WRITING NEWS OR VIEWS–excerpts/other news

    New  Book Out, another excerpt below

   My plans were to create an eBook to go on places like amazon.com FIRST, but I have a print book of  Nature vs. Technology  — Who’s Winning?  out there. You can easily access it (for pay)  (and see one eBook version) at: https://booklocker.com/books/13621.html

     We went to Dollywood (am working on a blog page essay on that now) and the touristy Pigeon Forge, Gatlinburg, and saw a “bit” of the Great Smoky National Park too. My friends with us even texted me a pic of the highest point in the Tennessee Smokies, Clingman’s Dome:

   Impressive, right?

Below is another excerpt of the Nature vs. Technology book to whet your appetite:

  Chapter Three:
Good Food – A Necessity or a Luxury?

Food. Here in abundant America, it’s everywhere, such as the local
gas station, supermarket, restaurant, or laundromat. We’re definitely
not Ethiopia, Sudan, parts of Central America where many are starving
to eat (literally). In some big cities, though, the U. S. does have food
deserts or a lack of a grocery store to easily get to. Feeding America
now says in Virginia alone, 658,470 people are facing hunger, with
over 182,000 of them kids. (But that’s a topic for another book.)
In America, even with just a few dollars in your pocket, you can
buy a candy bar and hamburger. Yes, we have a lot of fast food joints,
Chinese takeout, chips you can get at a gas station and gobble up in the car on the way to your next destination. Our attitude toward food is
decidedly cavalier. Any food will do, any hamburger, carrot, chocolate
bar, smoothie, etc.
Is all our food and what’s in it healthy? Why are we so obsessed
with sugar (this writer included)? Refining sugar and using it have been around since about 4,000 B. C. And it didn’t come from the Americas originally, but Southeast Asia, Papua New Guinea being the oldest place of origin.

    But when the “East Indies” Company went to, well, the
East Indies in the 16th century or so, sugar came from India, a great
place of interest. Even before that the West Indies or Caribbean was
growing the stuff, helping, unfortunately, to contribute to the slave
trade.
And it’s been with us ever since.

It also seems to be in everything we eat. Yes, some form of sugar is also in that adorable, spongy Twinkie  treat and soda. No wonder we crave sweets.

What about soda?

Soda pop or just soda (so-called because it has “some” sodium in it) has been around a while. A carbonated mineral water was created in 1783. Then came Hires Root Beer (1876), Dr. Pepper (1885), Coca-
Cola (1886), and Pepsi (1893). Vernors’ Ginger Ale is considered the
oldest though.
(See https://www.rfdtv.com/the-oldest-soda-pop-in-america-belongsto-
vernors.)
So, these “soft drinks” (as opposed to hard drinks which contain
alcohol) have actually been here longer than you think. In 1767 Joseph Priestley, an English chemist, along with others in Europe, came up with the idea of carbonation, or adding carbon dioxide to soft drinks,which gives soda a bit of a kick.

    Even more of a kick was when the Coca-Cola Company actually put some cocaine in its drink, apparently as a pick-me-up. It was not illegal in the 1880s and was not a major ingredient, if you believe the history about it. Inventor John Pemberton actually called Coke a “brain tonic.” Really?
Mostly, that is what soda is – a pick-me-up. It has no protein,
vitamins, or minerals. The sweetener in soda, be it aspartame, cane
sugar, or corn syrup, is not good for you. The February 2001 issue of
the journal Lancet said that in an independent study, it was learned that sweetened beverages increased the obesity rate in kids. For every can of soda a child drinks a day, the odds of becoming obese rise 60 percent.
Additives to soda may not be all that healthy either.
ActiveBeat.com points up the fact that the artificial sweetener
aspartame has been linked to allergic reactions and headaches. The
FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has even found a link between it
and possibly a decrease in insulin sensitivity. Whether it is carcinogenic has been debated by the FDA and WHO (World Health Organization).
(But do you want to take that chance?)… (skipped some)

    People with their own backyard gardens can explore more natural,
organic gardening methods. (This gardener does NOT use the
insecticide Sevin, for example). On NPR (National Public Radio) Mike
McGrath, for years, has given tips on organic gardening on his You Bet Your Garden show (See https://www.wlvt.org/television/you-bet-yourgarden/.)
For farmers not yet convinced of the benefits of natural/organic
farming, there is the Soil Carbon Initiative (SCI). The SCI would help
you by providing a third party and independent verification of these
regenerative agriculture outcomes. Issues addressed would include
biodiversity, improved water use and quality, and rural prosperity. And,
of course, carbon dioxide reduction. And that beats the feedlot and
present monoculture/ industrial production methods of growing the
same crops over and over in the same ol’ place, reducing the nutrients
in grocery store vegetables quite a bit.
One last thought is from farmer/teacher/author Wendell Berry. He
writes about a lack of connection to the land in The Unsettling of
America. He believes we’ve become a nation of specialists.
Specialization, whether it is being an education specialist who doesn’t teach, or inventors of devices with no concern for the effects of these
devices (like “living” on the iPhone), has Americans consigning food
production to agribusiness.

    Berry believes all this specialization separates us and doesn’t create community. A farmer should be seen as a nurturer, he says, not a businessman. We should be growing more of our own food, teaching
kids to plant vegetables, tending toward organic, avoiding refined
sugar. That would be a start toward control of our health, at least. In the nature vs. technology argument, technology has somewhat dominated the argument. Some find this an unhealthy situation.

see also this chapter below:

 Chapter Five – Space, the Final Frontier

(Or Could We Say that about the Brain)

      Space… the final frontier. These are the voyages of Starship Enterprise…. Thus began an American television series whose ideas have continued well past its beginning in 1966, when Star Trek the original series first aired on TV. It was the imaginative concept of Gene Roddenberry, a former pilot and policeman and writer, who projected into the distant future, some 200 years from now, when people would fly to other planets and galaxies at warp speed (the speed of light or faster) to meet with alien beings. They were mostly humanlike in appearance, with eyes, a mouth, walking limbs, something like hands, and in colorful costumes to remind us aliens have a lousy fashion sense.

    Many times, they were more warlike than peaceful, and not too cute – except for those furry round Tribbles, who the doctor known as “Bones” surmised were born pregnant so reproduction was almost instant. What can you say about this? This is great science fiction for sure.

    But is everything about the Star Trek TV shows and movies just a dream and impossible?

About the Future

   Movie character Marty McFly wants to tell you “About the future” (though we can’t yet drive to the past at 88 miles per hour). That would be unrealistic. Is anything in the Star Trek series realistic concerning future space travel and human life experiences?

   Like food replicators. Would that ever be possible? If you are in space millions of miles from earth, there would logically be no grocery store out there with fresh food to eat. In the Star Trek: Enterprise series (with actors Scott Bakula and Jolene Blalock), Bakula as Capt. Archer mentions that “Chef” will make meals, and they always look super-market ready. It’s more likely meals, like those eaten up at the International Space Station 250 miles (400 kilometers) above sea level, are from those vacuum-packed MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), like our military uses.

    But can a steak, mostly protein, be made with some kind of replicator machine?

    Researchers have worked to build chains and layers of amino acids and proteins, almost in 3D fashion. But this would take “tons” of work, and wouldn’t really taste much like steak. And it would cost, like, $330,000 dollars to make, based on an experiment done in Europe.  Mark Post’s team at Maastricht University in the Netherlands worked for months to create a hamburger in petri dishes, but it didn’t taste like much. (No fat or salt added.) Could this be practiced on a spaceship far away? Maybe, if the process were perfected to taste better and cost less.

    What about warp speed (traveling at the speed of light)? If a spaceship “could” approach warp speed, then in no time at all you’d be examining what life there is (or isn’t) near the nearest star, Alpha Centauri (which is actually part of a three star system around four light years away). You could probably survive on those MREs for a while, and if you had a place for frozen vegetables or could plant potatoes (like actor Matt Damon did in that Mars movie, with a hydroponic system of some kind) you wouldn’t starve – not unless there was really no life there, or plants you could grow food from once you arrived.

     As for actually traveling superfast through space, there are some theories about whether something approaching warp drive could be achieved. Scientist Erik Lentz has a theory that would use conventional physics (not the matter-anti-matter machine used in Star Trek adventures). This Alcubierre Drive would somehow contract and twist space using negative energy, putting your ship in a kind of bubble where you don’t discern the great speed you are traveling at. But it would require tons of energy, a theoretical idea at this point. (THERE ARE ALSO CHAPTERS ON THE OCEAN, FOOD ADDITIVES, FLYING CARS, CLIMATE CHANGE, AND ADDRESSING CLIMATE CHANGE AND KIDS WITH GUNS. SOUND INTERESTING?)

(Did you enjoy the excerpt? Let me know: djwriter55@hotmail.com)

I have book recommendations at

https://www.meetnewbooks.com/user-reviews/myreviews/1

An article I wrote some months ago: www.http://radfordmagazine.com/2022/11/18/community-efforts-keeping-the-new-river-clean/

I wrote an essay on solving the “guns everywhere” (and gun deaths) issue in a column in the Roanoke Times   https://roanoke.com/opinion/column/commentary-guns-are-not-the-answer-to-your-problems/article_b3e68b72-0577-11ee-9bee-d7dc189ba710.html

And if you really want to support me, go to

http://ko-fi.com/dj50772   

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