IMHO: The possible reason the highly superior extraterrestrials from distant star system(s) have not revealed themselves to us is simple:
We have not passed the most important test of our biological evolution.
We have yet to grow beyond our infantile, tantrum-tossing childhood.
To grow and evolve into an adult, aware, and awake species, we must abandon and delete from our time twisted genetic programming, all the fear-driven, self destructive, xenophobic, hateful, self centered, greed and power focused ways of thinking and living such as but not limited to – separatist, divisive religions, toxic politics, bloody war, insane slavery, juvenile prejudice, caste systems, medical and prison industrial complexes, the burning of finite fossil fuels for energy and their associated land, water, and air pollution, resource wars, habitat destruction and so much more of the fear and greed focused genes still stuck in our DNA that feeds these ancient toxic behaviors. They worked for us in the dark past of our early ancestors, but evidence suggests they do not have a place in our genetic code any longer.
Now is the time we must choose not to fear and fight, but to respect and coexist with each other.
This will not happen anytime soon, and possibly never. Current events suggest we may forever remain infants in our development as a species.
We may be just another failed evolutionary experiment…or a virus that just has to run its course before the planet can heal and make room for the next attempt at something unique.
No matter what the case may be, I know that what we are doing to ourselves, to each other, and to the planet that supports us – cannot end well unless we all work together to repair the heinous damage to the system, delete the current systemic infection, and strive to learn from the mistakes of our childhood, and never ever repeat them again.
Consciously choose to do good things.
Tag: virus
Random Thought
If you discovered that someone you love, revere, worship, follow, respect, and/or care deeply about… was a disgusting, twisted, hateful, pedophile, and/or was protecting a pedophile/human trafficker – would you keep loving, respecting, and supporting them?
HELL NO!!!!!
You would put them in the tightest security prison you could find and let the inmates take them apart – twistedly toxic piece by disgustingly disturbingly rotten piece. They would deserve everything they received – and then some.
I have a bad feeling that many people in very high and influential places, in this place we once called a country, in political, religious, entertainment and so many other institutions – are on the list.
When it is finally revealed, it will shatter this country even more.
But it must be revealed.
The evidence must be made public.
It is the right thing to do.
No matter what side of the imaginary fence you are on, no matter which wing of the once great balding bird that you think you are – the truth should matter above all other concerns. If it doesn’t, then you are part of the problem.
If you have children or grandchildren, what will they think of you if you support such disgustingly despicable and absolutely evil people? What kind of people will they become by watching you make your choices?
Don’t support disgusting, hateful, greedy, nasty, destructive people who choose to use others for their own gain and the loathsome fulfillment of their toxically twisted desires.
Do only good things.
Make good choices.
The choice is yours.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why people believe in and follow ideas/”theories”/things/beliefs/systems/and people that:
- Lack solid evidence to support that the idea/”theory”/thing/belief/system – actually exists.
- Support people who promote ideas/”theories”/things/beliefs/systems that lack any supporting evidence.
- Claim to be the only “way” and do not allow questioning or deviation from the ideas/ideals/idols of the “home team.”
- Are harmful or potentially harmful to the believer, their loved ones, society, or the natural life-support system of the planet that supports them (often while making the leaders of their chosen belief system richer in the process).
Have these folks ever just sat back and asked themselves any of the following questions?
- Is this idea/belief/thing/person/”theory” – actually helping me, or is it doing more harm than good?
- Why do I believe in/support this idea/system/belief/thing/person?
- When did I start believing in this idea/thing/way of thinking/person?
- Who/what was it that brought me to believe in this thing/way of thinking/person and why?
- Is it possible that I may have been/am being conned by a charlatan only out for propping up, profit, power, or prestige?
I have come to a few of my own off-the-cuff ideas as to why people follow these things – but I am sure there are many more.
Some people may just want to believe that they/their idea/belief system/their chosen path or person to follow is somehow special or mystically “chosen” above all other options.
Some may want to believe in things/ideas/persons/beings/”theories” because they feel small, inadequate, and/or insignificant – so they are looking for something bigger than they are, something or someone to give them advice or direction on which way to go in life, which path to take – someone that will take on the role of the father figure in their lives. On one hand, I can understand this because we are all just tiny, insignificant, ant-like beings when compared to the unimaginably vast grandeur of nature/the cosmos, and when we realize this humbling and mildling terrifying fact, it may help to have someone with more knowledge and experience to help us make sense of it all – as long as that someone is not a charlatan trying to take you for a ride and/or control/coerce you into doing something nefarious – or just give the troll all of your hard-earned money. On the other hand, not believing in yourself or your abilities to do your own research – your own ability to unearth the facts and the truth and just accept whatever pseudo-facts or absolute hogwash those you look up to are feeding you to make you feel better – well, that is just a recipe for absolute and total disaster.
They may want to feel special and/or in some way “chosen” and/or above all those outside of their “flock” that they have been tought to see as “outsiders,” “other,” or “lesser.” It is interesting to me that those within these bizarre groupings, congregations, and “clubs” are often taught that any individual/group/or ways of thinking that are “outside” of their “tribe” are conveniently labeled as wrong, bad, lost, lesser, infidels, unclean, or inferior and therefore not to be trusted or accepted…unless they pay to play – then, they are accepted and all is well within the “flock.” Bizarre.
Some people just seem to want to believe that there are all kinds of twisted conspiracies all around them.
Some people may want to feel like their chosen thing, person, or belief system has all the simple answers to all the complex questions – therefore, they have no need to actually try to think for themselves.
Some people may have deep tribal tendencies and whatever their chosen tribe does, whatever they believe, whomever or whatever they follow – no matter how twisted, bizarre, dangerous, destructive, or detrimental it is to themselves or their tribe or others on the “outside” – they will blindly accept it, believe it, and/or do it without question.
Some people seem to have been taught to fear the experts/authority and/or anyone with more knowledge than they have – especially if that knowledge involves them changing their way of thinking. This is an extremely dangerous way of thinking.
They may fear change and resist or refuse to adapt.
They may deeply fear the unknown and/or new things.
They may simply lack the needed knowledge to make the needed change and/or refuse to learn/accept the freely offered and/or easily available new knowledge – especially when that new evidence/knowledge is counter to what they have always held as the truth.
They may be comfortable with their position and do not want to step outside of their comfort zone and no amount of facts, evidence, or example presented by the experts or even others will ever convince them that stepping out of their bubble would be better for them….unless, the unthinkable/unbelievable reality suddenly happens to them or a loved one and finally wakes them up out of their toxic self-imposed mind fog…but by then it is often too little too late.
Examples of all of these misguided individuals are all around us.
- Flat earthers
- Moon landing deniers
- Conspiracy “theorists”
- Anti-maskers
- Anti-vaxxers
- Science deniers
- Religious fanatics
- Political fanatics
- Racists
- Homophobes
The twisted list goes on and on.
Don’t be a close-minded denier.
Open your mind to the realities and the endless possibilities.
Believe in and follow whatever you like if it offers you comfort, peace, guidance, advice, and/or genuinely helps you or your family/loved ones/others in need in some positive, measurable way.
But if your chosen way of thinking and believing requires you to hate/bully/harm/kill others, and/or serves only to cause harm to you, your loved ones, other innocent people outside of your chosen way of thinking/living, and/or your environmental life-support system – then maybe, for your own good and for the good of others, and of everything moving forward into the future – it is time you seriously rethink the ideas/”theories”/things/beliefs/and people you have chosen to follow and work very hard to purge, delete, and/or render extinct all those harmful ways of thinking and living from your existence.
Here is an idea: try letting peer-reviewed facts, evidence, and knowledge be your decision-making guide.
Choose wisely.
Do only good things.
Be the change.
Everything amazing is often found on the other side of fear.
Another orbit completed successfully
Another trip around the sun completed successfully.
Some perspective: On this day (July 15th) in 1968 I came into this reality – whatever this reality really is – and as of today, I have existed in this reality for 54 earth years.
Some perspective and observations.
I was premature so I had to cook in an incubator for a while until my body took over and I could support myself without the assistance of science and technology.
I was soon adopted by two amazing people Cathy and Clayton – who accepted me into their home as their own child. They later adopted another child in need and named her Lesly who then became my wonderful sister. She met Jonas and they raised two wonderful children – Cody and Ashlyn – who I just know will go above and beyond and do great things. I am lucky and proud to be a part of this family.
I was born in the middle of one of the times of the greatest scientific and engineering achievements humankind has ever experienced: the Apollo-era moon missions and landings…and, fitting the space exploration and cultural turbulence of the times, the first incarnation of Star Trek – my favorite TV series – was on TV…and it still is and all of its incarnations and I love them all for the messages they bring to all of us – if we have the capacity to understand and accept them and put them into practice.
I have been alive (whatever that means) for ~473,040 hours and accruing. I have orbited our closest star Sol 54 times. I have now traveled around 31,536,000,000 miles (50,752,272,384 kilometers) through space in an ever-spiraling circle around a rather remote and average little yellow star while riding on a water-soaked living rock along with you and over 7.9 billion other naked, bi-pedal, mostly hairless, multi-colored, fire and tool-using, thinking apes, and countless other amazing life-forms – while spinning at an equatorial rate of around 1000 mph (1,609.3 kph) while at the same time passing through the icy blackness vacuum of space at around 67,000 mph (107,826 kph) in our orbital path around the sun while also orbiting around Sagittarius A* the supermassive black hole in the center of our home galaxy at a rate of around 514,000 mph. At this rate, it will take me, you, our wet rock, and our star – about 229 million years to make one trip around the galactic center thereby completing one Galactic Year. And all of this, all of us, everything, our entire Milky Way galaxy – is traveling through intergalactic space at around 1.2 million mph (1.9m kph) relative to the cosmic background radiation.
Ponder it.
So far, I have had an amazing existence full of tons of excitement, exploration, friendship, laughter love, and light as well as periods of loss, pain, hardship, and a little bit of darkness.
I was here the last time Haley’s Comet passed by our pale blue watery rock of a dot in 1986 (and I plan to be here to see it again when it comes back around again in 2062).
I rode along in spirit and in support of every space exploration mission humanity has launched since I can remember way back as a 4-year-old kid watching it happen live (well, almost live since round trip communication time between the earth and moon is 2.6 seconds) on TV and then running outside in the yard to look up at the moon where the last Apollo astronauts were bouncing about the lunar surface in the early ’70s. I have since watched in awe, great appreciation, and hope as the space programs of planet earth sent many amazing interplanetary probes to the Sun, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Titan, Neptune, Pluto, asteroids, comets, asteroids, and more. I watched as the incredible Space Shuttles flew on huge pillars of flame and 15 nations set aside their differences to build the International Space Station – a castle of science, discovery, and international cooperation 249 miles above all of us in the “sky.” Today I am elated at the rapid evolution of non-governmental space exploration and travel organizations and I hope to see us back on the moon soon – and then sometime before I kick off – great shiny Starships landing on Mars. Go SpaceX! Just a few days ago I witnessed the mind-blowingly beautiful and deeply data-rich images from almost the beginning of time and space come beaming down to all of us overly encephalized hairy tit-sucking mammals living upon this pale blue dot from the incredible James Webb Space Telescope – and I look forward to seeing more that will come to us over the next 20 – 30 years and am so excited for how much the JWST’s imagery will increase our knowledge of our own cosmic evolution.
I chased nature and wild animals, first as a child for personal interest sake, and later in the name of science, education, and conservation of species. My favorites being the misunderstood creatures of the world such as reptiles, amphibians, bats, Opossums, and vultures.
On a few occasions, my body was invaded by festering armies of microscopic “wildlife” that tried to use me as a replicator for more of their kind and/or end me, and yet, my own immune system as well as the findings of many, many great scientists that came before allowed me to boost, augment, and bio-hack my body through the use of antibiotics and vaccinations thereby giving me a “force field of science” inside and out so I could continue awkwardly onward into the future.
In 2014 I came closest to feeding the soil, worms, and trees when a rather archaic and not that useful part of my internal anatomy (my appendix) malfunctioned and suffered a massive R.U.D. (Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly) – so I had it removed by a robot that was designed by science and piloted by a scientist we all call a doctor so I could continue in my present state of gangly existence.
In 2016 I had an encounter with a wild venomous serpent (Timber rattlesnake) who was only defending himself due to my accidental stupidity and, while I was in no danger of meeting my end – it did really hurt a bit and slow me down for a few weeks (yes, the snake still lives in the wilds of the forest 
) The only way I was able to overcome this one without losing a finger and possibly suffering lasting damage to my body was through the findings of science. Yep, there is that science thing again. Ain’t it wonderful
This past year the current plague impacting humanity (SARS CoV2) finally caught up with me. It was no fun at all and took me out for a week or so but I recovered – again thanks to science and my science-augmented immune system.
On all these close calls (and many I have not even been aware of due to my science augmented/trained to recognize and destroy the “bad guys” immune system via all the vaccinations I have gladly rolled up my sleeves to receive since I was a small child ) I was given another chance at existing in this reality through the findings of science, miracles of modern technology and engineering…and possibly a little bit of some as yet to be discovered by science mystical energy field or omnipotent ancient and possibly extraterrestrial/interdimensional intelligence that, for some really disturbingly strange reason, many individuals/cultures/factions on the planet have coined many different names/stories/belief systems for – yet cannot ever seem to agree upon…and often even choose to childishly take sides, argue, fight, and believe it or not even murder each other over…so bizarre and childlike is the proudest monkey.
IMHO – if this intelligence exists – it is as far “above” us as we are “above” our closest relatives the Chimpanzee and Bonobo…or maybe the bacterium…or the virus. Whatever the case, I’m pretty sure that if it does exist it might be studying us as we study the animals…or the virus…and it cares not one single bit about our posturings on its behalf, the myriad of books we write about it, our childish bickering on who/what it is, who or what is “right” and “wrong,” who uses which bathroom, who’s skin is what color, who is “left” and “right,” etc. – just like we do not care about the comings and goings of bacteria and viral organisms…until they invade our personal space and become overpopulated…hmmmm…something important to ponder if you are able to see deep enough or large enough to ponder it…
At an early age, I became tired of all the factions telling me what to do, how to believe, how to think, how to live my life, and how to be a human – so I chose to follow my own path. I chose to listen to nature, to the evidence and logic and teachings of the wilderness, and to the findings and ponderings of the great minds and philosophies of history. Some may call me a “free spirit” – nice! – thank you! Some have called me “lost” – really, how rude! But whatever the case may be this is my path, no one can choose it for me and likewise, I will never try to force it on you or anyone. You must all find your own path.
I learned to drone a didgeridoo – so very ancient and cool!
I fell in love with a wonderful, beautiful, and intelligent human female called Marian and we settled down a bit…but not too much
A few years later I fell into a wonderful career inspiring, leading, and sharing nature, science, and reality knowledge with amazing at-risk youth on the connections, beauty, and joy of nature, wildlife, science, and life the universe, and everything.
While working to inspire tomorrow’s youth to better themselves by connecting with nature, wilderness, wild things, and to trust science and let it be their guide in life – I have connected with so many amazing human beings in my students and my coworkers – my life has been so deeply enrichened from my time with all of you amazing people and I am so grateful for all of you and your lasting contributions to your classroom and to my personal journey.
My incredible students, interns, volunteers, amazing friends Jim and Bob, and I all worked together over many solar orbits with many more amazing project supporters to build a photovoltaic solar power plant that benefits not only our classroom and campus but the entire local community with clean, locally-produced renewable energy from our nearest fusion reactor in space – the sun! Update: During my most recent solar orbit we all – and some wonderful and most-generous new friends – worked to create a solar-powered mobile outreach classroom called the SS NaSA PoD (Science Steve’s Nature and Science Adventure Pod of Discovery) – that will allow us to bring our nature, wildlife, and science messages to our students and to the region – so cool!
About 10 orbits ago my wife and I started phasing out almost all our connections to nature, life, and future-harming dirty fossil fuels. We have been driving mostly electric since 2013 and intend to soon go fully electric with most of our transportation, energy, and fuel needs coming from EVs and local renewable energy sources.
Just a few solar orbits ago the amazing findings of the science of genetics and DNA sequencing allowed me to connect with my wonderful biological father, sister, brother, and other awesome family members and answer many of the questions about my genetic roots and my connections to nature that I have had since an early age.
And now I find myself near the end of a global viral pandemic that has sadly ended the lives of many and upset the lives and plans of most. As before, I will follow and trust the science as I ignore all the other randomly repeated, vociferous, evidence-lacking, overly emotional, opinions and options and roll up my sleeve and gladly accept the expertly recommended vaccinations against this microscopic attacker (but I did still get the virus – only not as bad as some I know who did not or could not roll up their sleeves). I will continue to trust in science, even with its changeable and incomplete nature, to give me guidelines and support during this global human emergency. I hope you will choose to join me and in doing so, together, you and I will get through this thing – and hopefully, I will still be here to rewrite this yet again next year on this day.
Whatever all the facts and reasons may be, I am very glad to still be here on this incredible and sometimes bumpy but always interesting wild ride through the cosmos with all of you other crazy wonderful, and beautifully mixed-up mosh pit of humans and always wonderful animals.
I’m not sure where we are going or when, where, and why we exist – but wherever, whatever, whenever, and whyever – at least we are making good time and it has been and will continue to be one heck of a wild ride through the cosmos on this one strange rock we all call home.
Thank you all for being here and for riding along on this roller coaster called life with me Now let’s all take another spin around the sun together on spaceship Earth!
Improvise, adapt, overcome, evolve, survive, and thrive.
Live long and prosper.
Bring the change.
Be the change.
Do good things.
Coexist.
One Love.
Peace.
Viral menace! Be gone with you!
The viral scourge has found her and infected she is, but it seems only a mild vexing.
Yet, exiled from society the fair maid has been by the local lords of the magic known as medicine.
Her beloved nature knight, his weapons of choice earth, air, fire, water, and loads of peer-reviewed knowledge freely passed down from the great natural philosophers along with a lot of practical engineering and improvisation, has therefore reclusively retreated into a miniature wheeled home of his own creation.
Within this tiny bean pod-like shell he must reluctantly reside for a fortnight at most – but less in probability – while his princess valiantly fights her battle alone, aided only by countless armies of microscopic bloodborne troops – enhanced by the magical art of medical science – working round the clock to massacre the many millions of maliciously malevolent microscopic monstrosities munching madly in maid Marian’s body.
Nature knight profoundly misses his beauty who is so close, yet so far away just on the other side of an impenetrable wall of wood and masonry – her only company, the mischievous red canine companion and two troublemaking flatulent felines.
The lone lovers are sad yet they know they will be reunited after the microscopic battle being fought within her flesh and blood is finally over.
Therefore, all he can do is wait, wait within his microscopically minuscule science and star-powered abode as he ponders the countless unanswerable questions of deep time, DNA, and the vast ocean of the cosmos – while partaking of vegan ice cream and chocolate stout.
The condensed version: My wife has a mild case of covid, I’m living in the RV for the duration making the best of it hoping it doesn’t get me.
A few days later…
The masked and gloved physician jammed the nasal probe of pain so far up I thought it might bust through into my brain…only to reveal what my rapidly advancing symptoms suggested – the vile microscopic beastie has finally caught up with me.
Frell.
Frack.
Damn.
I hope this thing is short-lived for I have dragons to slay, fair maidens to rescue, and seeds of knowledge to plant.
Be gone with you, vile, villainous, wretched, miserable, microscopic, malevolence! With what little breath I have left I stab at thee with many choice colorful metaphors – and a hefty, healthy dose of SCIENCE!!!
To the rest of you reading this I say this: WEAR YOUR GORRAM MASK AND WASH YOUR FILTHY POXIFIED HANDS!!!
Space is big. You are not.
Photo Hubble Ultra Deep Field. An estimated 10,000 galaxies are shown in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. Photo Source: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/30946
Space is stupendously massive with countless galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars and trillions of planets and moons. Statistically, there must be life elsewhere in the cosmos and IMHO most of it is probably microscopic and/or not intelligent/spacefaring.
However, if there are intelligent, spacefaring species out there, and if they have visited us – then the massive scale of the cosmos and the incredible technology, knowledge, and ability needed to traverse it would suggest these beings would possess technology and intelligence as far “above” ours/us as we are “above” the chimpanzee…or the ant…or the bacterium…or the virus…and lately and with each passing day, evidence reveals that some humans seem to be de-evolving and acting more and more like a virus.
Therefore, as we mostly naked, multi-colored, bipedal, primates will often camouflage ourselves with our technology and technique in order to study other life forms upon our planet without revealing ourselves to them…
…it is very possible the extraterrestrials have similar technologies (yet vastly superior to ours) that would easily hide them from our detection. Yes, that would then suggest that all the blurry photographs, videos, books, and eyewitness accounts/interviews over all the years by all the people claiming to have seen/encountered/been abducted by aliens are in fact – 100% pure and total bunk manufactured by charlatans wanting attention and fortune.
Another possibility exists: they have been here in the past and yet may still be here (maybe not them personally but their technology – think: cellular/internet-connected wildlife/trail camera traps/webcams etc that would allow them to remotely study us from the comfort of their home planet) studying us as we study other lifeforms on earth – such as looking at chimps and deer in the forest, ants under a magnifying glass, bacteria under a microscope, or African wildlife visiting a waterhole…
Check out Earthcam for many examples of what I mean: https://www.earthcam.com/events/animalcams/
It is also possible that many randomly selected and/or “of importance” or “special interest” humans have been “tagged” with 100% undetectable with our current technologies tracking devices (no, not injected via anal probes or vaccinations – oh lord people please grow up and just stop it with the TV/hollywood inspired stories and lame conspiracy “theories”) so as to be observed by these extraterrestrial observers in the attempt to study the mundane and unique among our species and learn more about us as we wildlife researchers work to learn more about the natural life movements of wild creatures currently existing with us on our home planet.
Or, they may, in fact, be so far evolutionarily, emotionally, and technologically advanced “above” us that we are only mere curiosities to them…or of no interest at all…
Maybe, due to the destructive, hateful, selfish, natures, and our viral reproduction and expansion without any concern for future generations – maybe our solar system has been put in a physically distanced quarantine zone far from the rest of the galaxy and its populated worlds until we children grow up out of our dangerous malignant infancy, start taking care of our planetary life support system, and coexisting with each other and with all species on this strange water-soaked living rock we call earth.
Another view of our home. Can you find the earth in this image? Yes, we are there, the tiny pale blue dot hanging in space under Saturn’s rings on the lower right.
A close-up view.
That’s here, that’s home, that’s us.
Photo Source: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/185/the-day-the-earth-smiled/
Home from 1 million miles away.
Photo source: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/86257/an-epic-new-view-of-earth
“It suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth. I didn’t feel like a giant. I felt very, very small.” —Neil Armstrong
It is not over
This thing is not over.
Some of us will get through this thing with science and common sense leading the way and sadly, some will not.
As I learned in the Boy Scouts: be prepared.
1. Listen to the experts – they know more than you – that is why they are the experts.
2. Keep your distance – especially from strangers.
3. Wash up well.
4. Keep wearing that mask.
5. Get that shot and then get the booster.
6. Ignore/report/block/delete the ignorant anti-science and anti-common sense conspiracy “theories” and “natural cures” being fabricated/spread/sold by the covidiots, crazy meme trolls, greedy charlatans, and religiopolitical fanatics crapping their steaming fresh clickbait turds all over the internet.
There are only two options in this thing we call life on planet earth: adapt or die. Science, technology, and good old common sense are the ways we humans improvise, adapt, overcome, evolve, survive, and thrive.
Choose wisely.
Adapt or Die
Nature does not care about us.
There are only two options in the life of any living creature – animal or human animal: Adapt or Die.
This is why we must care for ourselves – and others.
Therefore, as I see it I still have only two options here:
1. I could choose to ignore the experts and treat COVID-19 like a religio-political control tactic or a hoax as some seem to believe it is. If I did this I would either: be just fine(luck)…or I would have a much higher probability of becoming sick (or dead) due to COVID -19 (and/or any other contagious disease). For me, the side effects of contracting COVID-19 have the potential to be far more damaging than the disease: lost wages, possible job/car/home loss, family, friends and coworkers and/or my students contracting COVID-19 from me and possibly suffering lasting damage to their health – or worse – death. Possible damage to the amazing company I work for, the life-long emotional and possible physical trauma associated with bad choices and their implications, the high cost of medical treatment.
Or
2. I could choose to listen to the experts from many sources who are all saying the same thing and follow their recommendations and adapt accordingly. I could wear masks in public and at work, wash my hands more often, physically distance, avoid crowds, and get vaccinated. This road has been long and inconvenient, absolutely no fun at all, redundant, trying and tiring mentally and physically. However, even if I somehow still come down with COVID-19 – at least I am 100% certain that I did my absolute best to protect those I teach, those I work with, those I love, those strangers I do not even know, and myself from this virus.
As I have done since March 2020 and as I see it I have only one option here: I choose option #2.
If in the end, all the reports and “news” hype circulating around SARS CoV-2 one day mysteriously vanish from the scene and if all of it or most of it is exposed to be a religio-political* tool or cruel hoax** – I will eagerly, happily, and publicly ingest a large plate of deep fried, Cajun spiced crow and admit my error.
Until that time I will continue to choose option #2 and I will continue to stand by, support, and follow all the recommendations of the infectious disease experts.
To think that I know more than they do, or that some internet influencer or religious or political leader knows more about infectious diseases than the experts who study these things as their life’s work – is the ultimate of faulty logic and toxic hubris.
To choose not to listen to the experts would be selfish, incompetent, negligent, and potentially harmful to my loved ones, my friends, my students and coworkers, and even to people I do not know but may pass when I must visit a public place out of necessity…and obviously myself.
As I see it a little bit of adaptive inconvenience and a necessary deviation from the norm – is a small price to pay for the health and safety of my family, friends, coworkers, students, strangers, and for my own physical and mental health. I have far too much too lose to even ever consider Option #1.
*I despise how twisted and destructive religion and politics have become and IMHO I believe both should be totally and forever separated – and possibly even abolished. Our future should not be treated like the toxically divisive past and/or a business or a competitive sport.
**I do not believe COVID-19 is a hoax. I have looked at all the evidence, read the peer reviewed reports, have friends who work in the medical profession, and have friends who have had it. It is as real as you and I.
The needs of the many, outweigh, the needs of the few – or the one.
Improvise, adapt, overcome, evolve, survive, and thrive.
Adapt or Die. The choice is yours.
Choose wisely.
Do good things.
MASK TEST
Yes, I am posting this one twice – it is that important.
In the early summer of 2020, as the world went into lockdown during the early days of the SARS CoV-2 (Corovavirus/COVID-19) global pandemic – I noticed many individuals declining to wear masks stating personal reasons and evidence-lacking “reasoning” as to why they would not comply with the recommendations of infectious disease experts all over the planet.
I also noticed several stories of different scientists testing masks to show how they were effective in reducing the spread of respiratory droplets/aerosols between people therby reducing the spread of the potentially deadly virus (as well as far less deadly but yet still annoying viruses such as the common cold).
I decided to perform a similar mask test for my students in my science education classes.
To do this I acquired some Petri dishes (from an Amazon supplier), then – with the mask off and a petri dish held at arm’s length – I coughed, sneezed, sang, and yelled at the open dishes. I then put on a two-layer cotton face mask and repeated the demonstration using a new petri dish. I labeled the dishes and let them incubate for a few days in a warm area – I did not have an incubator at the time but it was June so it was warm in the classroom, therefore – growth happened…LOTS of growth, far more than I expected…it was really gross and it smelled really funky.
The odd thing was that, while the dish that was exposed to my respiratory droplets/aerosols without a mask did in fact have more colonies of growth – so did the plate I had coughed on while wearing a mask. At first, it appeared that the mask did little to stop the spread of respiratory droplets.
I wrongly assumed the error was in the growth media of the Petri dishes so I acquired some new dishes (Amazon) with the same growth media used by many of the other researchers – 5% sheep’s blood – and I repeated the demonstration. This time I also added a table and placed several dishes out at .3, .9, and 1.5M (1′, 3′, and 6′) in an attempt to show how droplets travel outward from the body.
Again, the results were the same – not much difference between masked and unmasked.
I was perplexed.
I compared my results to the others and came to the only possible conclusion: my samples had been contaminated by the classroom environment. The natural dust and dirt on our feet, bodies, and hair that the students and I bring inside with us from the nearby forest and garden, our sloughed off human skin cells and hair, animal/bird dander (we have several free-range chickens), the fact that the building is an old log cabin. Along with all this fun with particulates – the classroom is host to many different species of reptile, amphibian, fish, arachnid, and sometimes even an Opossum. Then there are the billions of free-floating fungal spores and pollen grains from the forest all around us as well as the occasional wandering house fly or gnat – and all the fun little friends that hitchhike on their feet and faces. All these contaminants and contaminant vectors were, well – everywhere. So, my first two experiments were contaminated by the nature of nature.
What to do? How could I reduce the natural contamination factor of my classroom environment to produce a more un-contaminated result? A room air filter you say? Yes, I already had one of those – a big one. Obviously, it could only do so much.
Since it would be next to impossible to make my classroom free of natural contaminants – the only option was to build a Cleanroom to rule out some of the contamination in the hopes of obtaining a better result – so, that is what I did.
The video below shows the results of my efforts and I hope it serves to demonstrate the how and the why of why masks work and why it is important to wear them during a global pandemic. Watch to the end if you are interested in learning how I built the Cleanroom.
This video is long because I choose to be thorough and transparent. To demonstrate this requires procedure and patience. If you are in a hurry and want to bypass all the “meat” of the video and go directly to my findings – then feel free to do so by skipping ahead to the time index of 39:17
Special Thanks to Hardy Diagnostics for assisting us with this demonstration: http://www.hardydiagnostics.com
More special thanks to my inspirations for this demonstration:
Dr. Rich Davis, the Clinical Microbiology Lab Director at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/a-microbiologist-used-a-germ-filled-petri-dish-to-show-how-a- mask-catches-droplets-that-spray-from-your-mouth-when-you-talk-cough-sing-and-sneeze/ar-BB16dT0D On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIpHCptKZUg&t=39s
Dr. Nwadiuto Esiobu, microbiologist, Florida Atlantic University https://wsvn.com/news/investigations/mask-test-fau-microbiologist-checks-face-coverings-for- protection-against-covid-19/
Lourdes Aguilar of UMC of El Paso, TX: On YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q1YOHTP5IrA
Dr. Joe Hanson of It’s Ok To Be Smart On YouTube: How Well Do Masks Work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tp0zB904Mc&t=1s COVID-19 & Mask Myths DEBUNKED!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npXP5wqNzaI
My Outdoor Research Mask: https://www.outdoorresearch.com/us/face-mask-kit-283298
COVID-19 Resources
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/index.html
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html
https://news.ncsu.edu/2020/12/vaccines-koci-101/
https://www.factcheck.org/issue/covid-19/
https://www.snopes.com/collections/new-coronavirus-collection/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronavirus_disease_2019
Even more special thanks to Matt Piper for graciously allowing the use of his wonderful song: Orbital Horizons Please Support Matt via https://mattpiper.bandcamp.com/music https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Horizons-Matt-Piper/dp/B07KPPW42K https://open.spotify.com/artist/5SH8bpbRuHtzrwqlE6zZdc
THANK YOU ALL!
My mask protects you, your mask protects me.
Wear your mask.
MASK TEST
I test several common protective face masks in a cleanroom of my own design.
This video is long because I choose to be thorough and transparent. To demonstrate this requires procedure and patience. If you are in a hurry and want to bypass all the “meat” of the video and go directly to my findings – then feel free to do so by skipping ahead to the time index of 39:17
The back story: in the early summer of 2020 I noticed many mask tests being conducted by different scientists to demonstrate the effectiveness of wearing masks to protect us from COVID-19 (and other nasty infectious diseases such as Influenza). Below is an example of one of these mask demonstrations from Dr. Rich Davis -the regional director of microbiology at Providence Health Care in Spokane, Washington.
Dr. Davis’s example along with others (listed below) inspired me to attempt a similar mask test in my classroom for my students in the attempt to show the effectiveness – and the necessity – of wearing a mask during a global pandemic.
To do this I acquired some Petri dishes (from an Amazon supplier), then – with a mask off and a petri dish held at arm’s length – I coughed, sneezed, sang, and yelled at the open dishes. I then put on a two layer cotton face mask and repeated the demonstration exactly as the first time.
I labeled the dishes and let them incubate for a few days in a warm area – I did not have an incubator at the time but it was June so it was warm in the classroom, therefore – growth happened…LOTS of growth, far more than I expected…it was really gross actually and it smelled really funky.
The odd thing was that, while the dish that was exposed to my respiratory droplets/aerosols without a mask did in fact have more colonies of growth – so did the plate I had coughed on while wearing a mask. At first it appeared that the mask did little to stop the spread of respiratory droplets.
I wrongly assumed my error was in the growth media of the petri dishes so I acquired some new dishes with the same growth media used by many of the other researchers – 5% sheep’s blood – and I repeated the demonstration. This time I also added a table and placed several dishes out at 1′, 3′ and 6′ in an attempt to show how droplets travel outward from the body.
Again, the results were the same – not much difference between masked and unmasked.
I was perplexed.
I compared my results to the others and came to the only possible conclusion: my samples had been contaminated by the classroom environment. The natural dust and dirt on our feet, bodies, and hair that the students and I bring inside with us from the nearby forest and garden, our sloughed off human skin cells and hair, animal/bird dander (we have several free-range chickens), the fact that the building is an old log cabin. Along with all this fun with particulates – the classroom is host to many different species of reptile, amphibian, fish, arachnid, and sometimes even an Opossum. Then there are the billions of free-floating fungal spores and pollen grains from the forest all around us as well as the occasional wandering house fly or gnat – and all the fun little friends that hitchhike on their feet and faces. All these contaminants and contaminant vectors were, well – everywhere.
So, my samples were contaminated by the nature of nature.
What to do? How could I reduce the natural contamination factor of my classroom environment to produce a more un-contaminated result?
A room air filter you say? Yes, I already had one of those – a big one. Obviously, it could only do so much.
Since it would be next to impossible to make my classroom free of natural environmental contaminants – the only option I could see was to build a Cleanroom myself in the hopes of ruling out some of the environmental contamination in the hopes of obtaining a better result – so, that is what I did.
The embedded video shows the results of my efforts and I hope it serves to demonstrate the how and the why of why masks work and why it is important to wear them during a global pandemic.
Watch to the end if you are interested in learning how I built the Cleanroom.
Special Thanks to:
Hardy Diagnostics for assisting us with this demonstration: http://www.hardydiagnostics.com
Beth Banks
Marian O’Neil
Jaelyn Crews Steverson
Matt Piper
My students and co-workers
More special thanks to my inspirations for this demonstration: Dr. Rich Davis, the Clinical Microbiology Lab Director at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/other/… On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIpHC…
Dr. Nwadiuto Esiobu, microbiologist, Florida Atlantic University https://wsvn.com/news/investigations/…
Lourdes Aguilar of UMC of El Paso, TX: On YouTube: https://youtu.be/Q1YOHTP5IrA
Dr. Joe Hanson of It’s Ok To Be Smart On YouTube:
How Well Do Masks Work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tp0z…
COVID-19 & Mask Myths DEBUNKED!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npXP5…
My Outdoor Research Mask: https://www.outdoorresearch.com/us/fa…
COVID-19 Resources
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-…
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-…
https://www.fda.gov/emergency-prepare…
https://news.ncsu.edu/2020/12/vaccine…
https://www.factcheck.org/issue/covid…
https://www.snopes.com/collections/ne…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coronav…
Even more special thanks to Matt Piper for graciously allowing the use of his wonderful song: Orbital Horizons
Please Support Matt via https://mattpiper.bandcamp.com/music
https://www.amazon.com/Orbital-Horizo…
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5SH8b…
Please visit the Earthshine Nature Programs website and consider supporting our nonprofit work with a donation: http://www.earthshinenature.com/donate
Visit our GoFundMe page: https://www.gofundme.com/f/enpsolartr…
Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/earthshinenature
THANK YOU ALL!
My mask protects you, your mask protects me.
Wear your mask.
Stevo's Personal Blog 