I heart the National Park Service.

(Or... Yes, that is actually how we Reeds spend our days off.)

"National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst." -- Wallace Stegner


Some personal highlights:

• Night tour of Mammoth Cave (during a tornado)
  
• Camping in Acadia
  
• Best. Guide. Ever. at Adams
  
• Hiking in Zion, Arches, Canyonlands, Bryce Canyon, Capitol Reef
  
• Rafting in Yellowstone
  
• Sunset at the Grand Canyon
  
• Conservation at the Everglades
• Boot Mills at Lowell
  
• Iron Works at Saugus
  
• Counting roadkill in Saguaro (bet you've never done that for a ward service project)
  
• School trips to Mesa Verde and Casa Grande and Montezuma Castle
  
• Poetry at Longfellow
  
• Communing with Presidents Washington, Lincoln, Adams, Kennedy, etc.
  
• National Park passports
  
• Gettysburg roadtrip with Em
  
• Christmas pictures at Organ Pipe
  
• Minute Man with Saskia
  
• Getting lost on the Freedom Trail (a big red line painted on the ground)
  
• Potty breaks at Glen Canyon
  
• Jamestown in the sweltering heat
  
• Plymouth in the freezing rain (on Thanksgiving, of course)
  
• Memorials at night (and also the time we didn't because I was throwing up on the beltway)
  
• Et al.
  

With many more to come. When I retire, I want to be a park ranger.

(In the meantime, if anyone wants to spend 12 hours of their life watching Ken Burns' newest documentary on the National Parks when it releases in September... just let me know. He has researched the story for 10 years, spent 6 years on the photography, and it cost more than any other project Burns has done. Should be great. Nerds unite.)

Herons and Gators and Dolphins, oh my!

(Or, National Park #2)

The Reeds went South last week, to Florida. (Finally got the pictures off the camera.)

Loved it. The Everglades were particularly fascinating. Especially for the self that planned to be, alternatively, a wildlife biologist, a marine biologist, or a veterinarian for oh, about the first 17 years of my life (minus a brief foray into architecture).

My new hero.

(The first in a series of National Park tribute pieces... must mean it's Reed family vacation season)

The Reeds were in Georgia last week, and though we had to detour from our original plan, we ended up spending Memorial Day in Andersonville, GA -- home to one of the largest Civil War POW camps, now a National Historic Site and home to the National Prisoner of War Museum. 

During the Civil War, approximately 45,000 Union soldiers were held at some point at Andersonville prison.  Due to overcrowding, poor sanitation and lack of food and supplies, 12,913 of those soldiers died (the largest number and proportion of deaths of American POWs ever).

The cemetery is sobering.  This is only a fraction of the nearly 13,000 graves, many buried shoulder to shoulder.  

I was struck by one story there.  

A Private in the Union Army, Dorence Atwater was caught and imprisoned as a POW at Andersonville when he was 19 years old.  While there, he was assigned to record the names and numbers of the dead. Fearing the federal government would never see the list after the war was over, he secretly wrote his own copy of the list, and when the war was over and the camp closed, snuck it out. He was eventually able to join with Clara Barton (the founder of the American Red Cross) and return with her to Andersonville to properly mark the graves of the dead.  Because of his list, fewer than 600 of the nearly 13,000 graves are marked as 'Unknown Soldier'.

Nothing he did changed the course of or conditions at Andersonville. But, at 19 years old he recognized an injustice within his small sphere of influence and did something remakable -- make sure that fallen soldiers had a name and that thousands of families knew where their sons were buried. 

RIP

On Sunday November 12, 1978, my mother sat in the chapel of this building having early contractions that would later that night bring me into the world. My mother went into labor in this building! I was blessed in this building. My parents had also met in this building.

Several years later, this building was the center of my social life and church service for six years while living in Boston. Those six years have probably been some of the most influential up to this point in my life, and so many memories are directly or indirectly linked to this building.  I'm sad that it's gone.

Many of you have already expressed your thoughts today, and some of you were even in services there today and watched the building burn down. I've appreciated hearing all your stories. I just felt I needed to add mine, too.

Why this is important.

If you read something like this: Flu overhyped?

Think about this:

Fact 1: The vast majority of people who get the flu recover without incident. The rate of death from flu is very low.

Fact 2: Influenza is extremely common, because it spreads easily and quickly.

Fact 1 x Fact 2 = Low rate of mortality x high prevalence = lots of dead people.

Example: Once upon a time, a new strain of influenza emerged that had a 2% case fatality rate. That means that 98% of people (a vast majority) recovered. When that happened, it killed 40 million people in less than 1 year (winter of 1918-1919).

(Aside: Yes, that happened a long time ago, and medical care is much better now.  For us.  Not true for many parts of the world.  Regardless, there's a long way to come down from 40 million dead people.)

Example: 'Regular' flu is much less fatal than 2%, but still kills an average of 36,000 people every single winter.

Fact 3: Every strain of influenza is different and influenza viruses mutate very quickly and easily... thus, what you think you know now may not apply for very long. Even among 'regular' flu, which is actual 3 different viruses that currently circulate every winter, we know that one causes much more death, one is pretty mild, and the other is mostly only severe in kids. Thus, anything is possible.

Fact 4: There is currently a strain of influenza called H5N1 (also known as bird flu) that occasionally infects people, mostly in Asia so far, and has a case fatality of approximately 60%. Yes, that would be 30 times as fatal as the strain that killed 40 million people in 1918. Thankfully it does not spread easily (yet) in people. (It does, however, among birds. Pretty much sucks to be a chicken in Asia right now.)

Fact 5: This swine flu (2009 H1N1) had never been seen before ever. Anywhere. In anyone. Although the first 5 cases that launched this investigation were relatively mild, how do you be sure it's not a 2% case fatality with only 5 cases? Or even 100 cases? We already know that we have better surveillance for mild illness than severe illness, oddly enough. So even 1,000 cases is not necessarily representative, if they're only testing outpatients. You can't find what you aren't looking for.

Fact 3 x Fact 4 x Fact 5 = It would have been irresponsible for us not to react with an abundance of caution.

Example: We have all seen what happens when you underestimate the potential destruction of a relatively common phenomenon (i.e., Hurricane Katrina)

Fact 6: "The Government" (except for Joe Biden) has never implied anything else. The media have been ridiculous. But, since we (thankfully) do not operate a state-run media in this country, my coworkers and I have absolutely no control over how it gets spun on CNN.

Fact 7: In 1918, there was a relatively mild wave of influenza in the late spring of 1918 before it came back that fall and wiped out 40 million people.

Fact 8: We have absolutely no idea what will happen this fall. 

Fact 7 x Fact 8 = The time for us to be concerned is not over.  Maybe nothing will happen again in the fall.  I would expect, though, that you all would want us to be prepared for the possibility of something bad. Even if it's not 'the big one', a fourth strain of influenza would still mean more people are going to die this winter than would have otherwise. 

(I have many more facts, but I'll stop here. I also have a lot of opinions!  I have spent the last two weeks working 10-15 hours a day on this without a day off, and I do know people are starting to wonder why, so this is my answer. )

On hiatus.

This is my life for the time being: Human Swine Influenza Investigation

There are already a lot of stories in the press and a ton of rumors. If you're curious, that link is the best source of accurate information.

Weird.

When I came home from work last night, I walked across the kitchen to turn on the light and found a random picture of some middle-aged man placed very neatly on top of one burner on my stove.  I didn't put it there, and I have no idea who the man is.  Cue creepy music.

(Somehow this being the picture made it all the more creepy... Hello sex-offender registry.)

In reality it was nothing. My landlord had been over looking at my fridge (which is toast, and currently my freezer is housing some very thawed, very raw meat... yuck!), and most things near it had been moved out of the way.  Given the date stamp on the back of the picture and the thick layer of dust, it was no doubt found behind the fridge.

(I did, however, subsequently check all possible hiding places in my apartment, just to reassure myself. I'm only recently to the point where I can use a bathroom if the shower curtain is closed. I'm a little bit of a pansy.)

I have been a bit skittish these days, though. There's been a stabbing, a couple muggings, and some apartment break-ins near where I work, and I'm reminded that in tough economic times, things are not likely to get safer.  Not to be a downer, just a reminder for everyone to be careful.


P.S. This was my car a while back. Broken into three weeks after I moved here, actually... my own personal welcome to Atlanta! Moral of this story? Be careful where you park in certain neighborhoods when you go out to eat.

Oh, and that it takes the Atlanta PD approximately 90 minutes to respond and take a 15 second statement, leaving you to sit and wait in a not-so-great neighborhood nearing midnight. Luckily I had friends waiting with me. I also have never eaten in that neighborhood since :)