I’m reading The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, which tells the whats, hows and whys of the 1854 London cholera epidemic.  This morning I came across this passage:

For millennia, most cities had been bound inexorably to the natural ecosystem that lay outside their walls; the energy flowing through the fields and forests around them established a population ceiling they couldn’t grow beyond.  London in 1854 had shot through those ceilings, because the land itself was being farmed more efficiently, because new forms of energy had been discovered, and because shipping and railway networks had greatly expanded the distance that energy could travel.  The Londoner enjoying a cup of tea with sugar in 1854 was drawing upon a vast global energy network with each sip:  the human labor of the sugarcane plantations in the West Indies and the newly formed tea plantations in India; the solar energy in those tropical realms that allowed those plants to flourish; the oceanic energy of the trade currents, and the steam power of the railway engine; the fossil fuels powering the looms in Lancashire, making fabrics that helped fund the entire trade system.

It’s this network, which of course has today developed far, far beyond that which served London in 1854, that the proponents of the local food movement fail to apprehend, much less understand.  Now, don’t get me wrong; if you think you get, for example, the best tomato eating experience by purchasing locally-grown heirloom varieties, and you’re willing to pay the higher cost they command, more power to you.  But if you think that example somehow represents an ideal way to feed the populace of any city, you’re more than a bit misguided.  As Londoners had already discovered over 150 years ago, you can’t feed a populace of any significant size with locally grown produce.

Local foodies miss another important point as well:  a very small fraction of what they enjoy today could even possibly be grown nearby.  Bloated and wealthy local food enthusiasts in New York would be dismayed indeed to find the simple banana struck from the list of what they could eat should their “utopia” ever be realized.

Today I read straight through Left To Tell:  Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza.  Needless to say, the story is a searing one in many ways — but also amazingly uplifting thanks to the author’s unfathomable spirit, and spirituality.

I’ve been thinking lately that one of our big problems in modern America is that we’re just too damned comfortable.  And while the depravity and horror Immaculee survived is nothing anyone would ever wish on another, I find it interesting how the utmost in both faith and accomplishment can arise from such abomination.  Surely there’s a middle ground that might heal our ailing spirits — something we can do for ourselves, not have forced on us.

In any event, reading of things like the Rwandan genocide should help us appreciate our blessings of freedom, security and plenty.

This time I broke a new trail on the same loop I’ve been going to.  It was hard work, and while I greatly enjoyed the bright sunshine we had today, that also meant just that little bit of added warmth I really didn’t need.  Halfway through I was down to my long-sleeve cotton t-shirt and still sweating like a horse.  But what a great workout!

More snow expected this week.  Boy oh boy, this global warming is workout out great…

Today was a very different scenario from yesterday’s.  The storm is gone and skies have cleared — but as usual, with the clear came the cold.  It was 6 degrees when I started and 4 when I finished.

Still, though I got rather chilly hiking through the neighborhood to the trail, just a few minutes on the snowshoes warmed me right up.  Part of the reason was that, while I’d looked forward to having at least the remnants of yesterday’s broken trail to take advantage of, I saw when I got there that a cross-country skier had taken advantage first.  Not wanting to mess up the ski lines he’d established, I broke trail parallel to his path.  The going was even harder than yesterday, with the few additional inches of snow that had fallen.  I soon had my gloves off and jacket half open.

Then a half mile in, the skier’s tracks ended!  He’d turned around and gone home.  I know what you’re thinking — the same  I did in the moment:  what a nancy-boy!  A mile of cross-country skiing on a fairly solid trail isn’t even a warm-up, for Pete’s sake!

But for me his wussiness was a godsend.  I jumped right over onto my tracks from yesterday, and my workload was cut in half.  Until the trail turned cross-ways to the wind, that is, and my old track was obliterated by drifting.  Then it was hard work again.  But by that time I had cooled such that the gloves went back on and the jacket closed up.

I got my real treat when I headed back from town.  The sun was right on the horizon, and I paused to listen to the almost-quiet woods.   Nothing was moving, and I got to enjoy a few minutes of seeming isolation before one of the townsmen fired up his snowblower.  But when I got moving again, the sun was right in front of me, painting the snow crimson until it sank below the trees.

I got back to the road, shed the snowshoes, and enjoyed the styrofoam crunch of near-zero snow underfoot for the mile back home.  It was a blessing to get back into the warmth of the house — my face was near-frozen, and the jeans I’d gone with today left my thighs and trailing portion quite chilly as well.  They’re still thawing out.

This thing looks mean.

It’s the XM2010 sniper rifle, which — according to this USA Today article — has an effective range of nearly 40oo feet.

Not surprisingly, the USA Today article is otherwise pretty useless as far as meaningful information goes.  (Caliber?  What caliber?)  Thanks to a link from The Firearm Blog, we have the details from PEO Soldier Live.  (It’s chambered in .300 Winchester Magnum.)

Nice.

Up here in the Northern wilds where I live, we’re in the middle of a storm dumping around 16 inches of snow on us.  Here’s the view from my son’s window this morning:

What better weather than this to head out snowshoeing in?  I just got back from a four mile trek, two trudging the roads and two cruising on a trail through the woods next to a stream, into the little town we live near.  I just put new bindings on an old pair of snowshoes my dad gave me some years ago — they’re this style:

It’s no quiet snowfall we’re experiencing — the wind was howling above the trees, and my face got a pretty good case of snowburn.  But at least it wasn’t too cold — actually, since I had to break the trail on my way out, I was doing some pretty serious work and was too warm most of the time.  I wore the gloves I had barely at all — kept ’em off to make my hands radiators for all that extra heat.

What a great outing.  And what a great workout!

Great group, great song — not particularly good-looking fellas, though.

In reading up on Cornelius Ryan, the subject of three previous posts (here, here and here), I came across this absolutely wonderful article by Michael Shapiro.  What a perfect tribute to a good and talented man.

From the same guy who wrote the health care interview in my post from a few moments ago comes this equally good article (or book review) about being a good boss.

In addition to the book Mr. May recommends, I’d suggest reading my favorite three.

The first is one I finished not too long ago, The Inner-Work of Leadership by Barry Brownstein.  This is just a phenomenal book that has already positively impacted my life.  The two main points I took away were an understanding of how the notion of distributed knowledge, which I was very familiar with before I read the book, impacts our workaday world; and the enormous value of putting your people truly first and tearing down the roadblocks preventing them from making the maximum use of that distributed knowledge.

The other two are Charles Koch’s The Science of Success and It’s Your Ship by Captain D. Michael Abrashoff.

My main advice for being a good boss?  Get over yourself — you aren’t anywhere near as smart or good as you think you are.  And defend and fight for your people like a cornered cat.

This is a great interview:  “The Company That Solved Health Care.”  Leave it to an Marine to fix things.