FACEBOOK VIDEO EXPLAINS CONTINENTAL DRIFT

What comes to mind when you read the words ‘Facebook video?’

A ‘How To’ video?

A vacation experience?

A medical cure all?

Or geological process?

The first video I saw on a random scroll was LeBron and Curry all excited after a tune up game before Paris.

It’s in the ‘How To’ category for how to play basketball better than everyone in their generation.

Vacation experience usually includes a video of eating, laughing, and drinking.

Sign me up. I like to eat, laugh, and drink. Who doesn’t?

The medical cure all shows an earnest man, a trustworthy man, explaining the treacherous landscape we all tread as we age.

The list includes weight gain, joint pain, flat feet, and no sleep.

To lose weight, increase mobility, gain an arch, and get good rest, just sign up for his newsletter, his blog, his network, to receive a free sample of his secret potion.

I’m a sucker for all of it, but the video that unexpectedly hit home showed the creation of the Himalayas when the Indian sub-continent drifted into a large land mass and created wrinkles twenty-nine thousand feet tall like Mt. Everest.

 

Why Geological Process?

I finished my Portland State history degree as a non-traditional student, usually known as a screw-off who didn’t pay attention their first time around.

Or second.

The non-traditional part included night class and noon class, any class that fit into regular life, work life, family life, because I didn’t pull a bachelors degree in dorm life.

Classes varied between fun, confusing, and wow I’m glad to be here.

Because I needed a particular number of class hours in particular categories I took classes the fit a particular time slot.

That’s how I learned about the Oregon wine industry, the origins of WWI, and continental drift.

Of course I knew about these things, but not in the depth of college-level classes.

What percentage of grape makes a varietal wine?

What were the violated treaties that pushed nations to a world war?

It’s all paid off, but the geology class was the most enlightening in a ‘why does that look so weird’ way.

The professor was a bitter man in his last year before retirement.

Why bitter? He felt he was being pushed out.

His class would have hit differently when I was twenty, but at thirty-nine it was a treasure.

Professor:

Science can be a tough profession. We lost a lot of gifted teaches when we were told continental drift was established science. 

If you didn’t get on board you had to quit. As scientists we go where the evidence leads, or we get out and do something else.

 

His talk resonated with me. Either get with the program or get out.

The unofficial title for the class was ‘Rocks For Jocks’, a class coaches sent athletes to for a guaranteed pass.

Guys showed up for the first class, their girlfriends showed up for the rest, then the guys for the final.

And that’s how you score science credits.

I’m a jock, but non-traditional, which meant I yearned to learn.

Ever since then I’ve looked at road cuts like I’m traveling into the past.

My wife really loves my scientific commentary. Really.

Wife: David, they’re rocks. I get it.

 

Non Traditional Facebook Video Drift

Too often we hear about people doing things they heard about in a Facebook video.

If it doesn’t work out the way it did in the video, we call them idiots; if it does work out we still call them idiots.

Or should.

Who has a Facebook degree? Everyone on Facebook.

Dude: I learned self-dentistry on Facebook. Let me look at your tooth.

Dude 2: I learned how to take out my own appendix. I can take yours out too. Let me know.

Would you let either ‘doctor’ near you? Of course not, you’re no idiot.

While we have certain standards, we still hear things.

Earth was formed in seven days, or two thousand years, or six thousand, which science disputes with 4.54 billion years in the making.

Give or take.

 

Science is one thing we can agree on? No?

If science is a problem, and non-scientists feel so threatened they need to add their opinion, it clouds the picture.

Here in Oregon we don’t ask for more clouds.

Consider government and elections in the same cloudy light.

If some nutty-fuck spews disorganized bullshit to see what sticks, while ignoring calls to cease and desist, they deserve ignoring.

But they don’t stop.

In addition to being a nutty-fucker spreading their nut fuckery, they add to what sticks and people start swaying toward them.

Recent examples?

The man who appointed three judges to cancel Roe v Wade is seen as a pro-woman moderate.

A man who unleashed his nutty-fuck brigade to pound their way into the Capitol on Jan. 6 is the Law and Order candidate.

Thirty-four felony convictions are seen as a badge of courage on one man.

To his followers he is a messiah with devine origins, not a huckster feeding them what they want to hear.

Their failure is not their fault.

The reason they don’t have a good job, a large automobile, a beautiful house or wife?

The Talking Heads never hit better than they do now:

You may ask yourself, “What is that beautiful house?”
You may ask yourself, “Where does that highway go to?”
And you may ask yourself, “Am I right, am I wrong?”
And you may say to yourself, “My God, what have I done?”

 

Non Traditional Man With No Facebook Video

When a man shows up for work at the same place for fifty years he knows the job.

He knows it from top to bottom, side to side.

Starting at the bottom and working your way up does that.

Like the mailroom clerk in movies who becomes the CEO, they are well schooled in how things are supposed to work.

If things aren’t working, they seek a fix, reach out to experts in the field, and create a plan for remedy.

It’s different when a man does one job, screws up, then moves to another job they do so well that they get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

It’s different when the celebrity drifts into another line of work done by seasoned professionals and rides their fame to an election win.

That’s when we learn that they know more about everything than experts in the field, more about disease and medicine, more about global tension and war, more about being a man doing manly things.

Doing manly things like a man includes serving your country instead of denigrating those who served their country.

What was in that service for me?

I learned about people from other parts of the country who did things differently.

Our fellow trainees from the South talked about Saturday nights back home and going out for a ‘shot of cock.’

I didn’t get it then, don’t get it now, and have never asked for an explanation.

Manly things include devotion to wife and family, respect for those less fortunate, and being the best dad without smothering the kids in too much love and affection.

The most manly of all manly things is trust.

If you’re a trusted person you need to show it.

One way is pushing back on treacherous showman taking advantage of folks with lies and deceit leading to ultimate betrayal.

Where does that highway lead to?