes.  

I'll long remember this film because Honnold is everything I'm not.  He takes chances with his life.  I don't.  I feel uneasy just walking down stairs these days.  His choice of a good meal is an assortment of vegetables, over which he pours in something from a can, and eats with a spatula straight from the pot.  No alcohol or caffeine.  Lived in a van for a decade.

Says he is Mormon, except for the God thing.  Six years ago he started the Honnold Foundation seeking simple, sustainable ways to improve lives worldwide.  He is promoting solar energy in the developing world.  Hmm...well, maybe we have a little in common after all.

Movies are an escape for me.  I relish the two hours of fantasy each weekend, for that is the only adventure I get.  I've eliminated from my watch list comic book, vampire, zombie, anything made for children and more because they are unrealistic.  Free Solo in its own way was even worse, actually, because the premise is in the realm of the impossible.  But he made it happen.  And he is alive.  

Of course, the insanity continues.  Later last year Brad Gobright and Jim Reynolds made essentially the same climb, together, in 2 hours and 20 minutes.  Here is their time-lapse video.  

But doing it alone remains a whole different challenge, and Free Solo is truly worthy of your consideration.  Alex is something I will never be.  No doubt, you too.  You have a whole lot uncommon with him.

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Typhoon Yutu (Rosita) will make landfall over the northern Philippines on Wednesday as a Category 2, then make a right turn in the South China Sea:

Hurricane Oscar will become a Category 2, then weaken on its way to Scotland...yes, Scotland:

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Incidentally, if you are into Suntory Yamazaki whiskey, there is an ongoing auction of a 34-year old cask, with a November 1 deadline.  The price is up to $75,000, for one bottle.  How do you make a bid?  Click on dekanta.

Earlier this year a 50-year old Yamazaki bottle went for just about $300,000.  Divided by 25 ounces, that would be $12,000 per ounce, or a jigger (1.5 oz) brings the cost up to $18,000.  But bars tend to multiply their cost by at least a factor of 3, so make that $54,000 for a shot.

I'll someday report on the 2018 World Whiskey Awards, but the best blended this year is Johnny Walker Gold.  The top single malt?  Suntory Hakusho.  I have both bottles ten feet from me.  I should continue my Blood Alcohol Concentration measurements...soon.

The best bourbons come from Kentucky (1792--that's the maker--theirs is finished in Port barrels), although Balcones from Texas did well this year.  The best single cask single malt came, again, from Australia:  Sullivans Cove.  Of course, Hobart, Tasmania is almost not Australia.

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SCIENCE and RELIGION: Are They Compatible?

Day 178 of the Lower Puna eruption.  I would think that this phase of activity has ended, but the USGS has not yet made any official announcement.

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I picked up Science and Religion, edited by Paul Kurtz, about a dozen years ago when I began writing my Golden Evolution chapter of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.  Note the subtitle to the left.  I finally finished this collection of papers a few months ago.  I usually only read SaR between holes 1 and 2 at the Ala Wai Golf Course, where the wait can be as long as 45 minutes.

Paul Kurtz  was (he passed away five years ago) an American scientific skeptic and secular humanist, known as the father of secular humanism.  He was the founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and editor of Free Inquiry magazine, from which came this book.  How famous is he?  He has a minor planet named after him.  Of course, there are nearly 7000 of them.  Interested?

Among the contributors to SaR are:  Arthur C. Clarke, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Stephen Gould, James Lovelock, Steven Pinker, Neil deGrasse, Tyson, Steven Weinberg and Richard Feynman, who asserted that:

...the universal responsibility of the scientist is to remain immersed in “ignorance and doubt and uncertainty,” and that the centrality of uncertainty in science is incompatible with the unconditional faith required by religion.  

From Carl Sagan:

If we ever reach the point where we think we thoroughly understand who we are and where we came from (in his timeless treatise on science and spirituality), we will have failed. Perhaps because, as Krista Tippett has astutely observed, science and religion “ask different kinds of questions altogether, probing and illuminating in ways neither could alone,” some of humanity’s greatest scientific minds have contemplated the relationship between these two modes of inquiry — Galileo in his legendary letter to the Duchess of Tuscany; Ada Lovelace in her meditation on the interconnectedness of everything; Einstein in his answer to little girl’s question about whether scientists pray; Jane Goodall in her poetic take on science and spirit; Sam Harris in his elegant case for spirituality without religion; and physicist Margaret Wertheim in turning to Dante for an answer.

From Pew, science, unlike politics, has a very favorable status:

Are religion and science compatible?

If you ask a scientist if the two are compatible, you will no doubt get a different answer than from those who are not:

This 33% rate materially drops for National Academy of Science biologists (5.5%) and physicists/astronomers (7.5%).  Do they know something we don't?

Over the next few months I will now and then on Sunday provide input from contributors to SCIENCE and RELIGION.

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Typhoon Yutu (known as Rosita in the region),  now down to 112 MPH, will crash into northern Philippines on October 30:

However, instead of then barreling into China, the eye is now expected to take a turn north and perhaps try to squeeze between China and Taiwan.

In the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Oscar will become a hurricane, but turn toward Europe.

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This morning when I awoke, a water lily had bloomed next to my computer:

The aroma was like a pleasantly sweet perfume, evoking youthful memories.

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