Family, Nature, Science, space

Siblings

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It’s been three years since the New Horizons spacecraft whizzed by Pluto, but the non-planet is still in the news. And the latest news is that Pluto has a lot more in common with our own planet than was previously thought.

Pluto has dunes; they’re made of methane ice grains but are sculpted by winds that reach 24 miles per hour. This may not seem like much but since Pluto has less gravity, the wind doesn’t need to be as strong as here at home.  Pluto also has a wide variety of landforms like we do on Earth: plains, trenches and mountain ranges.  Pluto has snow-capped peaks of methane and Pluto may have an icy sea beneath its frozen surface.  Who knew?

If you could choose ANYONE to be your twin, who would it be?

105 thoughts on “Siblings”

  3. My son is out in Phoenix and he is trying to figure out how to get a job. He worked with me in business (still is but needs work to be able to keep doing it) and now he is settled in to his geography . His significant other finished audiology school and needed to do an externship to finish the deal and ended up in Reno. What a great time to be in reno. Apple Tesla and google are all making Reno home for their second campus (Tesla it’s the first) and so he was disappointed the spot she was working at wanted to low ball her and not pay her when the externship was done.
    They looked and wound up in Phoenix. Phoenix is a nice town and he is working with the jr college system down there but is not pleased with the way it is going. They hired him as part time 20 hrs a week with the idea he would get full time with benefits and better pay. No such luck. His bosses are all quitting because of the politics involved. He is left doing the bosses work so his 20hours expanded to 40 and he still gets bad pay and no benefits. Phoenix is not a hotbed for technology so he needs to figure out how to invent his own situation. His significant other is a happily campke at her job and it pays well but he is left as a blood sucker after waiting to pursue his locked in role until after she located her correct station in life.
    I would like to be his twin so I can go fix it for him. I guess it’s hard to watch your kids stumble. It’s hard to stumble yourself but particularly hard to watch the kids have difficulty. He is a phenomenal vocalist and an amazing sports statistics geek, I have suggested he find a way to be the talking head on the radio / internet sports conversations out there. He is better at spewing analytical sports minutia than 99% of the commentators out there and he is a singer who is a joy to behold. There is a limited life for singers if you are looking to have someone hire you but if you decide to sing it is possible to sing everywhere every day
    . I hope he figures it out and I will keep trying to help but it’s a challenge from a distance.and in truth he needs to figure it out for himself it’s just so hard to not prod and push when it is so obvious. Maybe my twin is Ann landers, I can reincarnate her.. yeah that’s the ticket. Where is ask dr baboon when you need her and her pearls?

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    1. Daughter just started classes for her master’s degree in social work and I am forbidden from asking her anything about it unless she chooses to share. It is hard to sit back, but I understand I sometimes can make her anxious.

      My twins would be Jim Crockett, tbe guy from the PBS show The Victory Garden, as well as Julia Child.

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      1. was davey crockett the guy who was there with jim bowie at the alamo down in the basement?
        davey was a king of the wild frontier
        i don’t think he did much gardening
        he just shot bears
        kind of like steve

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      3. It’s so hard to rear these kids into adulthood, then they becomes too busy or preoccupied with engaging in their career building to keep parents informed. All three of my kids are succeeding beyond my biggest expectations, but they seem to have no need/want to share the excitement with me. I recognize that it’s my need not theirs, but this doesn’t make it any easier.

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        1. Although I am not permitted to ask questions, daughter phones me multiple times a day to tell me what she is doing and how things are going. I just shut up and listen.

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    2. Right here! I have purchased Lucy’s psychiatric booth (Peanuts Cartoon) and am open for business. I will give advice for $.05. Meanwhile, let me echo your comments about how painful it is to watch adult children struggle and find their way. That feels like a sock in the gut.

      While I spent time in Phoenix, I realized that it is a culture of consumers. The economy in Phoenix is all about buying things and using things up, then throwing stuff away. While your son gets on his feet, he might want to try working at Costco which represents all of what I just listed. There are pockets of resale businesses, too, which flourish in communities in which seniors live. People die a lot there. Businesses come in and buy the estate and resell the stuff. Salesmen thrive there. So do criminals and evangelical religion, perhaps in the same organizations. Bedbugs reign supreme. Never purchase used, upholstered furniture, because the bedbugs take them over. Arts and Crafts peddled in Art Fairs are everywhere and very fun. Freeways and crazy drivers rule the transportation system.

      Things not to find in Phoenix: water sources, tech, psychotherapy (it is there but in short supply) good music, sophisticated theater, snow, meat markets, or clear water. Baboons live there only temporarily.

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  4. Rise and Stay Dry Today Baboons,

    My twins would be Carol Burnett and Barack Obama. Right now I would love to be a President of the USA who makes everyone laugh, while paving a road into our future that is creative and sensible.

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    1. two out of three ain’t bad
      trump makes you laugh and his solutions sure are creative
      it’s that third one he falls short on . who would have thought sensible was such a big deal?

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      1. Considering the amount of damage that DT is currently doing to so many people, I’m having a hard time finding what you’re laughing at, tim.

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        1. Here’s a quote from essayist Agnes Repplier (1893):

          A keen sense of the absurd is so little relished by those who have it not that it is too often considered solely as a weapon of offense, and not as a shield against the countless ills that come to man through lack of sanity and judgment. There is a well-defined impression in the world that the satirist, like the devil, roams abroad, seeking whom he may devour, and generally devouring the best; whereas his position is often that of the besieged, who defends himself with the sharpest weapons at his command against a host of invading evils. There are many things in life so radically unwholesome that it is not safe to approach them save with laughter as a disinfectant;

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        4. I am so amazed at the fact I missed that trumps views are so much more prevalent than I ever realized that I shake my head in disbelief. All those people walking by are really those people. How odd to have missed that. The words the actions the inhumanity of it all makes me laugh at myself for being so asleep,at the switch. I suspect they count on our not suspecting the depth of the problem. It’s a defeated laugh of resignation
          I have offered 4 different demos my assistance to go after the bad guys, given my email and sent emails and gotten nothing
          Imam so disappointed with the dem response to the upcoming elections that I question if they have enough brains to beat the fascists
          Makes you want to cry

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        5. I find nothing humorous about Trump’s reign. In fact, I find it threatening to everything that’s made this a great country. Never in my life would I have believed that democracy could turn into fascism.

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        5. I was gonna say using the word “hip” dates Bill, but hell, he knows that. That’s why he used that word. “He’s a real hip cat!” Something Louis Armstrong might have said in the 1930s.

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    2. i missed the . in you measurement and thought you had a gentle 38 inches of rain
      i was prepared today
      (renee that’s called a1/3 of an inch not .338756 milliliter)

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        2. I don’t want to exagerate. Don’t farmers always make everything sound worse than it really is?

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    2. I remember you mentioning this when it happened, Wes. I know that nothing I can say will take the pain and anguish you feel away, just know that I know that it’s an ongoing struggle. I’d like to share here what James Keelaghan shared on his FB page yesterday. If anything good can come from the two most recent “celebrity” suicides, I think it’s that people are reaching out to each other and sharing their own struggles with mental health issues. Here is James’ post:

      “I interrupt the Irish excursion report to say this. A lot of us are shocked by two prominent suicides this week. I do not mean to equate my situation with theirs, but I wanted to say this. I came to therapy late in my life. I have had a lifelong struggle with soul-crushing low self-esteem, with persistent anxiety, with imposter syndrome, with an inability to handle stress in a constructive way and mercifully brief bouts of depression that, while not as serious as others experience, are debilitating enough. I also came from a culture that valued self-reliance, did not believe in counseling that was not from the confessional, and thought that asking for help from a mental health professional was an admission of weakness and stain that would stay with you forever. A culture where people pronounced it psycho-the-rapist, whose sum total of advice amounted to “ on your feet soldier”.
      I’ve come to therapy late and I encourage all of you, every one of you, to seek help when you need it and to not stigmatize those who are seeking it.”

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        1. I just find it amazing that someone as talented and successful as James Keelaghan has and perhaps still does battle with “soul-crushing low self-esteem, with persistent anxiety, with imposter syndrome.”

          I’m not into fashion, so I really had no idea who Kate Spade was, but Anthony Bourdain I’ve been aware of since Kitchen Confidential was published in 2000. He seemed larger than life. I remember thinking when I read it, that living like that would have killed me. He had such an insatiable appetite for life, that I’m having a hard time processing that he chose to end it. He seemed indestructible and invulnerable, and I’m forced to recognize that things are not always what they appear to be.

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      2. I came to therapy “late”; age 41. Until then, I had no idea why/how my childhood experiences had continued to grip my dysfunctional patterns in adulthood. I continued for ten years, but found that 20 years later, some of these issues reemerged and needed more professional attention. I now believe that some issues recycle with each new stage of life.

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      3. I struggled with depression for a decade. You are ashamed to say so. If you mention it, people get uncomfortable or give you Lucy’s answer. I was never suicidal. This comes up now and then in medical appt. because you have to fill out the self survey on depression. I score a low to moderate level if I tell the truth. Drs. Doubt me when I say I was never suicidal. If I had filled out that survey in my 50s, I would have never told the truth.

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    3. How eternally sad losing him will be, wessew. I am so sorry for your loss. One of the most meaningful gains in my life was finally becoming close to my brother after 70 years by making a 26-mile road trip three years ago. 26 hours is a lot of time to talk things through.

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    4. Sorry man
      Don’t blame yourself
      It’s easy to imagine looking back you could have sensed and prevented it but my guess is that you were not at fault

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  8. A big and frightening story in the news right now is the fact suicide rates are spiking all over the country and in many different demographics. The two recent celebrity suicides have dramatized a crisis that has been developing for years. I don’t understand this at all.

    Anyway, Wes, I’m sure this has been difficult for you.

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    2. Minnesota is rising to the top of national suicide rates. The vast majority are farmers who’ve barely seen a profit and are now losing their farms; farms which have been in their family for generations.

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      1. I recall reading in the Danish newspapers back in the very early 60s, that Denmark had a very high suicide rate, especially as compared to the US.
        It was attributed to the “fact” that Danes had better statistics. Low numbers in the US were attributed to suicides often not recorded as such, especially if the person who had died was a celebrity.

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        1. I thought that the Danes have more suicideswas because they had become an immoral heathen people. That was a popular topic among Fundies a few years back. Oh, how terribly we can judge.
          But aren’t they one of the happy nations?

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        2. Many suicides are not so obviously suicides. Without a full inquest drs. And police are reluctant to assign the label. We have a way of forgetting suicides, too. I tried to call attention to teen suicides in the 80s without success. My daughter has tri d and failed recently. Native teens have a much higher rate of suicide. People told my daughter that no ones wants to interfere in Native issues.

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        4. Alaska has the one of the highest suicide rates in the world and is five times the rate of any other state. The vast majority are done with guns. I wanted to mention that Bourdain was a very heavy drinker and smoker throughout his life. The effects of stardom have caused countless celebrity deaths. It’s just an opinion, but it seems to me that the larger than life someone becomes, the more alone he/she feels.

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        5. Apparently things have improved immensely in Denmark since I left. 🙂 Actually, either the Danes have slipped or the Norwegians have improved their lot, the latest survey results show the Norwegians as number one. The Danes have slipped to #3.

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  10. Have made it to a significant point but not the end of this long run of medical stuff, yes even today had tests. Have proven that various treatments for pain do not work. Well, maybe the muscle relaxant a bit, but the side effects will soon start. And, no, please do not start telling how to cure it. Secondly, have proven that baring some test results to come back in a week, I do not have a serious health issue.
    Sat there today waiting in prep for an hour waiting for doctor. I was on time. He was not. Lying on my back in any orientation is very painful. When he came he mumbled something at me and told me to sign, I realized that if you spend your life looking up people’s rearends, you might be apt to become one. Did occur to me that endoscopy if you divide it end-o-scopy and not endo-scopy is a funny word.
    I do in fact have a twin, in appearance, personality, religion, and attitudes. He is sort of a jerk. What is the line about the faults we most dislike in others are our own faults.

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  11. Speaking of Twins, capital T: we went to Moondogs game tonight. Wonderful evening at the refurbished beautiful Franklyn Park a half mile from our house. I would have spend the couple million in other ways, but who asked for my input. They gave out baseballs autographed by Twins. One was by Don Cooper. I might bet I am the only one there who knows who he is and what he has to do with the Twins. That made my day.

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    1. We played the Thunder Bay Bordercats. Must be the same genus as Moondogs. I suggested we should moon Thunder Bay for burning down the White House, but no one was with me.

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  12. Cooper is pitching coach for White Sox. Was a Twin for a season back in 70s I think. A treasured keepsake for sure.

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  13. Last comment and then I will go dark. My preferred Twin , if I can sail back in time, would be, at least on this day, Wright of Derby. I want to be a painter and pontist.

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      1. I learned about him in college from another student. Look him up in Wikipedia, which is a good article. He painted in a fascinating way at a tectonic point in history. He is sort of the painter of the Age of Enlightenment. Now people recognize a complex point of view in his industrial/science art. I love his landscapes. True to the age and his thinking, he painted portraits without flattery. Up in the night I needed something to watch and discovered a show about him to streM. There they called him a pontist, as a fun word to use. Someone who loves, hunts down, and spots bridges in the trainspotter sense. I have a think about bridges, obscure rural bridges, rustic and modern.

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        1. Joseph Wright of Derby. Somehow always known as “of Derby.” They said in the show he is held in greater esteem elsewhere than in England and the U.S

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        2. I did in fact, Google him, NS, but my brain was stuck on Twin, with a capital T, as in baseball player and didn’t find him. Looks like I had the right guy after all.

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        4. Go to artuk.org and search for Joseph wright of Derby. Without the of Derby you do not narrow it to him. It shows 175 of his works. Sadly the way they display his art makes it hard to scam through them Weill.
          This site has 200,000 and growing works of art. They aim to include every work of art in galleries including those in storage. Art Detectives is an excellent BBC series. But you hVeto have Acorn or maybe Britbox too see it. They find art in storage and have it cleaned and maybe restored and see if it is recognized as by the artist. They think it is by.

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  14. I’d like to tell a little OT story on this quiet summer morning. Actually, it’s not such a little story.

    My daughter got a phone call telling her to pick up Liam from school. He was being sent home because he scratched a girl’s forearm. School is literally across the street from the home they are renting. When she picked him up, Liam was vigorously protesting that he had not done a thing wrong.

    He’s eight. Kids that age will say things that aren’t true. And if you confront them, they might double down and argue to defend themselves. Which was what happened here.

    But, back home, my daughter thought Liam was defending himself with so much vehemence she began to wonder. Then he pointed out, “Mom. I don’t even have nails.” Which was true. He bites his nails down. My daughter decided the matter deserved followup. She asked Liam to write a polite letter to the teacher asking them to believe him. And then he would have to present his case to the principal, who is a large man Liam fears.

    Liam wrote the note. Then they crossed the street. The teacher and the frightening principal were standing outside talking.

    I’ll continue this in the next post.

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  15. Struggling with his anxieties, Liam presented his note and reasserted his innocence. It turns out the teacher was already harboring doubts. She and the principal confronted the two girls who had said Liam did this thing. The two girls stuck to their story, then caved. They admitted Liam had done nothing. They were just doing the kind of thing kids do. Liam talked to the big principal and learned he was a sympathetic guy who likes kids.

    There are many ways of looking at this. At a minimum, Liam got a lesson in how life can be unfair . . . and how sometimes it can be fair. He was rewarded for sticking up for himself. He got a lesson in the importance of integrity and reputation. He was rewarded for approaching authority figures with respect and a certain amount of trust. Of course, there are no guarantees. The teacher and principal could have responded badly to being challenged, but this time they did not.

    Oddly enough, this story represents one of the reasons our family moved from Portland. In Oregon Liam attended an extremely expensive private school devoted to teaching environmental principles. I’ve mentioned before that Oregon’s public schools suck because they are not funded, so middle class parents pay a great deal to send kids to private schools. Liam’s Oregon school was filled with brainy, geeky, sweet kids like Liam, kids from liberal parents who would not have tolerated this kind of nasty lie these girls launched.

    One of many reasons to move to Michigan and put Liam in a public school was to help prepare him for “the real world” with all that is messy and threatening about that. This incident turned out amazingly well, but it easily could have gone another way.

    Have a great Sunday.

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        1. High intelligence kids are usually very concerned about justice and at a young age become lawyerly. Mr. Tuxedo going into grade 8 is still a lawyer. Mr. tuxedo, BTW, is almost as tall as me.

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    2. One of many reasons el. Schools are so often snake pits. I find most el. Principals are careful with their power. Salute your daughter for not being an attack parent. As bad as the kids can be, parents often make a mess of things.

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    3. Great story, Steve! Throughout my whole life, I’ve had trouble discerning whether someone’s lying to me or telling the truth, so I automatically believe whatever he/she says, then, when the truth finally does come out I feel like a fool. “Give it to Mikey – he’ll eat anything”

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      1. Thanks. I’ve often said that fatherhood has brought me more joy than anything else. While my experience of parenting was extremely positive, I felt terribly confused when my daughter experimented with lying when she was about nine years old. I really didn’t know how to handle that. It wasn’t a crisis, for all kids lie and in fact lying well is one of the necessary arts of living well. But it caught me off guard. I didn’t know how to handle it.

        The answer, it turns out, was just to ride it out. In time she learned the value of truthfulness (which was one of the things she tried to teach Liam when nobody believed in his innocence).

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    2. Here it is windy (typical), hot (sort of typical) , and humid (unheard of). They predict thunderstorms later.

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  17. I remember a magazine ad from the early 1970s magazines – I had cut it out and saved it for a long time – that had a woman I thought looked like my almost twin, though she dressed much fancier. I thought of her as an alter-ego.

    There is an actress who shows up in The Bletchley Circle, also in the movie Mr. Holmes, that I would like to have as my twin… I have no idea why.

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  19. Our semi adopted sons sometimes in the Cities get mistaken for their twin. Meaning each other. Shows how few degrees of separation there are between people.

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  20. Son starts his permanent assignment as a Minneapolis police officer tonight in the 5th precinct. SW, kinda between France Ave on the West, 35W on the East, Hwy 62 on the south and I 94 on the north.
    He did his training in the 1st and 4th precincts so he’ll be learning some new streets.
    Working nights.

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  21. A few years after I moved to the US, my sister reported seeing a woman on bicycle repeatedly that she thought was me. So apparently I have, or had, a doppelgänger somewhere near Lyngby.

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  22. When Sandy worked at Webb 50 years ago, a paper salesman often visited who even she thought at first sight was me. And as somoften seems to happen, his voice was like mine

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  23. I’ve encountered just one doppelganger . . . or maybe you’d say two. On my first trip to London I met a woman who looked exactly like my college girlfriend. A few years ago I was introduced to a relation of my son-in-law, who looks exactly like my old girlfriend and the woman in London. So is that one doppelganger or two?

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