Rips, Rocks and Reefs Program at Shell Beach, La Jolla California

As our baseline changes we lose perspective

In my short life, I've seen the changes along our California coastline, as the quality and quantity of life along the shore has diminished. Pictures of 1950's San Diego show men spearfishing 50 lb. yellow-tale tuna from shore, but today these are gone. Our expectations have been scaled back due to our experience.

RIP Eduation from Water Safety Magazine

Avoiding and Escaping Rip Currents

Monday, 14 February 2011 00:00

Mario Vittone

Hits: 354

Beaches, Open Water

 
by Mario Vittone
At the beach at Cape Canaveral, nineteen-year-old Josh Scurlock looks out at the water.  The larger than normal waves look rough but not too rough so he and a friend go out in them to play.  A strong swimmer – Josh loves the ocean and his new Florida home just five blocks from the beach. It’s Saturday and the sun is out and there is no school and nothing at all is wrong in the world.

Joshua Scurlock in 2008

Having recently moved to Florida from Indiana, he doesn’t notice – or even know how to notice – the rip current that will sweep him out to sea and away from his friend.  Once caught in its pull, his instincts are to head back in.  The land is where safe is and something is pulling him away from it so he fights. Swimming as hard as he can for as long as he can – with his friend on the beach now yelling for help – Josh Scurlock tires and drowns. And though a heroic surfer eventually makes it to him and brings him to shore – he cannot be revived.  Josh never sees twenty.
The U.S. Lifesaving Association says a story like that will happen over a hundred times this year on U.S. beaches.  My hope – and of that Josh’s mother, Dawn – is that they will be wrong.  By knowing what to look for, where to swim, and how to escape one should you get caught in a rip current, your summer will be a safer one.

Rip Currents

What is a rip current? Pictured to the left is a classic example: able to develop anywhere there are breaking waves, these swaths of current produced by water draining from the beach and back out to sea happen all the the time to lesser degrees without posing appreciable risk.
Often they move slow enough to barely be detected.  But given the right circumstances of waves and beach profile, they can develop into currents moving at speeds of up to 8 feet per second – faster than any of us can possibly swim. Ranging in size from just a few feet to hundreds of yards, their pull can be to just outside the breaking waves to over a hundred yards from shore.
How to spot a rip current: As with all risks, avoiding it altogether is safest.  Though not always visually detectable – stronger rip currents can give off some telltale signs.

• An area of water through a surf zone that is a different color than the surrounding water
• A break in the incoming pattern of waves
• seaweed or debris moving out through the surf zone
• Isolated turbulent and choppy water in the surf zone

Often, the best resource to help you avoid rip currents – not surprisingly – are the lifeguards.
Eight out of ten people rescued by beach lifeguards in the U.S. are rescued from rip currents.  Guards hate rips and know how to spot them.  Before going in, ask the nearest guard specifically about rip currents in the area and what the threat level is for rip currents. Also, please check the NOAA for Rip Current Threat advisories by clicking here.
If avoidance fails: If you are caught in a rip current the primary thing to so is to stay calm and relax.  You are not going to win a fight with the ocean.  Swim slowly and conservatively parallel to the shoreline or relax and let it carry you out past the breakers until it slacks.
Contrary to myth – rip currents are not “undertow,” a misleading term.  They will not pull you under the water.  So long as you can tread water or float you will be safe until you can escape the flow and head back.  When you head back in, do so at an angle to the shoreline.  Again, maintain a slow and relaxed pace until you reach the shore or assistance arrived.  If swimming at a guarded beach ─ and you should be ─ they will most likely have seen you and will be on their way out (or watching carefully).
Other tips:

• Swim only on guarded beaches.  The USLA estimates the chance of drowning on a guarded beach is 1 in 18,000,000.
• Talk to the guards about local hazards before getting in the water.
• [Experienced] surfers go out when it’s rough because it’s fun and they are tethered to huge boards that float.* (See note)  If you’re not VERY comfortable in rough water over your head – stay out of rough water totally.  You’re not ready.
• NEVER swim alone.
• There is nothing wrong with making your young children wear USCG approved life jackets to play in the surf. That doesn’t mean you can leave them alone – but it will make them safer.
• Discuss rip currents and how to deal with them with your children. In fact, make them read every page of http://www.ripcurrents.noaa.gov/ and write you a report.
• Swim only on guarded beaches.  I said that twice for a reason.

I’d like to personally thank Dawn Armstrong for giving me permission to use the story of her son, Josh, to get your attention. Dawn is working hard to educate the public in her area of the country about the dangers of rip currents so that no one else will have a story like hers to tell.
* (Note:  Reader Nate L., an avid surfer, correctly schooled me up and pointed out that too many beginning surfers depend on their boards for floatation.  That’s a huge mistake.  Leashes break, surfer’s lose their boards, and then the weak swimmers among them are in just as much danger as anyone else.  Nate’s advice for surfers is “…if you can’t swim out and back from the break without a board, it’s too big for you to go out.”
Thanks Nate – that is a  VERY good point.
disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the Department of Homeland Security or the U.S. Coast Guard.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mario Vittone has nineteen years of combined military service in the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard. His writing on maritime safety has appeared in Yachting, SaltWater Sportsman,On-Scene, Lifelines, and Reader's Digest magazine. He has lectured extensively on topics ranging from leadership to sea survival and immersion hypothermia. He is a marine safety specialist with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Website: www.facebook.com/watersafety

Drowning that doesn't look like drowning.

Drowning? Not likely.

UPDATE: Many thanks to everyone who has shared this important information. Please Click HERE to share this article your facebook friends.
The new captain jumped from the cockpit, fully dressed, and sprinted through the water. A former lifeguard, he kept his eyes on his victim as he headed straight for the owners who were swimming between their anchored sportfisher and the beach. “I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain kept swimming hard. ”Move!” he barked as he sprinted between the stunned owners. Directly behind them, not ten feet away, their nine-year-old daughter was drowning. Safely above the surface in the arms of the captain, she burst into tears, “Daddy!”
How did this captain know, from fifty feet away, what the father couldn’t recognize from just ten? Drowning is not the violent, splashing, call for help that most people expect. The captain was trained to recognize drowning by experts and years of experience. The father, on the other hand, had learned what drowning looks like by watching television. If you spend time on or near the water (hint: that’s all of us) then you should make sure that you and your crew knows what to look for whenever people enter the water. Until she cried a tearful, “Daddy,” she hadn’t made a sound. As a former Coast Guard rescue swimmer, I wasn’t surprised at all by this story. Drowning is almost always a deceptively quiet event. The waving, splashing, and yelling that dramatic conditioning (television) prepares us to look for, is rarely seen in real life.
The Instinctive Drowning Response – so named by Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D.,  is what people do to avoid actual or perceived suffocation in the water.  And it does not look like most people expect.  There is very little splashing, no waving, and no yelling or calls for help of any kind.  To get an idea of just how quiet and undramatic from the surface drowning can be, consider this:  It is the number two cause of accidental death in children, age 15 and under (just behind vehicle accidents) – of the approximately 750 children who will drown next year, about 375 of them will do so within 25 yards of a parent or other adult.  In ten percent of those drownings, the adult will actually watch them do it, having no idea it is happening (source: CDC).  Drowning does not look like drowning – Dr. Pia, in an article in the Coast Guard’s On Scene Magazine, described the instinctive drowning response like this:

1. Except in rare circumstances, drowning people are physiologically unable to call out for help. Th e respiratory system was designed for breathing. Speech is the secondary or overlaid function. Breathing must be fulfilled, before speech occurs.
2. Drowning people’s mouths alternately sink below and reappear above the surface of the water. The mouths of drowning people are not above the surface of the water long enough for them to exhale, inhale, and call out for help. When the drowning people’s mouths are above the surface, they exhale and inhale quickly as their mouths start to sink below the surface of the water.
3. Drowning people cannot wave for help. Nature instinctively forces them to extend their arms laterally and press down on the water’s surface. Pressing down on the surface of the water, permits drowning people to leverage their bodies so they can lift their mouths out of the water to breathe.
4. Throughout the Instinctive Drowning Response, drowning people cannot voluntarily control their arm movements. Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.
5. From beginning to end of the Instinctive Drowning Response people’s bodies remain upright in the water, with no evidence of a supporting kick. Unless rescued by a trained lifeguard, these drowning people can only struggle on the surface of the water from 20 to 60 seconds before submersion occurs.

(Source: On Scene Magazine: Fall 2006)

This doesn’t mean that a person that is yelling for help and thrashing isn’t in real trouble – they are experience aquatic distress. Not always present before the instinctive drowning response, aquatic distress doesn’t last long – but unlike true drowning, these victims can still assist in there own rescue.  They can grab lifelines, throw rings, etc.

Look for these other signs of drowning when persons are n the water:

• Head low in the water, mouth at water level
• Head tilted back with mouth open
• Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
• Eyes closed
• Hair over forehead or eyes
• Not using legs – Vertical
• Hyperventilating or gasping
• Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
• Trying to roll over on the back
• Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.

So if a crew member falls overboard and every looks O.K. – don’t be too sure.  Sometimes the most common indication that someone is drowning is that they don’t look like they’re drowning.  They may just look like they are treading water and looking up at the deck.  One  way to be sure?  Ask them: “Are you alright?” If they can answer at all – they probably are.  If they return  a blank stare – you may have less than 30 seconds to get to them.  And parents: children playing in the water make noise. When they get quiet, you get to them and find out why.
If you have any questions at all – please post them in the gCaptain forums under “maritime safety”
disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author are not necessarily those of the Department of Homeland Security or the U.S. Coast Guard.
For more water survival tips be sure to visit USCG rescue Swimmer Mario Vittone’s gCaptain Page. Or follow Mario on Facebook.
UPDATE: Many thanks to everyone that has shared this important information. Please Click HERE to share this article your Facebook friends.

What is the punishment for killing off an entire species?

End of the Giant Atlantic Blue Fin

A recently published study, intended to provide data to commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico so they maximize their catch of Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, whilst avoiding bycatch of critically endangered Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, suggests that the [0]Deepwater Horizon oil leak may devastate the endangered Atlantic bluefin population, causing it to completely collapse or possibly go extinct.

People Sometimes Say That I Take Too Many Risks?

Life is risk.

Media Links

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• Democracy Matters
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• SourceWatch.org
• FreePress.net Activists Tools
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• Fairness and
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• CommonDreams.org
• Democracy Now
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• The Nation: How to Save Journalism
• Propublica - independent non-profit investigative
  journalism

Fwd: Do Not Advertise List

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Mike Thaller" <Mike@ThallerHome.com>

Date: July 17, 2009 8:34:19 AM PDT

To: <smagallanez@sbcglobal.net>, <mike.russell@libertyoneradio.com>, "'Hector Bonilla'" <hector@bafaccounting.com>, "'Mike Copass'" <california53@gmail.com>, <mariah.dennstedt@yahoo.com>

Subject: Do Not Advertise List

Reply-To: <Mike@ThallerHome.com>

At one of our recent meetings I mentioned the memo of advertisers that refused to advertise on progressive talk radio.  The memo is attached.  The memo went out to radio stations that used ABC Network news and told them who refused to advertise on Air America affiliates and that they should "black out" and commercials for these advertisers during the news broadcast.  This was back when Air America and KLSD had only been on the air a few months.

 

Interesting, I think, that both Microsoft and GE are on the list.  They are the co-owners of MSNBC and later discovered that there was a market for progressive "news" and that profit trumps political philosophy.

 

I'm off to San Francisco in a couple hours.  See you later,

 

 

Mike Thaller

'Mysterious' Ocean Current...

This is not the first time this has occurred nor will it be the last...
We are used to dealing with RIP Currents at the water's surface, but this is a current dangerous for SCUBA Divers.

Thanks to Terry Straight, Scripps Institute of Oceanography, and KFMB Ch 8, divers now will know and understand this phenomenum.



Not so mysterious, but important to know and understand.

Ocean Circulation Doesn't Work As Expected

techno-vampire writes with word that a long-accepted model of deep ocean currents is inaccurate. Deep Sea News has a summary of the research, to be published in Nature. TheWoods Hole press release has more details. "A 50 year old model of global thermohaline circulation that predicts a deep Atlantic counter current below the Gulf Stream is now formally called into question by an armada of subsurface RAFOS floats drifting 700 - 1500m deep. Nearly 80% of the RAFOS floats escaped the Deep Western Boundary Current (DWBC), drifting into the open ocean. This confirms suspicions that have been around since the 1990's, and likely plays havoc with global models of climate change."

Discuss this story at: Slashdot

Homeless Children in San Diego

Homeless Children! In San Diego!!
They turn to prostitution for money!
This is Crazy.

Campaign for Abandoned Youth Trailer: www.stayclassy.org from StayClassy.org on Vimeo.

Beach Bash for Obama - La Jolla Shores, CA

Location
La Jolla Shores
8400 El Paseo Grande
North Kellog Park San Diego, CA 92101
760 438-2529

How to find us
"Look for the signs and banners at the north end of the parking lot."

Obama Beach Bash
Outreach, Fellowship, Fun, Action

Obama and Democratic Slate
Beach Party and Outreach Event
Saturday, September 6th, 2008

Schedule
6:00 AM - Set Up Crew: Tent off 2-3 Fire Rings, Set Up Park
8:00 AM - Volunteers Arrive: Set up Campaign Village and schedule coverage.
11:00 - Start BBQ
12:00 Noon - Official Start Time
2:00 - 3:00 - Candidates Speak
5:00 - Bonfire Setup
6:00 - Close BBQ and Campaign Village, Start Drum Circle and Bonfire

Once Again, Michael Moore Says it Best

Hi everyone,

I received this message from Michael Moore and I thouht you all would like to read it.

Who Do We Vote For This Time Around?
A Letter from Michael Moore
January 2, 2008

Friends,
A new year has begun. And before we've had a chance to break our New Year's resolutions, we find ourselves with a little more than 24 hours before the good people of Iowa tell us whom they would like to replace the man who now occupies three countries and a white house.

Twice before, we have begun the process to stop this man, and twice we have failed. Eight years of our lives as Americans will have been lost, the world left in upheaval against us... and yet now, today, we hope against hope that our moment has finally arrived, that the amazingly powerful force of the Republican Party will somehow be halted. But we know that the Democrats are experts at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and if there's a way to blow this election, they will find it and do it with gusto.

Do you feel the same as me? That the Democratic front-runners are a less-than-stellar group of candidates, and that none of them are the "slam dunk" we wish they were? Of course, there are wonderful things about each of them. Any one of them would be infinitely better than what we have now. Personally, Congressman Kucinich, more than any other candidate, shares the same positions that I have on the issues (although the UFO that picked ME up would only take me as far as Kalamazoo). But let's not waste time talking about Dennis. Even he is resigned to losing, with statements like the one he made yesterday to his supporters in Iowa to throw their support to Senator Obama as their "second choice."

So, it's Hillary, Obama, Edwards -- now what do we do?

Two months ago, Rolling Stone magazine asked me to do a cover story where I would ask the hard questions that no one was asking in one-on-one interviews with Senators Clinton, Obama and Edwards. "The Top Democrats Face Off with Michael Moore." The deal was that all three candidates had to agree to let me interview them or there was no story. Obama and Edwards agreed. Mrs. Clinton said no, and the cover story was thus killed.

Why would the love of my life, Hillary Clinton, not sit down to talk with me? What was she afraid of?

Those of you who are longtime readers of mine may remember that 11 years ago I wrote a chapter (in my first book) entitled, "My Forbidden Love for Hillary." I was fed up with the treatment she was getting, most of it boringly sexist, and I thought somebody should stand up for her. I later met her and she thanked me for referring to her as "one hot s***kicking feminist babe." I supported and contributed to her run for the U.S. Senate. I think she is a decent and smart person who loves this country, cares deeply about kids, and has put up with more crap than anyone I know of (other than me) from the Crazy Right. Her inauguration would be a thrilling sight, ending 218 years of white male rule in a country where 51% of its citizens are female and 64% are either female or people of color.

And yet, I am sad to say, nothing has disappointed me more than the disastrous, premeditated vote by Senator Hillary Clinton to send us to war in Iraq. I'm not only talking about her first vote that gave Mr. Bush his "authorization" to invade -- I'm talking about every single OTHER vote she then cast for the next four years, backing and funding Bush's illegal war, and doing so with verve. She never met a request from the White House for war authorization that she didn't like. Unlike the Kerrys and the Bidens who initially voted for authorization but later came to realize the folly of their decision, Mrs. Clinton continued to cast numerous votes for the war until last March -- four long years of pro-war votes, even after 70% of the American public had turned against the war. She has steadfastly refused to say that she was wrong about any of this, and she will not apologize for her culpability in America's worst-ever foreign policy disaster. All she can bring herself to say is that she was "misled" by "faulty intelligence."

Let's assume that's true. Do you want a President who is so easily misled? I wasn't "misled," and millions of others who took to the streets in February of 2003 weren't "misled" either. It was simply amazing that we knew the war was wrong when none of us had been briefed by the CIA, none of us were national security experts, and none of us had gone on a weapons inspection tour of Iraq. And yet... we knew we were being lied to! Let me ask those of you reading this letter: Were YOU "misled" -- or did you figure it out sometime between October of 2002 and March of 2007 that George W. Bush was up to something rotten? Twenty-three other senators were smart enough to figure it out and vote against the war from the get-go. Why wasn't Senator Clinton?

I have a theory: Hillary knows the sexist country we still live in and that one of the reasons the public, in the past, would never consider a woman as president is because she would also be commander in chief. The majority of Americans were concerned that a woman would not be as likely to go to war as a man (horror of horrors!). So, in order to placate that mindset, perhaps she believed she had to be as "tough" as a man, she had to be willing to push The Button if necessary, and give the generals whatever they wanted. If this is, in fact, what has motivated her pro-war votes, then this would truly make her a scary first-term president. If the U.S. is faced with some unforeseen threat in her first years, she knows that in order to get re-elected she'd better be ready to go all Maggie Thatcher on whoever sneezes in our direction. Do we want to risk this, hoping the world makes it in one piece to her second term?

I have not even touched on her other numerous -- and horrendous -- votes in the Senate, especially those that have made the middle class suffer even more (she voted for Bush's first bankruptcy bill, and she is now the leading recipient of payoff money -- I mean campaign contributions -- from the health care industry). I know a lot of you want to see her elected, and there is a very good chance that will happen. There will be plenty of time to vote for her in the general election if all the pollsters are correct. But in the primaries and caucuses, isn't this the time to vote for the person who most reflects the values and politics you hold dear? Can you, in good conscience, vote for someone who so energetically voted over and over and over again for the war in Iraq? Please give this serious consideration.

Now, on to the two candidates who did agree to do the interview with me...

Barack Obama is a good and inspiring man. What a breath of fresh air! There's no doubting his sincerity or his commitment to trying to straighten things out in this country. But who is he? I mean, other than a guy who gives a great speech? How much do any of us really know about him? I know he was against the war. How do I know that? He gave a speech before the war started. But since he joined the senate, he has voted for the funds for the war, while at the same time saying we should get out. He says he's for the little guy, but then he votes for a corporate-backed bill to make it harder for the little guy to file a class action suit when his kid swallows lead paint from a Chinese-made toy. In fact, Obama doesn't think Wall Street is a bad place. He wants the insurance companies to help us develop a new health care plan -- the same companies who have created the mess in the first place. He's such a feel-good kinda guy, I get the sense that, if elected, the Republicans will eat him for breakfast. He won't even have time to make a good speech about it.

But this may be a bit harsh. Senator Obama has a big heart, and that heart is in the right place. Is he electable? Will more than 50% of America vote for him? We'd like to believe they would. We'd like to believe America has changed, wouldn't we? Obama lets us feel better about ourselves -- and as we look out the window at the guy snowplowing his driveway across the street, we want to believe he's changed, too. But are we dreaming?

And then there's John Edwards.

It's hard to get past the hair, isn't it? But once you do -- and recently I have chosen to try -- you find a man who is out to take on the wealthy and powerful who have made life so miserable for so many. A candidate who says things like this: "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy." Whoa. We haven't heard anyone talk like that in a while, at least not anyone who is near the top of the polls. I suspect this is why Edwards is doing so well in Iowa, even though he has nowhere near the stash of cash the other two have. He won't take the big checks from the corporate PACs, and he is alone among the top three candidates in agreeing to limit his spending and be publicly funded. He has said, point-blank, that he's going after the drug companies and the oil companies and anyone else who is messing with the American worker. The media clearly find him to be a threat, probably because he will go after their monopolistic power, too. This is Roosevelt/Truman kind of talk. That's why it's resonating with people in Iowa, even though he doesn't get the attention Obama and Hillary get -- and that lack of coverage may cost him the first place spot tomorrow night. After all, he is one of those white guys who's been running things for far too long.

And he voted for the war. But unlike Senator Clinton, he has stated quite forcefully that he was wrong. And he has remorse. Should he be forgiven? Did he learn his lesson? Like Hillary and Obama, he refused to promise in a September debate that there will be no U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of his first term in 2013. But this week in Iowa, he changed his mind. He went further than Clinton and Obama and said he'd have all the troops home in less than a year.

Edwards is the only one of the three front-runners who has a universal health care plan that will lead to the single-payer kind all other civilized countries have. His plan doesn't go as fast as I would like, but he is the only one who has correctly pointed out that the health insurance companies are the enemy and should not have a seat at the table.

I am not endorsing anyone at this point. This is simply how I feel in the first week of the process to replace George W. Bush. For months I've been wanting to ask the question, "Where are you, Al Gore?" You can only polish that Oscar for so long. And the Nobel was decided by Scandinavians! I don't blame you for not wanting to enter the viper pit again after you already won. But getting us to change out our incandescent light bulbs for some irritating fluorescent ones isn't going to save the world. All it's going to do is make us more agitated and jumpy and feeling like once we get home we haven't really left the office.

On second thought, would you even be willing to utter the words, "I absolutely believe to my soul that this corporate greed and corporate power has an ironclad hold on our democracy?" 'Cause the candidate who understands that, and who sees it as the root of all evil -- including the root of global warming -- is the President who may lead us to a place of sanity, justice and peace.

Yours,
Michael Moore (not an Iowa voter, but appreciative of any state that has a town named after a sofa)
MMFlint@aol.com
MichaelMoore.com

Allison Terry

How long can you hold your breath?

The Rachel L. CARSON

The Sense of Wonder - by Rachel Carson


The Edge of the Sea - Rachel Carson


The Sea Around Us - by Rachel Carson


Silent Spring - By Rachel Carson


Under the Sea - Wind, By Rachel Carson

McTaggart - the Unreality of Time 1908

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart#.22The_Unreality_of_Time.22_.281908.29

John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (September 3, 1866 – January 18, 1925) was an Idealist metaphysician. For most of his life McTaggart was a lecturer at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was considered one of England's leading Hegel scholars at the beginning of the 20th century and among the most notable of the British Idealists.

"The Unreality of Time" (1908)

In The Unreality of Time (1908), the work for which he is best known today, McTaggart argued that our perception of time is an illusion, and that time itself is merely ideal. He introduced the notions of the "A series" and "B series" interpretations of time, representing two different ways that events in time can be arranged. The A series corresponds to our everyday notions of past, present, and future. The A series is "the series of positions running from the far past through the near past to the present, and then from the present to the near future and the far future" (p. 458). This is contrasted with the B series, in which positions are ordered from earlier to later, i.e. the series running from earlier to later moments.

McTaggart argued that the A series was a necessary component of any full theory of time, but that it was also self-contradictory and that our perception of time was therefore an ultimately incoherent illusion.

The Necessity of the A series

The first, and longer, part of McTaggart's argument is his affirmative answer to the question "whether it is essential to the reality of time that its events should form an A series as well as a B series" (p. 458). Broadly, McTaggart argues that if events are not ordered by an A as well as a B series then there cannot be said to be change. At the centre of his argument is the example of the death of Queen Anne. This event is a death, it has certain causes and certain effects, it is later than the death of Queen Elizabeth etc., but none of these properties change over time. Only in one respect does the event change:

"It began by being a future event. It became every moment an event in the nearer future. At last it was a present event. Then it became past, and will always remain so, though every moment it becomes further and further past. Thus we seem forced to the conclusion that all change is only a change in the characteristics imparted at to events by their presence in the A series" (p. 460).

Despite its power and originality this half of McTaggart's argument has, historically, received less attention than the second half.

[edit]

The Incoherence of the A series

What is most often presented as McTaggart's attempted incoherence of the A series (the argument of pages 468-9) appears in the original paper only as a single part of a broader argument for this conclusion, but it can be extended to have general application. According to the argument, the contradiction in our perception of time is that all events exemplify all three of the properties of the A-series, viz. being past, present and future. The obvious response is that while exemplifying all three properties at some time, no event exemplifies all three at once, no event is past, present, and future. A single event is present, has been future, will be past, and here there is, it seems, no contradiction.

McTaggart's great insight is that this ascent will apparently give rise to a 'vicious circle' or 'vicious infinite series'. On the one hand, the response depends upon the A-series to make sense. To distinguish the properties of being present, having been future and going to be past requires a conception of time divided into past, present and future, and hence of the A-series.

"Accordingly the A series has to be pre-supposed in order to account for the A series. And this is clearly a vicious circle" (p. 468).

The same difficulty can be represented as a 'vicious infinite series'. One can construe the response above as "constructing a second A series, within which the first falls, in the same way in which events fall within the first" (p. 469). But even if the idea of a second A series within which the first falls makes sense (and McTaggart doubts it does, p. 469), it will face the same contradiction. And so, we must construct a third A series within which the second falls. And this will require the construction of a fourth A series and so on ad infinitum. At any given stage the contradiction will appear; however far we go in constructing A series, each A series will be, without reference to a further A series containing it, contradictory. One ought to conclude, therefore, that the A series is indeed contradictory and, therefore, does not exist.

Lifeguard Adventures

Michael Russell, Owner

PO Box 83841

San Diego, CA 92138-3841

(619) 206-4361

mike@lifeguardadventures.com

Secret Societies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_society

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_collegiate_secret_societies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Hat_Club

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skull_and_Bones

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloomsbury_group

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Apostles

Lifeguard Adventures

Michael Russell, Owner

PO Box 83841

San Diego, CA 92138-3841

(619) 206-4361

mike@lifeguardadventures.com

Summer Pictures

Below is a link to some of the pictures I took over the last year.
Enjoy.

http://www.michaelrussell.name/



Big Cool Surf

SAN DIEGO BEACH AND WEATHER REPORT: THURS, JAN 5, 9:30AM
(619) 221-8824

SKY: CLEAR
AIR VISIBILITY: 10 MILES
BAROMETER: 30.22+ IN.
WIND: 3 KNOTS FROM EAST
AIR TEMP: 54 F
WATER TEMP: 58 F

SURF CONDITIONS:
OCEAN BEACH - 4-6 POOR TO FAIR
MISSION BEACH - 4-6 FAIR FORM
LA JOLLA REEFS - 3-5 FAIR TO GOOD
LA JOLLA SHORES -1-3 FAIR TO GOOD
SWELL W 8-10 SECOND INTERVALS

DIVING VISIBILITY: DIVING NOT ADVISED DUE TO SURF
LA JOLLA COVE - CLOSED
LA JOLLA SHORES - FAIR 10- VISIBILITY, LIGHT SURGE

MISSION BAY CHANNEL: CALM FOR NAVIGATION

TIDES:
LOW 7:16 AM, 2.0 FT.
HIGH 12:56 PM, 4.5 FT.
LOW 7:34 PM, 0.4 FT

CONTAMINATION:
NONE POSTED

SAFETY CONCERNS:
LA JOLLA SHORES BOAT LAUNCH, CLOSED

MORE INFORMAION - SAN DIEGO COUNTY ENVIORNMENTAL HEALTH (619) 338-2073
WHEN COMMING TO THE BEACH: ALWAYS SWIM NEAR A LIFEGUARD AND SUPERVISE
YOUR CHILDREN