This is a collection of articles dealing with organic gardening, ecology, environmental restoration, news items of interest, travel and just about anything else I find of interest and willing to share with others around the globe. - ENJOY!
"Life goes on though, and fires are not unnatural"
Margarethe Brummermann
Image - CNN
Annimated Graph - USA Today
The quote at the top of the post is from Margarethe Brummermann, Biologist from Dortmund Germany who resides in the Tucson area. She had written a post about Mount Lemmon which towers above Tucson to the north. I made a comment on her page about how my wife and I had driven up to Mount Lemmon last year May 2016 and how sad we were to see so much of the forest destroyed by wildfires. I made mentioned how I had first visited Mount Lemmon back in the late 1970s and there was hardly ever a scene where wildfire had damage anything. There was always the occasional snag here and there, but forests and even the high desert scrub were always able to recovery properly. That has all changed now. But her reply to me was simply, "Life goes on though, and fires are not unnatural."Her viewpoint is reflective of most all fire ecologists who champion fire as natural, yet often times have a hard time differentiating between human (especially if Native American) and lightning caused fires. Earlier this year, Fire Ecologist, Jennifer Balch, and other researchers revealed that 84% of all wildfires are human caused. Oh, but it get's even worse. They found that the actual figure for California, Oregon, Washington and on up to British Columbia in Canada is actually a figure at 90% human caused. So it question begs, is that something we should consider natural or unnatural ??? I only ask because humans today are considered unexceptional and nothing more than animals if you read the latest scientific literature on the subject. Don't get me wrong here, I don't believe anything as asinine as that. But it does reveal how an ideologically driven worldview can infect and distort the practice of Science and create ignorance as opposed to understanding. Historically, the majority of wildfires on Mount Lemmon have had a human cause. This has also exacerbated theproblem of human introduced non-native, Buffel Grass, to invade clear up through the Saguaro Forests into the mid-elevation ranges of the Mount Lemmon. Here is that interesting finding regarding the human 90% origined cause of most wildfires at present.
Last year when we traveled up the Mount Lemmon highway, we were greeted all along the way by an overwhelming sea of Buffelgrass which blanketed all areas of the Santa Catalina Mountains near Tucson. Researchers say warming temperatures and fewer winter freezes are helping the invasive plant spread, posing a threat to saguaro cactuses and other native plants. The Tucson Sentinel even had an article with a chilling title, "Arizona without Saguaros? As climate warms, desert's future uncertain." The Saguaros are such an iconic symbol of Arizona and the Sonoran Desert. But they cannot take wildfire. They have no protection against it. I can't hardly imagine them being eliminated permanently.
Grant Martin/Cronkite News Service
Bromus tectorum, an invasive species commonly called “cheatgrass,” grows in an area of the Coconino National Forest burned in a 1996 wildfire. I strongly dislike Cheatgrass. This is the invasive noxious weed whose stickers you have to pull out of your socks every so often down the trail when you go on a hike.
Grant Martin/Cronkite News Service
Researchers say this area of the Coconino National Forest, which burned in 1996, is decades away from returning to its native state, if it ever does. They say rising temperatures have weakened trees, raising the potential for devastating wildfires that will open the door to invasive species. Don't expect recovery anytime soon.
Image - Getty Images
I remember reading the fire ecology literature some time back in 2006. There was an account written by Arizona Historian Marshall Trimball of the old west in New Mexico, when a Cavalry Officer was complaining to his superiors about his men smoking cigarettes and dropping them along the trail as they all rode horseback. The problem was they were starting grass fires from their careless bad habit. Of course this was in the 1800s, when Indians still existed and practiced their ecological conservation with fire. Yet hsitorical writings from the 1800s relay that they used fires to war against their enemies. Not exactly eco-friendly. I know, it destroys the narrative. This 1800s is the time period for celebration for most fire ecologists who champion how natural the forested ecosystems all were back then because of Indians. But as I've questioned this before, if fire ecologists were looking at the world back then and telling us how natural wildfire played in ecology of all plant community systems, how did they reconcile white European Soldiers starting fires with their cigarette butts ? Was that a good thing for Nature ? How did this factor into their research of what was good for the plant community environment ? Native Americans generally get a free pass on why they started fires and they really shouldn't. See the post, Dances With Myths. But now what about the white man back then ? Today there is a movement to down grade human beings as not being so exceptional. Mankind is now being considered nothing more than animals equal to everything else. Does this now mean that the research on wildfire causes being 84% human fault provide us a new designation of the term, "Natural" ??? 😲 Would it mean that humans carelessly throwing down a cigarette butt today should now be considered perfectly normal behaviour ??? 😟 We seem to be living in a time period of redefining everything from it's historical normalcy.
But what about all those heavy Rains🚿 ??? Didn't things get better ??? 🌳
Image - Pismo Hotels
This year's rainy season of 2017, California experienced one of those unprecedented rainy seasons, after four years of serious intense drought. But everyone cheered Hooray 🙌 and celebrated with waving pom poms that all was well again in California again. The drought was now over, or was it. Indeed, heavy rains came, even to the point of major flooding events up and down the state. While there were some very clear catastrophic negatives, one of the great joys of all that rain brought out a spectacular display of wildflower blooms. Starting in early March, flowers popped up all across Southern and Central California and produced some seriously spectacular scenery. The photo opportunity didn't go unnoticed nor wasted by many of the non-profit eco-activist groups hoping to cash in on a fund raising opportunity by posting pics on their website's & Social Network pages indicating that Nature seemed to have rebounded from the jaws of death. Or you know, that old Jurassic Park Cliche (a phrase or opinion that is overused and betrays a lack of original thought) "Life found a way." Except that things really were'nt all that rosey as they advertised. First, some of the people were a little too anxious about getting out there first with they cameras. Then it appears that much of the water came in so fat and furiously, that most of it raced back to the Pacific Ocean like a bullet train. Some water did fill up many of the State's reservoirs, but the surrounding landscape didn't have great percolation into the hills and mountains.
Even Merced hydrologist, Roger C. Bales, who advocated & pushed for increased logging in the Sierra Nevadas which he claimed would stop water hog trees from gulping down precious water which would have otherwise ended up in streams and rivers causing reservoirs to fill for his agricultural buddies to use downstream (See the Modesto Bee article: Overgrown Sierra forests gulping water that could flow to Valley ), jumped up and down when the rains came. Why ??? Because now his story has changed. He now claims to have been proven right because the 130+ million dead trees caused by the out of control bark beetle outbreak didn't have a chance to suck all that water which ended up in the streams and rivers and filled all the reservoirs. This is a farce folks. The great lack of water over the past five years had zero to do with there being too many trees sucking & gulping all the water down and had everything to do with the State's worst mega-drought in years. It hadn't rained in those five years (or extremely little rain coupled with high Temps) and with or without trees water eventually won't run in creeks, streams and rivers to fill reservoirs. Even a child gets that. I knew this from viewing early on all the photographs of dried dead invasive weeds and not all that long after the flowers died that the drought was not over. Now look where they are over there with heat waves and no more rain. Plus as indicated at the top of this post, lookie where we are now with the 2017 Wildfire season stats. So have things really changed for the better ? Nope, same old same old. 😏
Look, I refuse to celebrate and worship fire as some kind of animist Creator the way most fire ecologists worship it. Yes fire has always existed and is a reality in the natural world and can be used as an excellent tool for correcting problems along with other management tool like thinning forests in any ecosystem if done properly. And I've actually done that. But mostly humans have misused and abused fire, even the so-called experts. Prior to 2006 I never read much of anything about the science discipline of fire ecology, although I worked with people in the US Forest Service back in the 1980s who did prescribed burns. But I've also fought them tooth and nail against many of their ideas which are complete failures when it comes to reforestation techniques. Take the Fire Ecologist insistence that fire is needed for the wild seed germination. For example, Tecate Cypress is one of those trees in which Fire Ecologist have insisted for decades needs fire in order to propagate itself. Prior to reading their literature, in all my 30+ years of outdoors exploration experience and seed collecting, I never found this to be true of Tecate Cypress. There are numerous circumstances under which the seed is dispursed or spread and germinates fine without the need of fire within old growth chaparral which hasn't burned in a couple of hundred years. Same with Arizona Cypress. Fire is not always necessary, but you cannot tell them this. Science is not supposed to be about working in a Lab and venturing outdoors once in a while on a couple token field trips to make the research look legit. You have to live outdoors with nature. Look, I am not credentialed. I have no alphabet soup initials behind my name, nor some fancy coveted title before my name. Thank God. That allows me the freedom of not being shackled to a dogma and infected by the worldview biases and flawed presuppositions common to the Scientific Orthodoxy's industrial business model. I'm just one of 6+ billion people on Earth subjected to the negative consequences of inept decision making from a world leadership which has been weighed in the scales and found deficient. But it's allowed me to view things from a periferal viewpoint as opposed to tunnel-vission.
Image from H. Armstrong Roberts/ClassicStock
BTW, here is an example of Prairie Fire and a Steam Locomotive, 1872, whose smoke stacks belched cinders (pre-spark aresters) and started numerous prairie and forest fires in the days of the old west. Wonder if that was ever factored into the fire ecologist fire is a creator research ??? This video below from China's still operational locomotives servicing coal mines just question begs, "Do fire ecologists who insist that fire is a natural necessary healthy component of plant ecosystems ever factor in human stupidity as part of that natural component mechanism ???" I know I know, because the Indians did it! 😕
Fire sparks of Steam in Sandaoling Coal Mine Railway China
References I've written for seed germination, not entertainment, just practical real world application and fun:
A well intentioned Rewilding Movement motivated more by heart felt emotion than real world boots on the ground research based on logic and our present Climate Change reality
Photo: Craig Kohlruss
I've previously written about the disaster presently going on in California forests where millions upon millions of dead and dying conifers, oaks and other trees are the result of intense drought exacerbated by Climate Change.
But now there is word out that some ecology rewilding groups wish to reintroduce the Grizzly Bear back into the state of California again. The state once had a unique California Grizzly bear species, but humans forced it's extinction. I believe the last one was killed somewhere back in the 1920s. Here are some important pertinent quotes from the "Bozeman Daily Chronicle" on potential for rewilding efforts:
"The Center for Biological Diversity has collected some 20,000 signatures on an online petition urging the state Fish and Game Commission to consider studying the feasibility of reintroducing the grizzly, which is listed a federal threatened species."
"The group also is doing social media ads for its campaign in preparation for presenting a formal petition to the commission in a few months."
"Environmentalists call the messages part of a broader national campaign of “rewilding” areas to restore large carnivores such as bears, wolves, badgers and otters and protecting large connected habitats for them."
"Large predators and large habitats, rewilding advocates say, are essential to keeping ecosystems healthy."
Okay, I get this. I totally understand the reasons and emotions behind the well intentioned idea. But careful forethought and planning need to be done before any rash decision making for reintroduction of the non-native variety of Grizzly Bear into California. I say 'non-native', because the actual unique native California Grizzly has been extinct for almost a century now. Any bears will have to be captured in Idaho, Montana or Wyoming. Just like plant systems, there is unique species specific importance for localized seed when you attempt replanting any disturbed area. It should be no different with wildlife. To their credit, the Center for Biodiversity called for a feasibility study. Frankly, it shouldn't actually take that much time and money to figure out whether or not this could succeed. Follow me below on this, but first, here is another online journal link on the subject from California.
What about the eco-green ecosystem reality on the ground in California ???
(Dan Honda, Bay Area News Group)
Take a quick close look at the two minute video above of the millions upon millions of dead and dying trees occuring in this Sierra Nevadas of California flyover. This is actually just one small speck when compared to the overall massive picture of dead and dying trees all across the west. Now look at the photo at right of a Grizzly Bear. There now, this is the ideal type of habitat a real Grizzly will be looking for, but there is not much of that left in California, The movement to reintroduce the Grizzly Bear back into it's once former range within California is doomed to failure before it starts. But how can that be possible ? It isn't so much that the negative would be that there are so many people (there is), but rather it's about their diet. What will they feed on ? Does the video above of the millions of dead and dying trees reveal a landscape of plenty ? Of course not. But for a moment, take the example of other call to re-engineer again a Mammoth from the DNA found in one of the many frozen carcasses over the years from Siberia.
Image - Matt Dunham/AP
Even if they could play Jurassic Park Geneticist by reconstructing the DNA of frozen Woolly Mammoths and combining it somehow with the DNA of a living Asian Elephant today, Sci-Fi World aside, if (and that's a big if) they could actually do this, what kind of world would they be bringing these creatures back to ? This planet is ruined and there is hardly enough sustainable wild habitat for even the large animals in Africa anymore. Most likely it would be an artificial Animal Park with the poor animals being fit with radio collars and wearing ear tags. Seriously though, is that what people really what ? Getting back to Grizzlies though. Once again I get all the emotion and heartfelt desires, but they have to be logical about this. These animals will go where there is food and that means people. Already there are conflicts in many places with black bears not being able to forage out in the wild and entering suburban areas. Then there are the issues of available waterways like streams and rivers. Grizzlies love both and need fishing, but that is also in doubt when it comes to California. I never thought I would see this day when California would lose most of it's historical forests.
Major Challenges with Food and Foreaging Natural Resources within California
When you think of big brown bears like Grizzlies, what else does this bring to mind ? Salmon runs and fishing. At one time way back in history, the native California Grizzly Bears were King throughout California all the way down into Baja California. Juan Bautista de Anza the Spanish Explorer in 1774 & 76 and Fray Pedro Font who accompanied him on the trek, both wrote about Bears (Los Osos) in their expedition diary journals when they passed through Southern California. Sightings were along water courses like the San Jacinto River in Hemet/San Jacinto Valley. Other sightings were after they had crossed the Santa Ana River and heading west through the I-10 corridor region of Ontario, Pomona & San Dimas. Many rivers flowed year round in those days from the northern canyons of present day Angeles National Forests. The rivers ran full all year and contained large populations of the native and now almost extinct Steelhead Trout or Salmon. Perfect Grizzly habitat in those days as even the forest tree lines were far lower in mountain elevation than they are today. Wetlands, marshes and large scale riparian woodlands were everywhere as well from the descriptive writings of Pedro Font and Juan Bautista de Anza where they often mentioned having to avoid them in many places which required long detours. The next recorded Grizzly sightings were towards Ventura/Santa Basbara, but especially further north in the river floodplain and delta region of the Santa Maria river south of San Luis Obispo where numerous bears gathered for fishing.
Sadly, all these once pristine wild scenes are all barely a memory now. Most of those former rivers and streams are dry sandy rocky washes now. Dams were built way upstream and rainfall now days is almost nothing. Any periodic flooding comes from street runoff and other human industrial infrastructural development. Southern California will never ever again support any Grizzly population, not even a small one. The Sierras are also doubtful as millions upon million of various species of trees die off. Northern California would be the only choice, but it would still have to be large deep isolated wilderness and there is not much of that in a state of millions of humans, even as they move into more rural areas. Plus the Grizzlies would never be content to stay put there, especially with any food resources being almost nill. People are where the food is and that is where the failure of reintroduction would come in.
Grizzlies, Salmon & other wildlife require healthy viable green vegetative ecosystems
I've touched on dead and dying trees by the millions upon millions, but all success hinges on this. For all the wildlife concerned. It's not a matter of replanting. You need healthy normal climate dynamics to return for that and at present this seems unlikely. Much talk is being done to save the dead forest snags from big timber interests and other opposing scientists are in favour of logging anyway to fuel energy plants with wood to reduce coal. The argument being that these trees will burn and pump CO2 in to the atmosphere anyway if they stay put and are later consumed by wildfire. But will just leaving these trees really encourage the forest to return naturally on it's own ? I doubt it. There is a problem with regards where the viable seed will come from. Many of these trees were sick and thristy long before the bark beetles finished the job. When trees are stressed, they pump what little water resources there are into defensive survival mode as opposed to offensive seed production. So it's highly doubtful there was much of a viable wild seed bank out there in many areas where these trees died. If there were cones, then most of the cones would have opened up and released seed when they died and dried out. Any seedlings which may have resulted would most likely never had a chance in the present drought and if made if to sapling stage, then any resulting wildfire cooks that rehab. The much praised and celebrated fire ecology rebirth strategy becomes toast in such dead forest wildfire because there is no viable seed to kickstart the renewal process. Consider that these forests are dying on a massive wholesale scale. Replanting is also another option, but will that succeed ? Not without climate correction to bring back a normal rainfall pattern. This too seems unlikely. Also consider from what sources would the seed for seedlings come from. Most often today from out of state. Specific habitats require seed from those regions. Much failure has been experienced where region specific seed has not been used. This is even true of chaparral restoration projects.
Artemisia tridentata. Photo by Sue Weis, Inyo National Forest.
Many restoration projects for Silver Sagebrush habitat restoration have failed because of well intentioned people have used seed from wrong species. Same goes for forest restoration.
A good example of the importance of site specific species to any region is in several Silver Sagebrush restoration programs. While once I was researching about a native (Giant Palouse Earthworm)of eastern Washington which apparently thrives in native bunch graaslands and Silver Sagebrush Steppes, I stumbled upon the reference to a region where replanted Silver Sagebrush had failed because it was not the specific type of Artemisis to the area. If I can find that reference I'll come back and post it here later. Much of this region has been converted to dryland farming with millions of acres in wheat production. But a reference to habitat restoration of Silver Sagebrush Steppe in this region mentioned failure of Artemisia establishment because the wrong species was used. They all died. Many Silver Sagebrush restoration initiatives have ended in failure because several factors for regeneration have been ignored. And successional management models have identified these as underlying causes of failure as good site availability, species availability, and species performance.
Image: Northwest Conifers
White Pine (Pinus strobus)
My point here is that any region's specific tree seed source (Ponderosa, Fir, Oak etc) needs to be used to avoid failure in replanting California mountains. And it's a big if. But like I said, if climatic conditions are not restored soon, failure even with the correct seedlings will fail big time. This is what will be the biggest challenge not only to Grizzly bear, but also Salmon and other wildlife. Remember, although people may view Grizzlies as vicious carnivores, Grizzly bears are actually omnivores, and their diet can vary widely. They may eat seeds, berries, roots, grasses, fungi, deer, elk, fish, dead animals and insects. All these important food resources also need a healthy viable forested ecosystem. Remember the issues with White Pine decline and Grizzly Bear survival ? So vital is White Pine in their diet that massive decimation of White Pine by a blister rust pathogen has had major negative effect on Grizzly populations.
Beetle killed trees in Colorado's Never Summer Mountains
This photo above is from Colorado Rockies where millions of acreage of unhealthy forest trees are also under attack from Bark Beetles. Bears here along with other wildlife are struggling. Does anyone actually believe that California forests would be anymore inviting to a hungry Grizzly ? Frankly, forget the danger to people scenario for a moment. I think it's just as unfair and unkind towards the non-native Grizzly Bears to insert them into such a lousy habitat. It'll be nothing more than eye candy for eco-activists. There is no Quickie Nirvana here folks.
Update: September 12th, 2016
Hungry bears focus on gaining as much fat as possible before winter hibernation
"They become very food obsessed. It's really all around gaining as much fat as possible, right before the winter," said conservationist Kevin Van Tighem.
Wonder how desparately food obsessed native Rocky Mountain Grizzlies will be if introduced into non-native degraded habitats in the drought stressed extremes of California ???
These native Fremont Cottonwoods are all but gone now as the picture below reveals. What ever rains have fallen have been spotty at best. Even Palomar Mountain to the west of here which historically received 8" to 13" even during small winter storms because of it's unique geographical location has at best gotten 2" to 3" in latest storm events these past seasons. Nothing in the realm of drenching downpours, subsoil recharging caliber floods which were promised by the Press and Scientific soothsayers has happened this past season. Their promised weather Messiah El Nino was a bust, a fraud and as usual unpredictable. The El Niño eco-activist cheerleaders around the internet with Pom Poms were smoke screening the true irreversible climate change problems behind the scenes. Nobody wants to deal with such a possibility as the idea that human activity has gone to far to be salvaged. I understand wanting things to improve, maybe even getting back to the way things use to be (whatever that was), but times have changed and I'm afraid we've gone well past that point of no return scenario many scientists have feared regarding reversing the climate degradation. The photo below is viewing towards the south. from that point on 1000s upon 1000s of native Oaks are dying. Even many area of chaparral are in trouble.
photo credit - Kevin Franck - (June 11, 2016)
What Does 30% Chance of Rain Forecast really Mean?
In the San diego area, the region known as Mission Valley which is an ancient floodplain with massive development is often known for it's flood events nearest the San Diego River. When news stations need to provide a sensational headline to bait it's viewers and up the ratings, they send news crews down into Mission Valley. The actual storm may have dumped only a half inch of rain, but by golly they're find a reason to hype it as catastrophic. From Mission Vallley eastward, the landscape has radically changed from it's historical past. What was once 10s of 1000s of hectares of wildland is now concrete, asphalt and commercial & residential rooftops. Now any little piddly rain will create runoff for Mission Valley low spots and provide News Hype fodder for Media. And for those who believed what all the cheerleaders said about El Nino saving the day for Central and Northern California, think again. Yes they got large amounts of rainfall in some locations and many mountain areas had large snowpacks. But these mountain ecosystems have a long way to go before subsoil moistures are restored well enough to capacity to allow wild native plants to maintain health and vigor during the dry hot months of the year and these areas are also setting record high temps across the board. Record high temps early on allowed snow melt much earlier as opposed to later when much needed water would be most needed in the peak of Summer. This entire year has thus far had each month setting new heat record highs and this month of June 2016 is set to break even more records as I write. Take a look at the video below of how dire the situation is in forests of the Sierra Nevadas. Eco-Activists don't have to worry about the Timber Industry, nature is deforesting itself in response to irresponsible scientific innovation.
But there are some possitives, but they're mainly localized urban landscape ones
photo credit - Kevin Franck - (June 30, 2014)
Pisolithus tinctorius truffle
It was on June 30th 2014 when we first planted Foothill Pines, Engelmann Oaks, California Holly and Cleveland Sage. By most folks standards it was risky because it was during a time of 100+ temperatures outside. We of course inoculated each planting with MycoApply, but I also had visited the Hwy 79 Desert View Vista Point south of Julian and collected numerous truffles of the mycorrhizal fungi Pisolithus tinctorius. The one here to the left was huge as comparison to the USA 25 cent coin shown for scale. I also incorporated crushed truffle spore powder within the soil of each plant. Below this year is the first I've seen of truffle formation on my brother's plants.
photo credit - Kevin Franck - (June 11, 2016)
The photo below is a Foothill Pine [Digger Pine] (Pinus sabiniana) which is probably a little more drought tolerable than others even native to the area and this particular location and climate. Although like others, this pine has limits as well. Back on June 30, 2014, this plant wasn't even a foot tall when I purchased it for my brother at Las Pilitas Native Plant Nursery in Escondido, which also has gone by the wayside. Other decades old specimens exist on other folks properties here in Ranchita and are doing exceptionally well. Hence I thought it a good fit for my brothers 5 acres in an enviornment which is often challenging because of it's dry climate nature, heat and constant prevailing wind conditions. Not many of the conventional retail plant nursery pics of non-natives will make it up here.
photo credit - Kevin Franck - (June 11, 2016)
Some references for home gardeners and urban landscapers [habitat restoration is out of the question for the moment]
Concluding Commentary It's commendable that many wish to fight to save what remains as a remnant of what once was. Unfortunately all the environmental activism in the world is not going to save anything. Mainly because the passion so often is hatred filled against those deemed as the cause environmental ruin as they see it and their solution is to force the opponant. Declaring massive tracts of land as Preserves, Reserves, Wilderness or National Monuments are certainly admirable, but these are not going to reverse anything regarding climate and other natural world ecosystem disruption. And what are they really saving anyway ? The rescued Land has already been degraded long ago of any old growth plant community ecosystem and it's inhabitants. These heroic acts are more of a symbolic victory than viable corrective solution. More often than not it has become a maneuver to trip up a much hated political opponant's ideological worldview. There is no real materialist fix here or viable scientific solution. Despite the propaganda about Science, it is truthfully not the self-correcting fix all which will reverse the damage caused by the misuse and abuse of industrial science for over a century of imaginary enlightenment. Science today is infected with way too much politicking and ideology. As time pants on to the end, the words of United States Environmental Lawyer, Gus Speth, ring so true. Mankind's problem is a spiritual one and not a materialistic innovative one. And by the word/term 'spiritual', we're talking about clean healthy human personality traits which are not necessarily something physically seen, but rather the secret person of the heart expressed in daily conduct. Every man, woman and child in every land around the globe has to be on the same page morality-wise if mankind and nature is going to have half a chance. Qualities such as neighbour love, which mainly is a respect for fellow man and nature. But admittedly, even the world's mainstream religions are bankrupt on this one. It's funny, I get slammed by both sides if I refuse to participate in one position or another. The old biblical saying, "The Truth will set you Free" doesn't really apply with this subject, especially since telling the truth in this present dysfunctional system more often than not gets you hammered by either side.
