TRIPPING ACROSS AMERICA, BOTH WAYS. A Double Cross-Country Tour.

There is no certainty; there is only adventure. ~ Roberto Assagoli 

For 7 days, from September 18 through September 24, my good friend Chuck and I drove westward from his home in Maryland to Monterey, CA across the United States (US) in his Porsche Macan S. We then drove back to MD in 6 days; from September 29 through October 4. Because of the looong-distance nature of this trip, we wisely (although initially reluctantly) decided to venture in his Macan rather than his 911. After beginning our expedition we realized the wisdom of taking his Macan in terms of our comfort and contentment. Like its 911 cousin, the Macan is one fine automobile. Its 340-hp twin-turbo V-6 engine can reach 62mph in a mere 5.4 seconds, not bad for an SUV. The Macan performed flawlessly, no unexpected mechanical pit stops were required, with one minor exception in New Mexico.

Summary.  Our adventure covered 6,200 miles. We drove a total of 95 hours over 13 calendar days, with an average speed of 66 mph at 24.0 mpg. For those who like to count, that’s a little more than 250 gallons of premium fuel. We traversed 19 states, generally following Interstate 70 on the way west to California, occasionally driving on other interesting, scenic roads, as described below. The ultimate destination was near Monterey, CA where the 6th Porsche Rennsport event occurred at Laguna Seca Raceway to celebrate Porsche’s cars, especially its racing cars. After Rennsport, we headed a bit south and then east, taking Interstate 40 from California back to Maryland, with a few variants, like the famous US Route 66.

Westward.  We drove west on Interstate 68 to Morgantown, WV and afterwards connected with I-70W. After we got into the wider open spaces (beyond Dayton, OH going west, and beyond Barstow, CA heading east) we easily cruised at 100+ mph along the route for a while each day. Insurance against roadside stops by the polizia was faithfully provided by our radar detector and by Waze. The farther west we went the more 100+mph opportunities presented themselves (described below) and we took advantage of them. We and the Macan thoroughly enjoyed touring the US in style and speed.

Our first westward stop was outside Dayton, OH at the impressive National Museum of the US Air Force. Setting aside any issues connected with the rationale for or sizeable public expenditures connected with these airplanes, they are quite impressive. My favorites included the WWII F-82 Twin Mustang, which had a range of over 5000 miles! Here’s a picture of the F-82, which was the last American piston-engine fighter plane ordered by the Air Force.

From Dayton, we continued on I-70W through Indiana and Illinois to the gateway of the west, St. Louis, MO. We stayed at a hotel within 2 blocks of the Arch, which we visited when the moon was rising, as this picture shows. Pretty impressive, yes?

The next morning we continued our westward progress through most of Missouri and Kansas. We passed miles of Kansas wheat, corn and sorghum fields, and stayed in far western Kansas for the night. We also encountered Kansas’ dramatic weather – an impressive dust storm immediately followed by a wind-driven nearly horizontal-rain thunderstorm. Oh, yeah. The next morning was clear and we proceeded into Colorado. After going around Denver we departed I-70 for far more scenic US-40 that winds its way through the Rocky Mountains through gorgeous turning-yellow Aspens. We took a slight side venture to visit the C-Lazy U ranch near Granby where as a youth I enjoyed extended summertime horseback rides exploring Colorado’s mountains.  

We stayed that night in Winter Park. We continued on charming US-40 until we got Dinosaur, CO, where we stopped briefly to see the nearby Dinosaur National Monument. No, we didn’t actually spy any stray Stegosauruses. After that we headed through stunning countryside for Park City, UT to stay with my fine friends Steve and Kara. They provided great overnight hospitality. Thanks.

The next day we took I-80W to I-15 South driving down the eastern edge of the Great Basin. We left I-15 at Holden, UT and commenced our 460+ mile journey on “the loneliest highway in the US,” US Rt-50. As its name implies, there were very few vehicles travelling with us on Rt-50. The stunning high-desert landscape flew by as we passed through valleys and low mountains often at well over 1.5 mi per minute.

We reached our stopping point in the early evening – Cold Springs Station Resort – near Fallon, NV. It was the most interesting place we stopped at on our cross-country adventure. Cold Springs Station began in 1860 as a Pony Express stop. It’s now a motel and RV park, along with a restaurant. Here’s a picture inside the resort’s down-home restaurant. Make note of the several mounted trophies displayed above the rifles used to kill the beasts. The TV is showing professional cowboys riding bucking bulls in a rodeo; what could be more appropriate? The proprietors and staff were utterly welcoming. Our motel room was pre-fabricated. The following morning we discovered the sizeable photovoltaic panel array behind the RVs that provides most of the power for Cold Springs Station. The second picture is looking across Rt-50, and shows how truly wide open this part of western Nevada is.

The next day we drove over the Sierra at Donner Pass, stopped in Auburn where Chuck enjoyed his very first In N Out burger (yum), and arrived in Berkeley. After relaxing for a day at our home, Chuck and I completed the first half of our cross-country tour with the short trip south to Monterey.

Rennsport.  Our Porsche pleasure began as Rennsport VI started on September 27. Because 2018 is the 70th anniversary of Porsche’s building sports cars, this Rennsport was special. Porsche flew over from Stuttgart its very first sports car, the 1948 Gmund coupe, among other classics from its museum. Rennsport is a triennial festival of all things Porsche held at Laguna Seca Raceway, this year it featured over 350 vintage Porsche race cars. The picture below shows several. Other racers included everything from 356s, 550s, 904s, 911s and 935s to the awesome Porsche 919 Evo. The Evo is a 900hp electric-gas hybrid supercar that won the 2017 24-hour Le Mans race. It broke the lap record at the famed Nurburgring track in June, where it exceeded 229mph going down the track’s longest straightaway. For good measure, the Evo broke Leguna Seca’s lap record as well.

Our fun continued when we successfully adopted a Wedding Crashers strategy for attending the festival’s VIP dinner on Thursday night. After crashing the party (not our car) and enjoying pre-dinner drinks and discussions with fellow attendees we sat down. I ended up next to Neel Jani, the lead driver of the 919 Evo. As the picture above shows, my new friend Neel and I had a wonderful time talking about his Olympic-level car racing, his life as a pro racer and my much, much more limited but enjoyable experiences as a Porsche owner and Berkeley resident. The second picture is from CEO Magazine, which wrote a story about Rennsport and took pictures of important people who attended festival dinner, including Chuck and I, on the right. We’re no doubt discussing various Porsche racing strategies with others at the table including the head of Porsche’s North America racing. Chuck is on my right; on my left is my buddy Neel. It was quite a meal.

Eastward.  After enjoying more than our fill of Porsches at Rennsport, we began our trip back east to Chuck’s home. On the way back we took the southern route, mostly driving on Interstate 40. We arrived in Maryland after 6 days going through Southern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Tennessee and Virginia. We made several side trips. One to Winslow, AZ on Rt-66, made famous by Jackson Brown’s celebrated “Take it easy” song, sung by the Eagles. Here we are standin’ on that celebrated corner looking for a flatbed Ford, which didn’t show up.

We next made a brief stop at the Petrified Forest National Park near Adamana, AZ where we saw some very old, colorful and perfectly preserved trees from way long ago. Continuing our drive on I-40E we arrived in Gallup, NM where we stayed for the night at a motel that also had a Zuni jewelry shop. The next morning Chuck noticed that the pressure of one of the Macan’s tires was 7 lb. below normal. We had a going-flat tire. The tire fates were smiling on us and we found a tire shop within several blocks of our motel and they quickly patched the tire. You get bonus points for successfully guessing how much it cost us to have that tire fixed in downtown Gallup.[1] We arrived next in Albuquerque, where public officials and the citizenry have worked to produce impressively designed bridges that are as much public art as thoroughfares. See my Awards section below for more details.

We then drove through the Texas panhandle, where it’s always flat and always windy. We travelled by dozens of rotating, big wind turbines. As we headed to Amarillo, we passed mile after mile of turbines that were part of the Wildorado Wind Ranch that has been generating 370 MW of electricity at peak wind speeds for over a decade.

Next up was the state of Oklahoma, 338 miles wide, that we drove through just stopping just for gas, we felt quite OK about that. We stopped for the night in unremarkable Russellville, AR. This city might not have been memorable, but the Arkansan countryside certainly was. The rolling hills countryside was rich with green plants, bushes and trees that merited a listing in my Awards.

Tennessee was our next and ante-penultimate state. In TN I found our most memorable rest stop, see the Awards. Although I’d been to the Volunteer State before, I’d never been to Nashville. The music/bar scene in Nashville is truly impressive. The city’s almost 240-year history is represented in the above picture. On the right right side is a recreation of the town’s original fort, Fort Nashborough, established in 1779 as an American outpost in Native American territory. On the left side of the Cumberland River is Nashville’s modern NFL Titan’s stadium.

Nashville’s downtown music scene was notable, especially if you’re into Country & Western. And no, I didn’t buy any cowboy boots.

We continued our trek eastward on I-70 and made our last travel day the longest and farthest one; we covered 670 miles from Nashville through scenic TN and VA countryside to Chuck’s home in Maryland. Oh, yeah.

After a day of rest, and as an apres-trip dessert, we headed to the premier Cars & Coffee event in the Washington, DC area, Katie’s Cars & Coffee in Great Falls VA. Chuck knows many of the participants. As usual, it offered an amazing display of all things motive, including this beautiful red Triumph TR-3 (that was driven from Kansas!), parked next to Chuck’s 911.

   Would I call our cross-country highway voyage successful? You bet. Do I plan on doing it again? Not likely. But traveling with Chuck and seeing at ground-level the hugely variegated beauty of our nation, an overused but completely a propos descriptor, was exquisite and delightful.

And now, here are the places we drove through that deserved special citation.

Awards.

Best buffalo. We stopped for gas in Moriarty, NM and got more than gallons. Yup, inside this “gas station” was a stuffed Buffalo (as you can see here) and much, much more. There were rooms full of tchotchke gifts. Who’d of guessed?  

Best dust storm.  The dust storm we witnessed near Quinter, KS. Wow.

Best hot-air balloon siting. After leaving the fine Rocky Mountain town of Winter Park, CO, we sited a beautiful balloon rising in the distance. When we left town it was a brisk 35˚F, so I’m betting the balloon riders had at least very hot coffee to fend off the bracing early-morning mountain air.

Best infrastructure architecture. Albuquerque’s bridges over I-40 use designs that make them and the medians stunning public art. Go here to see the bridge art.  

Best interior wall of a motel/hotel: the Amarillo, TX Embassy Suites’ “living wall” with ivy and other planted greenery in the lobby.

Best public floral display. Heber City, UT where there was mile after mile of giant hanging, flowering plants 🌺 on every street light down the town’s extended main drag. I gave up estimating how much water was being used to produce those thousands and thousands of blooms, but they sure were pretty.

Best rest stop. The Loretta Lynn – Hank Williams rest area. I kid you not; it’s on I-40 near Sugar Tree, TN. Their music wasn’t piped into the rest rooms, but it was memorable nonetheless.

Breakfast. Best: Embassy Suites in Amarillo, tastiest and widest choices, 5 stars. Worst: Days Inn in North Nashville, TN. The proprietor was friendly and volunteered helpful info about where to go to see Nashville’s vaunted music scene. But the breakfast consisted only of bread-toast, coffee and juice, strictly 1 star.

Most topologically surprising state. Arkansas’ rolling-hills countryside was impressively lush with trees and greenery. It was utterly different from the “golden” (aka, brown) California landscape I’m used to seeing in late summer. 

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[1] The Gallup tire store charged us the grand sum of $15 to remove the nail from the tire and install a patch. For their fine, prompt pit-stop service, we provided a generous tip. 

MYTHS COMMON TO BERKELEY RESIDENTS AND OTHERS WHO LIVE IN COBALT BLUE BUBBLES

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world.  Rollo May  

Here are five myths that residents of Berkeley, California may abide by.

1.      The majority of food consumers are vegetarians or vegans.  Nope. The “Vegetarianism in America” study published by Vegetarian Times showed that just 3.2% of US adults follow a vegetarian-based diet. Approximately 0.5% of those are vegans, who consume no animal products at all.

2.      Nearly everyone eats organic food.  Not yet, probably not ever. In 2017 total organic food sales reached a new high, $45.2 billion. However, these organic sales represent a petite 5.5%, also a new high, of all food sold in retail channels in the US. Organic food is more expensive than “regular” food products. Organic price premiums can range from 25% for veges and fruits to over 70% for milk products.

3.      Electric vehicles and hybrids have captured the auto market.  Hardly. L It’s true; the SF Bay Area has had the highest per capita electric vehicle (EV) sales for a while. Berkeley enjoys the 8th highest purchase share of EVs of California cities, about 18%. When you drive around Berkeley the number of Teslas, and to a much lesser extent Chevy Bolts and Nissan Leafs, is quite impressive. Nevertheless, when I travelled 6,200 miles on highways back and forth across the US within the last month, my EV sitings were very far and very few between. No surprise; the market share of battery-powered EVs across America is a meagre 2.4% as of September. If you add plug-in hybrids, the EV market share inches upwards to a frail 3.1%.

4.      Summer.  Summer in Berkeley is a myth. It’s filled with fog and cool temperatures. Daily high temperatures in Berkeley during the usual summer months (June – August) are much nippier than many other places. Visitors to the SF Bay Area during summer are often shocked that they need sweaters, not just t-shirts to feel comfortable during the day. That’s because the weather in Berkeley is dominated by the cool Pacific Ocean. As Mark Twain allegedly stated, "The coldest winter I ever saw was the summer I spent in San Francisco." Berkeley’s warmest (e.g., summer) month is actually September, when the average daily high temp is 74.8˚F. The average high temp for June through August is a chillier 73.8˚F. If you want to be cool, Berkeley’s your place. But to avoid the myth of Berkeley summer, you’ll need to know the way to San Jose, where the average high temp for June through August is balmy 81.0˚F.

5.      Inequality.  For decades the City of Berkeley, and its voters, have been actively engaged in reducing many forms of social and economic inequality. Yet by some measures Berkeley’s inequality is persistently higher; it’s not utopian pure parity. The Berkeley Unified School District was the first in the nation (in 1968) to voluntarily implement a two-way busing program to facilitate desegregation. In June, Berkeley opened the doors of another and new $2.4 million shelter for the homeless. Starting Oct. 1, the city’s minimum wage is $15/hr. It has offered a host of social services for those who don’t have resources and/or opportunities that others have. However, one curious result is that the city’s Gini Index (GI) – a statistical measure of income inequality – is much higher (indicating more inequality) than its neighboring communities. The GI for Berkeley is 0.532 (comparable to that of Guatemala, ranked 10th highest in income inequality). In contrast, the GI for Alameda County is 0.459 and for nearby Concord is 0.389. Why is this, despite the city’s demonstrably broad efforts to provide for its poorer residents? Most likely, it’s because of the fairly large degree of economic "natural diversity" within the city. This is also why the GI's for Concord and Alameda County are much lower, since they’re less economically diverse. In this sense, Berkeley’s lower GI, although concerning, may not be totally dire. 

ANOTHER COLLEGE APPLICATION ESSAY. One More Time with Feeling

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. ~ William Butler Yates

Tis the season. Erstwhile high school seniors are now working on their applications to enter college next fall. This has been an increasingly popular fall pastime for young people, as I’ve noted before. This fall 2.9 million freshmen are starting their college journeys. The National Center for Educational Statistics expects 19.9 million students to attend the 4,627 American colleges and universities this year. That represents a whole lot of essays written in the past 4+ years.

The percentage of US adults that have at least a baccalaureate degree has never been higher at 34.2% in 2017 (latest year available). Interestingly, this share of adults who have attained at least a B.A. degree is virtually identical with the share of US adults who graduated from high school 67 years ago. What a difference a few generations make.

In the spirit of seniors I interact with at Berkeley High School, I’ve decided to write now another college application essay, to my hypothetical first-choice college, “All About University" (All About U). It’s been 56 years since my last essay. I’ll give it one more try with great feeling. Hopefully by writing this essay I can empathize with this year’s seniors, as well as summarize “my story” in a measly 650 words, which is the word limit for an essay submitted as part of the Common Application. The Common App website states, “Every applicant has a unique story. The essay helps bring that story to life.”

There is no lack of online or offline assistance available for those of us who face writing this essay. Over the years, it has become a very large cottage industry. When I Googled “How to write a college application essay” I received 326 million responses in 0.48 seconds, including one that cited the Modern Language Association’s recommendation that the essay be written in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman. I’m neglecting these two formatting suggestions at my own peril. So here’s my unique story; I’m sticking to it. 

My Essay.  Plato’s Socratic paradox states, "The only thing I know is that I know nothing.” My educational life, from kindergartening through garnering a Ph.D., has been devoted to reducing the “know nothing” portion of this paradox. This essay reflects my interest in further diminishing my know nothingness via added education at All About U.

I characterize my formal education beginning, with a tip of my hat to Plato, as knowing nothing about virtually everything and ending up knowing virtually everything about next to nothing (in this case, my dissertation topic). This essay is the story of what I’ve learned and gained insight about. The greater domain of knowledge remaining for me to acquire remains. Attending All About U will offer succor in my quest.

My life has been filled with luck and good fortune because I’ve done the right kind of work that I was passionate about and because of perpetual support of family and friends. Although I wasn’t an all-star academic student throughout most of my K-12 and college career, my optimista nature, social competence, talent, inquisitiveness and ability to envision pathways to achievement were rewarded. A bit of luck was involved in selecting a then-obscure industry – electric utilities – as the focus of my dissertation research. I became one of a small number of energy experts at a fortuitous moment before the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo dramatically changed the US’s economic and energy perspective. Energy was no longer a background topic, it was very front and center as drivers waited for hours to fill their tuna boat-sized cars with gasoline. That crisis suddenly amplified my worth and helped guide my professional career in energy efficiency studies for decades to come.

After retiring from energy consulting in Berkeley, I found another career passion. I decided to “pay it forward” and volunteer my time assisting students at Berkeley High School. Specifically, 12 years ago I became involved with tutoring students who enrolled in two of the school’s college-level economics classes. I’ve helped them to start thinking like economists. Useful economic analysis requires careful, systematic, evidence-based thinking.

It’s been 50 years since I first taught introductory econ as a grad student teaching assistant; my how time has flown. I’m pleased to now be an elder TA, in a sense returning to where I began.

It’s a substantive understatement to say much has changed during the past five decades in our economy. Nevertheless, some overly-aged, now irrelevant concepts – like the Phillips Curve – still reside in these courses’ syllabuses. Despite this I’ve greatly enjoyed working with the teachers and their students. I estimate about 2,500 students have taken these courses since I began. I’m reassured that my efforts have made a difference for a number of them. I’ve also learned more about myself, economics and teaching.

I’ve learned the value of patience, perspective and priorities. It’s crucial to know the details of a particular issue, but also to comprehend the broader perspective and context about how it’s related to the rest of the economy and society. I’ve learned that the most important “law” of economics isn’t the Law of Supply or Demand; no, it’s the inescapable Law of Unintended Consequences.

Another insight I gained in my educational and professional career was to always take advantage of an Open Door policy, referring to the time teachers, supervisors and clients make available for interacting with them. Despite their fears of entering a teacher’s or supervisor’s office/workspace, undergraduates will not be embarrassed by posing questions. In fact, entering their office will directly benefit you because it demonstrates your interest in learning and doing well and positively distinguishes you from many of your colleagues. Just do it.

My education and career have allowed me to travel extensively, meeting fascinating people and seeing fascinating places. I look forward to continuing to expand my knowledge – and reducing my know nothingness – of people and places. Entering All About U will facilitate my journey.  [650 words, oh yeah!]

IT’S ABOUT TIME

But for those who love, Time is not. ~ Henry Van Dyke 

I’ve been interested in time for a long time. I’ve enjoyed books about time, such as The Time Machine by H.G. Wells (published in 1895, perhaps the first popular time-travel story); A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking; and The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov. I’ve delighted in reading poems about time like “Time Is” by Henry Van Dyke, “On Time” by John Milton and “To Think of Time” by Walt Whitman. Movies like “The Time-Travelers’ Wife,” “Interstellar” and “About Time” have enchanted me.

The nature of time has been considered by eastern and western philosophers and scientists for ages. One interesting hypothetical concept is Time’s Arrow, the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time. Arthur Eddington, a British astronomer, developed time’s arrow 91 years ago and it remains an unsolved question. He argued that time’s arrow, or direction, can be determined by studying the organization of atoms and molecules. Physical processes at the microscopic level are believed to be either entirely or mostly time-symmetric. If the direction of time were to reverse, the theoretical statements that describe them would remain true. But assessing time’s arrow at macroscopic levels it often appears that this isn’t always the case: there is an obvious direction of time.

One of the arrows in the quiver of time that’s most interesting to me is the casual arrow of time. A cause always precedes its effect: the causal event occurs before the event it affects. For example, even though birth and death are both passengers on time, birth always follows a successful conception and not vice versa. Thus causality is intimately connected with time's arrow. Not everyone always follows the causal arrow of time; witness analyses that have succumbed to the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.

Economists and time get along uncomfortably. We fastidiously never state a specific number of years that distinguishes short run versus long run trends. Other than to assert as John Maynard Keynes did: in the long run we are all dead. Instead, when pressed by a student, client or Congress-person to differentiate between the short-run versus the long-run effects of economic policies (e.g., price controls, fiscal and/or monetary procedures) economists say that in the long run, all factors of production (land, labor, capital) are variable. The short run is different because at least one factor is fixed in quantity or price. Such an answer is seldom satisfying for the questioner. So it goes…

In the early to mid-20th century one of the hot topics of macroeconomics was business cycles. A nation’s business cycle is the upward (expansion or growth) and downward (contraction or recession) movement of real gross domestic product (GDP) over time, around its long-term growth trend. During this period many economists hypothesized about how long a macroeconomic business cycle actually was, and what factors most influenced it. Arthur Burns and Wesley Mitchell took an encompassing view in their 1946 book Measuring Business Cycles saying the business cycle’s duration can vary from more than one year to ten or 12 years. The Russian economist Nikolai Kondratieff posited in 1925 that the period of a cycle ranged from 40 to 60 years. Agreement among economists about the correct duration of the business cycle has yet to ensue; we’ve moved into other fields of debate. The current business cycle’s period of sustained economic growth is over nine-years long. When will it end? No economist knows.

In recent times, some people have said that time’s been speeding up due to improvements in technology that increase how much we can accomplish or produce in a specific period of time. Economists have a concept describing this occurrence – higher productivity. In 2Q2018, annual labor productivity increased a haggardly 1.3%.

Beyond labor productivity, it seems that digital technologies have speeded up not just work-related activities but social ones as well. Exhibit L for this improved social “productivity” is a cover story in The Economist, “Modern Love. Dating in the digital age.” Around the world, about 200 million people now use dating apps and rely far less on friends and family.

Unlike digital dating, physicists note that the Earth's rotation has been slowing slightly over time. Hence, a day now is longer than in the past. This is due to the tidal effects the Moon has on Earth's rotation. Atomic clocks show that a modern day is longer by about 1.7 milliseconds than a century ago. Do you thus feel any older now? I didn’t think so.

Financial analysts tend to pay far more attention to three-month intervals of time called “quarters” than almost any other time period. The financial world is filled with a plethora of time-dependent factors like price-earnings ratios, debt-to-equity ratios, EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) and working capital ratios (current assets/current liabilities). These and other statistics are dutifully reported quarterly and in annual 10-K reports.

At the opposite end of economists’ and financial analysts’ time spectrum is that of geologists. Geologists’ views of time aren’t bound by minor temporal concepts like quarters, business cycles or unspecified short- and long-runs. Nope, their time periods consist of millions of earth-years covering all of this planet’s 4.54 billion year history (rounded to the nearest 10 million years, which is a great many quarters).

Let’s take a geologic look at the history of California; way before the Gold Rush. Like all other land on Earth California has moved quite a bit during the various paleo-geologic ages. Look here to see how it and its neighbors, once a very long time ago part of Pangea, have traversed the globe, and continue to.

For most of its 500+MYA (million years ago) history what’s now California was covered by deep ocean waters. To set the stage for California’s recent (geologically-speaking) rise above water, the Mesozoic Era (250 – 65 MYA) saw the merging of the ancient Sonoma “island arc” of land with the North American Plate to its immediate east. This merger did not require FTC approval and extended the western edge of the North American Plate into what’s now central Nevada.

The creation of dry-land California happened in the Late Cenozoic Era that began 20 MYA. The North American Plate was overriding the spreading center between the Pacific Plate and the Farallon Plate. This spreading center migrated eastward causing massive crustal extension and lifting beneath what is now the Great Basin Region (which spans nearly all of Nevada, much of Oregon and Utah, and portions of California, Idaho, and Wyoming).

The western edge of the North American Plate then overrode hotspots in the Earth’s upper mantle that resulted in extensive volcanism in the Yellowstone, Columbia River and New Mexico regions. It also created the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains that powder-skiers now enjoy. Remnants of this volcanism include Mt. Lassen, Mt. Shasta, Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainer. By the way, changes in plates’ boundary configurations created the San Andreas and other regional fault systems about 30 MYA.

The San Andreas Fault is about 800 miles long, stretching from the Mendocino coast south to the San Bernardino Mountains and the Salton Sea. Researchers have measured identical rocks offset by 150 miles across either side of the fault. For example, the volcanic rocks in Pinnacles National Park south of Monterey match volcanic rocks in Los Angeles County. Geologists think the total amount of displacement along the fault since it formed is at least 350 miles.

On the west side of the San Andreas Fault sits most of California's population, riding the Pacific Plate northwest while on the east side the rest of North America creeps south. The Pacific Plate is moving northwest at about 3 inches each year, and the North American Plate is heading south at about 1 inch per year. Those inches add up in geologic time. Assuming (heroically) this rate of movement continues unabated, scientists project that Los Angeles and San Francisco will be adjacent to one another in approximately 15 million years, thus making the commute between Santa Monica and Berkeley a breeze.

The San Andreas Fault system moved a maximum surface displacement of about 20 feet in 1906, causing the great 7.9 earthquake, and resulting fires, that destroyed more than 80% of San Francisco. More recently the San Andreas Fault caused the 6.9 Loma Prieta earthquake that played a small part in the 1989 A’s-Giants World Series. This picture I took shows a fence over 40 miles south of San Francisco straddling the San Andreas Fault in Los Trancos Open Space Reserve that was displaced by the 1906 earthquake.

Geologists estimate that over 10,000 earthquakes occur each year along the San Andreas Fault, but just several hundred are greater than magnitude 3.0, and only about 15-20 are greater than magnitude 4.0. Is this supposed to be reassuring for those of us who live along this long, sinuous, moving neighborhood? Are you ready for the next “big one”? It’s only a matter of time.

FANTASY DEMOGRAPHICS

The future is keeping you out of the present time. ~ Van Morrison 

It’s now less than 100 days before the November 6 midterm elections. The media is keen to show its viewers and readers their prognostications about who the election winners and losers will be. Media doyens have been hyperbolically stating how our world suddenly will change after this the most important midterm election since 1066.

I exaggerate. William the Conqueror’s victory in September 1066 did change British history, but he wasn’t elected subsequently. He ascended to the British throne as William I on Christmas day after he, as a Norman, had laid waste to the Anglo Saxons at Hastings.
Maybe our upcoming midterm elections might possibly slip into the “top 10 historic midterm elections” listing, beginning with the one in 1858. Does anyone remember that top 10 election? However, the ephemeral nature of midterm election victories, like those in 1986, 1994 and 2010, means you shouldn’t get your hopes up beyond 93 days.

Nevertheless, it is notable that the Democrats are now confronting a within-ranks struggle for authority. Not too long ago it was the Republicans who were fighting internecine battles between extremist, hard-right factions, like the tea partiers and House Freedom Caucus, and the more “establishment” conservatives. But now Congressional Repubs are seemingly one all too big, content political family under the erratic and solipsistic leadership of the president.

In contrast, the Dems are having their own identity crisis, skirmishing between progressives and centrist “establishment” liberals. Several primary election victories by hard left candidates have blown leftish gusts into the Progressives’ sails. A widely-publicized example is the New York City primary victory of newly-coronated political prom queen, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 28 year old former campaign organizer for Bernie Sanders. Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is an active member of the Democratic Socialists of American and unburdened by any previous government service.

Are Progs ascending in influence and dominance within the Democratic Party? It seems so, according to the liberal media. In the 2018 primary elections so far Progs represent 41.1% of all Dem candidates. Nevertheless, the Progs’ primary success rate (the number of Prog primary winners relative to the total number of Dem candidates) is just 11.9% to date. So far, more centrist Dem candidates are winning much more than Progs, but that’s apparently not really news. The news is all Progs.

In their move leftward the Dems have aimed at a set of assertive constituencies, including millennials, women and minorities. The Progs’ mantra emphasizes expansive government action in the name of socio-economic justice. Progs are heavily promoting policies like Medicare-for-all healthcare; abolish ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement agency); $15/hr federal minimum wage; preserve the Roe v. Wade decision; remedy income, wealth and evermore types of inequality; restore open internet (net neutrality); reestablish open borders; stop discrimination and promote equity based on gender, race, ethnic heritage, age and sexual preference; and support the LGBTQIA2S+ community. Community has become a significant new Blue identity word.

This mantra can be powerful and although individual pieces are eminently worthy, as a whole it’s divisive. It’s contentious because the Dems’ and Progs’ divergent “Big Tent” objectives attempt to juggle deviating racial/ethnic/social groups along with distinct socio-economic clusters of voters. Having this multi-faceted mantra often divides rather than unites their coalition of identity groups.

David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College, believes that many voters can simultaneously take a liberal position on one or more individual socio-cultural issues and may still believe more generally that the liberal vision, like the Progs’ mantra, requires changing the country too much and/or too quickly. Repubs no doubt will raise this issue in their campaigns, as well as how we can pay for all the federal government’s expansion. A recent cost estimate for favorite Prog programs is $42.5 trillion over the first ten years; that's almost equal to the federal government's total expected tax revenues ($44T) in the next decade. 

I believe this mantra, together with the media’s prominent airing of it, helps explain why the percentage of voters describing Democratic candidates as “in the mainstream” fell from 48% to only 33% from 2016 to 2018. The percentage describing Democratic candidates as “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” rose from 42% to 56%. In contrast, over the same two-year period the public assessment of Republican candidates somehow remained essentially unchanged, 59% “out of step” in 2016 and 56% in 2018; 31% “in the mainstream” in 2016, 33% in 2018. These alarming numbers do not bode well for the Dems’ political goal of returning to the majority in the House and the Senate.

Adding more challenge to the Dems’ difficult goal is the continuing issue of election participation for their crucial, targeted voters. In a word, it’s dreadful. Key constituencies of the Dems, like younger and minority voters, have disproportionately not shown high voter turnout in either presidential or midterm elections. This is not a new issue. Hispanic voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised only 9.2% of the electorate and 7.0% in the 2014 midterms. More concerning is that analysts have estimated between 11% and 28% of Hispanic voters cast their ballots for Trump. Black voters were 12.4% and 11.9% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. Young voters, aged 18-29 years, were 15.7% and 10.0%.

In contrast, white voters in the 2016 presidential election comprised 73.3% of all voters; in the 2014 midterm election white voters represented 76.9% of the electorate. Citizens 60 years and older have cast ballots much more consistently than other voters. They accounted for 33.6% and 39.4% of the electorate in 2016 and 2014 respectively. The Progs and Dems ignore white and older voters at their own peril, as they learned in 2016.

Fervent progressive advocates, glowing from their 11.9% primary success rate, dismiss actual recent voter behavior as passé. Instead, they paint a set of fantasy demographics for this November (and in 2020) where expected future demographic changes miraculously appear now which magnify millennials’ and minority voters’ potential importance. In this invented vision, young and minority voters across the US (especially in non-urban areas) will shake off their ballot-filling lethargy and vote progressive Dems into political power.

This Dem, and now Prog, imagined vision has been created more than once, but has yet to produce electoral success. Could it happen in 93 days? Maybe, but to ensure victory I ardently hope the Dems’ promote a less divisive policy agenda that doesn’t cause more centered voters to jump the Democratic ship, or just sit out the midterm. The Progs and Dems need to remember Van Morrison’s apt song lyric, so the future doesn’t keep them out of the present. 

A Post-Election Addendum. It’s Wednesday, August 8, the day after the latest set of primary elections in Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington. Oh yes, there also was a special election in Ohio’s 12th Congressional district that the media obsessed about, even though the same two candidates will be campaigning against each other again for the “real” two-year House seat in just three months.

Once again, Democrat-Progressive candidates lost by big margins. In the Michigan gubernatorial race and in a Missouri House race Progs went down to defeat, despite much media play and personal appearances by Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Neither election was close; each Prog candidate lost by about 20 points. The victorious Dem gubernatorial candidate, Ms. Gretchen Whitmer a former leader in the Michigan State Senate, said during her campaign she refused to support Medicare-for-all, and instead ran with the slogan “Fix the Damn Roads.” Ah, infrastructure.

The Ohio 12th Congressional district election remains “too close to call;” naturally, both candidates are declaring victory. The Repub candidate is leading by a slender 0.7 points, with provisional ballots still to be counted. Despite his apparent defeat, the Dem candidate’s run is being called a “triumph” in the liberal media. Nevertheless, elections aren’t played by horseshoes’ rules, being “close” to victory doesn’t provide any electoral benefit. In defeat, the Dems say this election will spur the Dems’ hopes and represents an ominous omen for Repubs in November. Why; because District 12 has been a true blue Repub stronghold for decades; their 2016 victory margin in the 12th exceeded 36 points. Today the Repubs are  pleased since their full-on Trumpist candidate is actually ahead of his Dem rival, and expects to be victorious after the remaining ballots are counted. So it goes… 

KOKO AND THE VOTERS

It’s hard for the ape to believe he descended from man. ~ H.L. Mencken 

For me the dispiriting reality of our current federal political scene is that the administration’s morally-vacuous, hurtful policies are being countered only with logically-based rejoinders that are wholly inadequate. As we’ve all come to expect, these mostly frail, spiteful but unsystematic policies are founded only on the president’s nanosecond, fact-free demonic impulses, not careful thought. The Republican Congress is wholly complicit in allowing such draconian social and economic plans to stand without reprimand, censure or opposition. The Democrats are guilty of not offering unified alternatives that have a chance of widespread public acceptance. Both parties seem far more interested in medieval jousting rather than crafting solutions for our mounting public issues.

As part of their preparations for the November elections, the Democratic leadership and other critics would do well to remember Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. The protagonist in this novel mentions that he hadn’t understood “how the shameless vanity of utter fools can strongly determine the fate of others.” Neither had most of us on November 9, 2016. But the “fool” is no longer in the closet; he’s in the White House. And he’s successfully playing to many people’s heartfelt fears, not their logic or best interests. The latest Gallup presidential approval ratings show that a formidable 87% of Republicans support the president.

In addition to bemoaning the 18-month tenure of our 45th president and wondering what species he really is, I also mourn the passing of Koko. Koko was a female western lowland gorilla born 46 years ago and died this past week who knew over 2,000 words, and mastered using 1,000 ASL signs. Did she rival our vainglorious president’s vocabulary; we’ll never know. She befriended two of my favorite people, Mr. (Fred) Rodgers and Robin Williams, in addition to large numbers of her followers. The Gorilla Foundation mentioned in Koko’s obituary that she became a renowned icon for interspecies communication. Compared to the political zoo at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, inhabited by a fair number of unknown, perhaps alien species, Koko’s life appeared wonderfully positive and affirmative. Her genuine interspecies communications talents will be sorely missed, especially in Washington D.C.

But back to the political animals vying for elective office in 131 days. As a raft of talking heads has mentioned here and here, the Repubs have been taken over by the gang of Trumpist cronies and the man himself. As usual, progressive and moderate Dems are wrestling among themselves about what path to take for electoral victory and to determine who’s going to assume the mantle of the party this fall.

The Dems continue focusing on identity groups including Hispanics, Blacks, women, immigrant citizens, millennials and the LGBTQIA+ communities. Although Bernie Sanders hasn’t had much success in backing primary election victors so far, he, Elizabeth Warren and other liberals have clearly moved the Dems’ policy and legislative dreams significantly leftward, should they regain actual political power. The Dems’ policy thrusts include single-payer health insurance, sturdy but unfettered immigration, minimum wage based on living costs, universal pre-K and childcare and universal basic income. Each one might be potentially worthy, but will require significant changes, much-expanded government activities and higher taxes.

Whatever messages, tactics and policies the Dems and Repubs each adopts in this fall’s campaigns, getting out the vote on November 6 will be crucial for success, as always. Recently the US Census has made available data describing the composition and participation of people who registered for and voted in the November 2016 presidential election. These data confirm the long-standing challenges of getting younger and minority citizens to actually vote. Midterm election voter turnout has been miserable. Only 36.4% of eligible voters voted in the 2014 midterm elections.  
     The following table summarizes the reported voter participation for the November 2016 election. Overall, just 56% of citizens voted in the last presidential election. The US ranked 26th out of 35 highly-developed, democratic nations in voter turnout. 

Reported Voting Participation in the November 2016 Election

Population Segment		Total Reported Voting
Total Population, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		56.0%
18-24yrs		39.4%
65-74yrs		70.1%
Hispanic, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		32.5%
18-24yrs		27.2%
65-74yrs		47.8%
White Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		58.2%
18-24yrs		41.1%
65-74yrs		72.0%
Black Alone, Both Sexes
18yrs+older		55.9%
18-24yrs		40.2%
65-74yrs		62.1%
Education Level, Both Sexes, 18yrs+older
9th-12th grade, no diploma		29.3%
High School graduate		47.4%
B.A. degree		69.2%
Advanced Degree		73.9%
Source: Current Population Survey, Nov. 2016.
By Segment: Highest voting rate in Bold; Lowest
voting rate in Italics.

As the table shows, young voters (18 to 24 years old) across the US voted only 70% as often as the overall total population (18 years and older). Black voters participated at the same rate as all voters. However Hispanic voters, a key Democrat target, participated only 58% as often as the total voter population. The Dems have yet to figure out how to motivate more young and Hispanic citizens to step inside a voting booth. Expectedly, the more educated a voter is, the higher is his/her voter participation rate. Voters with a B.A. degree participated 24% more often than the total population.

Perhaps the 2018 midterm elections will be different than 2016; they’ll need to be. For Dems, encouraging information about this year’s primary elections is that their supporters have been turning out and voting in record numbers. If that also happens in November, Democrats in the Congress may be celebrating the beginnings of a really super-divided federal government. Oh yeah. And it’s a l o n g road before that may happen. The primary season doesn’t actually end until November 6, when Louisiana holds its primary for all parties on the same day the rest of the country holds the general election. Go figure.

In the meantime I’m going to pause for several moments each day to remember Koko and her extra-ordinary accomplishments that aided humans in a purely positive fashion. We need more Koko’s and far fewer kooks inside the DC Beltway and beyond.

DOWN AND DIRTY IN BECKLEY, BEREA AND BITTER CREEK

People don’t slip. Time catches up with them. ~ Nat King Cole 

Has time caught up with our utterly ungreen president? Democrats avoided potential calamity in Tuesday’s primary elections – overblown by the media – by voting for “electable” candidates to run in November’s general elections. Bernie Sanders’ favs, once again, weren’t that successful. Perhaps the Dems success will be an omen for the president. Can we expect the November election results will verify that Nat King Cole’s adage applies to the president and his chaos? Here’s hoping.

And speaking of king coal, the president and his con-men minions are continuing to create environmental havoc for Beckley, West Virginia; Berea, Kentucky; Bitter Creek, Wyoming and everywhere else. Last week President Trump ordered the Department of Energy (DOE), with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) compliance, to change their policies and extend the lifetimes of aged coal-fired and nuclear power plants. He wants to feed the gorilla of global warming. Specifically, the president instructed his fossil-focused Energy Secretary Rick Perry to “prepare immediate steps” to stop mothballing unprofitable, older coal and nuclear plants around the country. This policy change will reverse the greening of electric power and will reward his lumps of carbon (aka, coal) loving men who provided significant financial support to his campaign. This change will provide the rest of us with darker and dirtier air and water.

I specifically mention Beckley, Berea and Bitter Creek because they are cities located in the three states that are most dependent on coal for producing electric power. West Virginia produces 95.6% of its electricity from coal-fired power plants; Kentucky kWh's have a 92% coal dependency; and Wyoming has 87.3% coal-centric electricity. These states aren’t typical; but at least 10 states have coal-powered electricity greater than 60%. Nationally, the share of electricity produced from coal has steadily declined for the past 30 years. Over 90% of the coal consumed in the US is used to generate electricity. In 2014 39% of US power generation was coal-fired, by 2017 dirty coal’s share dropped to 30.1%. Electricity generated from-renewable sources now represents 17.1% of all kWh generated.
It's been a very long time - since Ronald Reagan was president - that old king coal was merry. Thus when Donald Trump vowed to end the misnamed “war on coal” coal barons rallied to his side with bucket-fulls of cash. Trump’s campaign received at least $240,000 from employees or PACs of coal companies. The president and his grifter-infested administration have been attempting to pay them back for their fiscal largesse ever since.

In September 2017 Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry asked the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) that regulates the electricity industry to adopt a new policy that would bail out the coal and nuclear industries at the expense of increasing the cost of electricity for all customers. The FERC wisely rejected this costly “lame idea” subsidy in January. But the President came back last week with a second attempt to reward his coal baron friends. As mentioned above, this time he ordered Sec. Perry to keep aging coal and nuclear plants running. The proposed plan would require operators of the nation’s electricity grid to continue buying power or generating capacity from unprofitable coal and nuclear plants that are now scheduled to be retired. Who would pay the extra expense? Every electric utility customer in the US.

Under the guise of “national security” these plants would allegedly ensure in the president’s mistaken view that domestic power plants are available if a national emergency happens. But “national security” is simply an unconvincing pretext for offering fiscal largesse to his brown power buddies. The Trump administration seems fixated on using “national security” to justify taxpayer/consumer payments to the president’s chums. It’s a recurrent motif of this administration to weakly disguise their ultimate motive, this time to subsidize coal and nuclear power plants through non-market, administrative means and put our money in coal barons’ pockets. As you may recall, Trump also used national security to contemptibly justify increased tariffs on imported steel and aluminum from our allies. OMG.

This scheme to keep Beckley’s (and many other communities’) air and water polluted by old coal-fired power facilities is both misbegotten and ill-conceived. As King Coal should be biting the dust, wannabe king Donald bites the DOE and EPA to our detriment.