P1080441

Originally uploaded by ms_doyle.

But I come by it honestly. The old man (and the sea).

I find myself being one of the last global experts on diesel stoves. I think that given the product type, and my age, this is bizarre. The diesel stove springs from technology developed over 100 years ago and perfected about 50 years ago. Diesel is slowly metered into a pot burner, vapourised and combusted in a controlled, chain reaction. No electricity required. This produces an immense amount of heat (from 10,000 btu - 40,000 btu). There are few companies that still manufacture products based on this technology but the one I work for is one of them. The grandadddy of them all. I am the guru (amongst other things). I field calls from Alaska to Spain, Nova Scotia to Novogorod. Are you a hermit living in the Alaskan wilderness, Kentuky moonshine distiller, member of the Michagan Militia? Call me up and well chat about flow rates, air pressure and fluid dynamics. Got a fifty year old hybrid appliance with parts welded together from an old steam donkey? Pick up the phone! Write me an email!

I’m the only one left to call.

O say can you See?

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

So the Vatican today has issued a satement discouraging the teaching of the “Intelligent Design” instead of or along side evolutionry theory as currently understood. This theory, as I understand it, developed as an honest and honourable attempt to address some of the current deficiencies in what developed from the Darwinian school.

Concern over the level of complexity, on the phenotype level but more tellingly the very genes between two mutations in the same evolutionary change led to the questioning of standard Darwinism.

The worst thing to happen to this effort to adapt or replace an existing scientific paradigm (if it needed to be replaced, I am not saying it does)was that it was adopted by the American religious establishment. Nothing destroys credibility like being supported by the right wing religious lobby. Soon all the public heard was intelligent design paired with scary, ignorant, morally questionable groups with deep pockets, political connections and the sheep like aquiesance of much of the American Public. (phew)

And now this announcement by the author of the opinion, Fiorenzo Facchini, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Bologna. He lambasted the American treatment of the issue,

This isn’t how science is done . If the model proposed by Darwin is deemed insufficient, one should look for another, but it’s not correct from a methodological point of view to take oneself away from the scientific field pretending to do science.

The article does mention that the Pope “criticized those who in the name of science say (the world’s) creation was without direction or order” but I don’t expect much from the current Bishop of Rome. The apparent difference of opinion (one being infallable apparantly) was a surprise in a way but the Catholic Church has long been out of the science business, focussing on the holy smoke and acting as a moral anchor for the credulous.

See the link for the full text. I have to say I am conflicted on this issue. Enlighten me?

It’s a Wiki World

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

I have seen the world and I am here to tell you, it is wiki. A wiki is a web application that allows a large number of individals to collaborate on a project or website. It has been used for so many things, from collaborative blogs to creating statistics. The word wiki comes from the Hawaiian. It means quick, fast or ‘to hurry up’.

The Wikipedia is the most mainstream version of what the wiki can do. It is an online encyclopedia created by interested members. It is fascinating in its scope and amazingly interlinked. With almost one million articles in the system, the hotlinks and related entries keep me surfing for hours.

Despite the fascinating articles and links, one of the most fascinating aspects of the site is how it is made. Individuals slowly create articles over time adding to and revising content. Any individual bias is located and corrected simply by the fact that such a large number of people are involved and can remove any comments that could be seen as unscientific. It is the law of large numbers: no one agenda can spoil the validity of an article. (On the other hand, no one article can be a prize-winning piece of writing).

With each article, the reader can view the behind the scenes discussion that led to the currrent version of the article. You would never guess while reading an article on “Manifest Destiny” but the article was written by argumentative, opinionated people that can not even behave civilly to each other and yet they seem to come together to create content that could be in the Britannica. It is like being in the worst West End Strata meeting you can imagine.

I am hooked. I can imagine such strength in this application in the future. Perhaps I too will lend my hand to it.

Sol Reaching

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

I saw a PBS documentary last night called ‘Raising Cain’. The show presented the leading edges of research on child psychology relating to boys and the place of boys and masculine values in American society. It commented on the feminisation of schools and the growing overrepresentation of girls in the ranks of the successful student, the college applicant, graduates, new doctors and other professionals. On the other hand boys are dropping out and tuning out in greater numbers than ever.

I worry about this and I saw it in my own elementary experience and then later in university (in an all-boys high school the boy isn’t the anathema he is in a co-ed elementary school). My own son Solomon’s temperment is flexible enough (I hope) to pass through a system that is biased against boyhood but I do think it may lead him to suppress healthy aspects of his ‘whole self’. I see aspects of this in so much of our culture and in nieces and nephews in our family. The simple statistics that less than 1 in 10 elementary school teachers are male and 40% of American kids have no father in their lives really took me aback.

I found myelf feeling thankful for Dr. Michael Thompson’s work. I hope any of you who are interested in this subject will not let me have the last word but link through to other sites discussing this topic. I welcome a dialogue in the comment field.

mt%20arms[1]

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

I have a feeling that the Tomkinson Clan is coming together, even as we spread our wings and fly (like martlets, the bird on the family crest or like John T , the pilot). We have gone from the local point of our branch of the Tomkingdom (in the 1950s all these Tomkinsons could be found in NewWestminster BC) to the various locations of Australia, Nantucket, Washington State, Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia. We are managers, artists, salespersons, administrators, students, missionaries, , computer bugs, researchers,designers, entrepreneurs, farmers, pilots, international men of mystery and performers. Even with this variety, we are all dramatic.

Why with this variation and the Pacific, the great divide and kilometers and kilometers of wheat dividing us do I think we are coming together? It is the www and blogs my peeps. There are personal blogs by Jocelyn, John, Briana and William. Ali maintains a website for her farm. The rest of us are so used to computers that it is enevitable that we will use the web to communicate. The best thing I hae seen recently is the Tomkinson Family blog maintained by John Tomkinson. It needs a little adding to but perhaps there is a way we can share the work. Here find posts on who is where and what is coming up with who.

Keep it coming and visit the list below:

William
Briana
John and Melissa
Jocelyn
Paul
Tomkinson family site
Nampara Farm

Post! Comment! Read! Write!

Sol and Breezy

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

You know, I just can’t resist. A blog is the place where you talk about the thngs that interest and tht topics you love. Here it is boys and girls, the main event! No, it isn’t a cat blog or a dog blog. I am sorely tempted to make willbop a Breezy blog or a Sol site. Aren’t they the best? You Bet!

vessels

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

Reversing the chronology of the scrolled blog for a moment I present a Cultural Interlude to show case some of the work of my dad, Richard Tomkinson recently of Skagit Cty. WA.

Added to fill the space and to provide for a ‘multi -media’ experience, are poems by Marlow, T.S. Eliot and one of my favorite poems by Wilfred Owen, a soldier in WWI. Did you know British Columbia just lost its last WWI veteran? He was 101 years old. William “Duke” Procter.

RT Drawing

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love

Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods, or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant poises,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs;
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me, and be my love.

The shepherds’s swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love.

Christopher Marlowe
1599

Laconnor Channel Scene

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

Stanza 5 The Hollow Men

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o’clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

T.S.Elliot

RiverandWetland

Originally uploaded by Will_Tom.

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him. Behold,
A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

WILFRED OWEN