Favorites

People say you're not supposed to have favorites. But, I've learned, everybody does.

I've been to several neighborhood Friends of Starkweather Creek watershed protection group meetings. So far, Dan is my favorite Board member. Before Christmas he brought a whole stack of CD's he wanted to pass along, and told us we could pick out our favorites.

Dan is a generous guy. But the real reason he is my favorite is because he always rides his bike. By doing this he gives the rest of us less congestion on the road and, more importantly, cleaner air.

Lisa is a new neighbor. Now she's my favorite new neighbor too. What are we doing there,standing by that stop sign in a pile of frozen snow? And what's that in her hand? A shovel. Huh.

There were announcements in the paper telling people that an unseasonable stretch of warm weather could melt the snow so fast that it could cause flooding of Madison's streets and lakes. Lisa was being a good citizen, liberating the storm drain on her corner so the snow could melt in more gradually. If it were up to me, the snow wouldn't melt at all!

Truly yours,

~Polar Bear Witness

Happy New Year! A Better Way?

Happy New Year! A Better Way?

Wow. New Year's Eve already. Time to look back, for a moment, before stepping forward into our new life in 2008.

As I've only been around since October, that makes things a little easier for me. But the pretty much universally-agreed-to calendar year has twelve months. That seems like a lot. But people are busy; they need time to get things done. Hours, days, weeks, months, years, decades, centuries. (Beyond "centuries" the reptile brain that both Polar Bears and Humans evolved from, gets unable-to-comprehend, stopped.)

Getting things done and made, I've learned, is what people, for better and for worse, have been evolved to do. Time. Now there's an interest of mine I need to add to my interests lists on my blog profile.

Now, on New Year's Eve, as we are poised to dip our toe into the eighth year of the first decade of this new 21st-century, could it be timely for Homo Sapiens to ask themselves this question: is there a better way?

Just for fun - with this being the new year and all, a time for new understandings - we looked up the definition of Homo Sapiens. Here is what it said: man, woman, human being; the scientific name for the only living species of the genus Homo. Wow. That's special.

Now with me being a Polar Bear, Ursus maritimus, I'm one of several species of Ursus or bears. But Sapiens are the only living species of the genus Homo. Hey man, wow. That makes you dudes, human beings, a one-of-a-kind unique species in your genus: Homo. But I suppose everybody knows that. So what? Well, you've gotta remember I'm a working Polar Bear, just doing my job, trying to figure things out.

So next we looked up sapient. It means wise, sagacious, full of knowledge, discerning. Sagacious? Now that, according to Websters New World Dictionary of the American Language means: keenly perceptive or discerning, shrewd, farsighted in judgment. Discerning, now how about that? Discern: to separate (a thing) mentally from another or others; recognize; make out clearly.

Now, don't you think that having those extra bells and whistles should separate people, Homo Sapiens, out from the rest of us beasts, wouldn't you think? Making you human folks sagacious, that is discerning and farsighted-in-judgment enough, to change and to demand change from our elected leaders, as in: there must be a better way!

Truly yours,

Polar Bear Witness
P.P.S. Please share the bear! www.polarbearwitness.blogspot.com

Solstice Greetings: Air Quality Advisories Ring! Are Ya Listenin'?

Solstice Greetings:
Air Quality
Advisories Ring!
Are Ya Listenin'?

Does it seem a little odd for a Polar Bear to be celebrating a solar holiday like the Winter Solstice? If you've ever enjoyed pictures of me and my relatives basking on an ice flow in the sun - (and there are some wonderful ones in the current issue of Sierra magazine that also features my cousin Marty on the cover, who, I'm sorry to report, has gained weight since being in the zoo, and who, honest, is starting to look a bit like Al Gore . . . but I digress) - you know that we, Ursus maritimus, just like our fellow-bipeds, Homo sapiens, also enjoy and celebrate the sun.

So here we are on the 21st of December, up at 5:30AM, shuffling around in the dark, already enjoying the shortest day of the year, and looking forward to the longest night. But just as I was starting to get excited about that big bonfire they're going to set ablaze at dusk (5:00PM in Olbrich Park), I hear this announcement on the radio that the Department of Natural Resources has issued an "air quality advisory" for southern Wisconsin today. Oh-oh.

I heard that at last year's solstice, on December 21st, it rained. Now this. Just like us charismatic megafauana - (that's what this DNR guy Monona was talking to last night called me) - one thing a fire needs is oxygen. Hum. I'm no scientist, but while humans think they can probably get by without a Polar Ice Cap, they do, I think, understand that oxygen is something we all need to breathe. Is that disappearing now too?

What can we do? What can we do? What can we do? If it is true?
Here's what my friend Judy said: "I just bought an energy-efficient refrigerator. And I replaced all my lights with compact florescents. And, I ride my bike." She nodded once and said as we parted ways, "These are things most people can do."

Judy used to be the City Council member for Madison's "District Six." As a former public official, she would probably encourage everyone to vote in all elections and when we do, to vote in leaders who will help our cities, counties, states, our United States and the world replace anything that now burns fossil fuel with clean-air-renewable energy. Now. Today.

Al Gore recently described carbon emissions as "an open sewer" pouring into and polluting the very air we need to breathe, Earth's fragile atmosphere. Today, on the Winter Solstice, we have an air quality advisory.

In the spirit of the holidays, perhaps its time to put some coal in the stockings of our misguided and replaceable leaders?

Air quality advisories ring! Are ya listenin'?
Truly.
~Polar Bear Witness
P.S. Please share the bear! www.polarbearwitness.blogspot.com
PPS: If you think you might be seeing a "ghost in the window" of the Mermaid Cafe, that's our occasional coffee shop pal, Mike. Mike has provided a public service in Madison by being an outspoken advocate for bikes and better urban land use for years. He has also been busy insulating buildings to reduce energy use!

Reptile Brain

Reptile Brain

If Reptile Brain sounds like it would make a good name for a rock 'n' roll band, I would certainly agree, it is. In fact, there is a band in Madison called Reptile Palace Orchestra and they are, actually, quite good. They've been around for a number of years, I understand, and, maybe, if they named their band as a comment on human civilization - please forgive me if I offend anyone - perhaps they were prescient.

Prescient is a big word for a Polar Bear. But Monona was reading the New York Times Book Review earlier today, and that's where the word came up. The dictionary says it means: knowledge of things before they happen or come into being.

Speaking of reptiles crawling along, you may wonder where my bear brain is going with this. And where does this handsome couple fit in? Meet my new best friend, Raj. And his wife Tora.

We met Raj last week at the Atwood Community Center where he gave a presentation titled What You Can Do About Global Warming on a cold and snowy night. Even so, we wondered what - for an event that was well-advertised in the newspaper weeks ahead and held in a community of more than 250,000 people - the turn out of seven people meant? There was a gentleman from the power company, a gentleman from the Sierra Club, and three other gentlemen, including our friend, Michael Paul, and one of who we talked to after Raj's presentation, Ric.

Raj is a disciple of Al Gore and something called The Climate Change Project. theclimateproject.org Earlier this year Raj spent a few weeks attending the project's Nashville boot camp, so to speak, where he and others learned how to be foot soldiers, as it were, to spread the word of Gore, as presented in his book and movie, An Inconvenient Truth. The essence of the book, the movie and Raj's talk is basically: that billions of humans out there driving cars fueled by gas and heating homes and buildings with coal is overloading Earth's atmosphere with the consequence of way-too-much heating - our fair, and now-suffering planet - up.

Raj pointed to three things as major challenges to civilization that have contributed to global warming and that may have a role in determining our future fate: world population explosion, the fossil-fueled, rapid industrial/technical revolution, and our own way of thinking. In closing, Raj made this observation: "It's difficult to make these changes, to wrap our heads around these issues of human survival." And he posed this question to his audience of seven: "What's the disconnect?"

As the small audience broke up, Ric told me he had read that it was embedded in the behavior of our early human ancestors to harvest food, like shellfish, where-ever it could be found, and then, once the food was gone, these early humans would leave behind the emptied stocks, the despoiled shells and move on. Ric suggested that, perhaps, it was some primal behavior that had us, as a species, despoiling our place-on-Earth by burning the candle of CO2-emitting-fossil-fuel at both ends, polluting the fragile atmosphere we need to raise crops, drink water and to breathe, as though we could just, simply, pick up and move on.

Monona nodded her agreement and speculated: "Perhaps, as a species, we are kind of "frozen" within the limitations of our still-evolving reptile brains."

Truly yours,
~Polar Bear Witness
PS: Stay tuned to read more about this topic in our next blog: (Monona's Theory of the) Reptile Brain, Part Two

Conditions Excellent!

Conditions Excellent!

In case you're reading this fast-breaking blog at this moment -Wednesday morning, December 12th - in Madison, and in case you own a pair of cross-country skis, I recommend that you stop what you're doing, take a long lunch or leave work early and get out to your nearest park or the Arboretum to ski!

With the amount of snow cover we have, you can almost snap on your skis right outside your door.
We left the car behind in a snow drift, headed over to the lake and, following someone else's tracks, felt almost magically pulled along as we glided over perfect snow.

And now, after our breakfast of blueberry jam on toast with hot tea, we just heard the weekend weather forecast: more cold, more snow. Whoopie!

Truly and very happily yours,
~Polar Bear Witness

~*~Kiss and Tell with Donna & Danielle!~*~

~*~Kiss and Tell
with Donna & Danielle!~*~

So much to tell you about my fascinating life and so little time! Well, I suppose that for everyone, that's just how life is.

These are the Garden Gnomes, Donna and Danielle. Donna, as you may know, is also Madison's premiere tap-dancer-ess. Kind of like a Princess, except in the context of tap. And Tap-It they do at Tap-It, New Works Dance and Performance studio. You can even take lessons, as Monona did, and learn how to shuffle, ball-change-reach and all the like of which.

Danielle is no lightweight either, even though she looks quite slim. She's a playwright of local and international acclaim.

Does it look like Donna is giving me as kiss? Well, I have to tell you, this attraction that women have for me, is just what it is.

Truly,
~Polar Bear Witness
P.S. Please share the bear! www.polarbearwitness.blogspot.com