The Secret Language of the Stream. Speaks for itself.
Tag Archives: environment
That pale blue dot (no, not the DOT (dept. of transportation) that keeps us going)
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there — on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. From Carl Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space.”
What did you do the day Earth smiled?
Is your childhood functionally extinct?
We can think of our sets of states of energy as a microclimate/microenvironment (i.e., the microbiome).
As we age, our symbiotic microorganisms are more or less compatible with our current bodily conditions.
Thus, we may create a situation where we make some species functionally extinct within us.
How many diseases or syndromes are such situations?
Where is the anvil?
Liken likin’ lichen like in lye kin
Our mailbox at the street resembles a small wooden house, a look similar to our main house.
On the “chimney” of the mailbox house grows a small patch of lichen.
Do you like lichen the way I do?
Lichen falls onto our driveway almost everyday, attached to bits of tree — twig, branch, bark — that break away and follows gravity’s path onto the concrete surface.
One species of beard lichen in particular, but not this one.
As our climate gradually warms, lichen is migrating north, bringing symbiotic organisms along.
As with the variety of tree species in our yard, we have a multitude of lichen species.
Same with mushrooms, algae, bacteria, ants and other organisms I won’t encounter together on Mars.
What will migrate with us when we live off-Earth?
What will survive without us and adapt to new environmental conditions?
How many organisms on Earth didn’t originate on our planet?
I owe our next-door neighbours a copy of books on trees and edible wild plants so they can identify which plants not to kill in their yard to protect their curious one-year old child from eating less-than-nutritious green stuff.
I see the Trees book in front of me, under a pile of “French Idioms,” “Russian for Everyday,” “The New College French & English Dictionary,” “Peterson Field Guides to Stars and Planets,” “The Associated Press Stylebook and Libel Manual,” “2004 Far Side Desk Calendar,” and “The Yale Book of Quotations;” on top of “Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid,” “RE/SEARCH #8/9: J.G. Ballard,” “The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker,” and a spiral-bound copy of my book, “The Mind’s Aye,” not to forget issue #500 of MAD magazine.
Speaking of books, I have a few to finish reading, including “The Big Questions” by Steven Landsburg and a hyperreality book, “Travels in Hyperreality,” by Umberto Eco.
I wonder, which set of beliefs, particularly in the realm of religion, makes one more likely to approve of government/private industry spying? In Christianity, God is always watching, just like Santa Claus, ready to mete out rewards and punishment for our behaviours/thoughts.
Does our general culture encourage us to believe in seeking our fifteen minutes of fame, even if it’s only on a hidden security camera or set of IM chat logs?
Does lichen care about our meme-ridden upper brain functions or our labyrinthine specialty tasks and hobbies that spin out of a growing economy?
Likely not.
That’s why I like lichen — symbiosis that doesn’t require ritual or dogma.
Cultural scientists today argued their proof that silicon-based organisms such as computers are living beings.
I thank my living being for letting me write this blog entry on its plastic key skinned surface.
Enough meditative humour for the day — time to eat lunch and read a couple of books loaned by the public library.
Octoways
Eight-legged friend in motion.
Sad day today. I set out poison to kill some mice and killed a raccoon, instead. Death is death, though, isn’t it, regardless of intended victim?
Celebrate the sale if a lawn mower earlier today, why don’t I, which cleared space in the garage and lightened the load of this wandering vagabond.
Happy thoughts
I’ve never thought killing an individual animal was as bad as killing the social animal’s last surviving family members and leaving the individual to live and die alone.
Deuninsulatorium
Fun! Going from the previous state of disrepair to the next image — much cleaner!
And, while down in the bowels of the house, insulating the exteriour wall vent holes:
…getting rid of mouse/rat/raccoon nests like this along the timeline of private detached home ownership:
Will the fun ever end???
Korn on the Cobh
Nothing like a fresh fried peach pie from the farmers market followed by breakfast at the Blue Plate Cafe (thanks to Hannah and cooks).
Thanks to Harold, Jenn and Joe at KCDC; Naomi and sushi chef at Club Rush; Abi and Rick at Southern Elegance; Rainy and Penny at Thai Garden; helpful folks at Lowe’s.
Overgrown
Backyard returns to natural form over time.
treetrunkdings 