Monday Musings

Today, October 28, 2024, we celebrate first responders. The above flag includes the colors attached to the various service providers. Some banners also include an orange stripe for Search & Rescue. The intent of this day is to honor the brave and selfless professionals who put their lives on the line to serve, protect, and rescue citizens in desperate emergencies. They run directly toward danger. Recognition of the extent of morbidity and mortality from accidents began in 1966 with the federal study  Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society . This report showed accidental injuries were the “leading cause of death in the first half of life’s span.” Finally, in 2017, Congress passed the resolution to establish National First Responders Day. Emergency Dispatchers  are the critical link between callers in distress and emergency response teams. They staff 911 phone lines and gather key information to connect the appropriate police, fire, and/or E...

  [ No trigger warning required: this is a non-partisan post .] Election Day 2024 is Tuesday, November 5th. This date is a crucial Federal Election; State and Local elections are also on the ballot. This is the  60th quadrennial presidential election in the USA . Record numbers of voters are flocking to the polls. We voted early to avoid the rush, but even at our rural polling place, we waited an hour. Many locations nationwide have already seen record-breaking queues. The first step is to ensure you are  registered to vote . No further steps are needed if you have not changed your name, address, or previously voted. However, if you have changed your name or moved within your state, you must update your registration. If you have moved to another state, you need to re-register. Even if you have not made any of these changes, it is worth checking that you are still on the roll, as states are cleaning up their databases: ascertain that you have not been inadvertently removed...

Over the past week, auroras have danced in the sky, with visibility as far south in the US as Texas and New Mexico. We have had excellent viewing opportunities in the dark skies of the North Carolina Blue Ridge Mountains. Indigenous societies  have interpreted these sky-lights in various ways. But what do modern scientists say? Solar Cycle 25 is  approaching Solar Maximum , a period in the approximate 11-year cycle when we will see intense, stormy Sun activity. Once the maximum is reached, the north and south magnetic fields of our star will flip, and the Sun’s activity will gradually slow to a “solar minimum.” The  Space Weather Prediction Center , a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administrations (NOAA) branch, actively tracks the science behind solar events. Daily information regarding the number and intensity of solar flares, coronal mass ejections (CME), and the aurora forecast is available at the above link: you can click on the individual areas and watch their pro...

Greetings readers! Much has happened since my last blog on September 23rd. First, Hurricane Helene struck Florida, then traveled northward, continuing through Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and  western North Carolina . The precursor rains in the Carolinas and Tennessee precipitated havoc when Helene arrived by the  “brown-ocean effect.” We were fortunate to live just east of Boone, NC, where the major storm had reached. We had over 11.62 inches of rain in 24 hours, but here at our home’s mountaintop location, there was no flooding. Our community egress road exits onto a small country road that travels along a “run” (Appalachian word for creek) before it reaches Rt 421. The run flooded that road and its bridge. Thanks to our community leaders’ foresight, we have a secondary emergency exit directly onto Rt 421, so we were not trapped. Winds brought down many trees, and then trees continued to fall due to oversaturated ground and pine’s shallow roots. A small landslide disl...