Big Famine Moon

                                                                                                                                                                  Up, Down.                        Full Moon 

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Contents:   Software:(BookOS, Caveat I (Douglas Adams), Open Source, Caveat II, Handel), ppm & ppb, Honey Bees vs Neonicotinoids, Confusion, Beyond the Zero, Bit of News, Coming Up Soon.

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Big Famine Moon will be full at 5am; aka Crow Moon, Crust Moon, Sugar Moon, Sap Moon, Chaste Moon, Death Moon, Worm Moon, Lenten Moon; & for Hindus, Holi.

A simple confluence of two cosmic events, one solar and one lunar - spring equinox & the full moon ... one really, since every cosmic event has a full moon somewhere within a few weeks - and what do we get? (Another year older and deeper in debt.) Myths of death defeated and life renewed; some in anticipation: Tibetan New Year, Chinese New Year, Bahá'í annual fast and New Year ... (a long list ... Nowruz); some on the date: Holi ... and Easter of course, spanning the zone (or trying to put it in parentheses).

And a confluence of tendencies too: religious co-opting of human physiobiology - the bone-deep flavour of certain irrefutable psychology in our intimate relations with Terra spliced into (essentially Fascist) doctrine. A veritable harmonic convergence!

	Romeo:      Lady, by yonder blessed moon I swear      That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops— Juliet:      O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,      That monthly changes in her circled orb,      Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.                                                                         Act II scene 2.

The music is Outlaw Blues; and then (another one from early days) Sixteen Tons: Merle Travis in the mid 50s, and again in the 70s or 80s (he died in 83); and by Tennessee Ernie Ford. 

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BookOS!

[Some things do come clear in the murk, often too late to do any good - I should have followed through on Ryerson's system courses while I could still do them.   :-)   I let that silly woman put me off. ... Oh well.]

A friend mentioned Philip Wylie, two books: The Disappearance and Generation of Vipers; and I wanted to follow it up and ... Lo and Behold! Google steered me to BookOS. Two million books including most of Thomas Pynchon, Charles Taylor's 'A Secular Age', Stephen Gardiner's 'A Perfect Moral Storm', some Northrop Frye ... The interface has some limits - you can't search for all by a specific author easily f'rinstance - but the 'direction' of the interface seems right: towards simplicity, good pop-up window management, language support.

This ranks for me with Wikipedia. It almost makes me hold my breath waiting for the copyright bullies & tyrants to attack it.

And a companion site BookSC (not so much, see below for a test).

It doesn't do to try to read things electronically, just doesn't - those people with e-readers on streetcars busses and trains are ... only pretending to read, and if anyone cared and measured comprehension we could all know this; but electronic copies make some of the very important secondary activity around reading orders of magnitude easier. Particularly quoting accurately during discussions; but also, for (possible) Alz' sufferers, a quick way to verify that some notion actually did come from some book. 

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Caveat I: (Good from far but far from good.)    As I was writing this I took a break and came across something in the NYT: Iceland Baffled by Chinese Plan for Golf Resort. Didn't baffle me: aside from the obvious oil & other commercial alignments, playing golf at the edge of an active volcano, or at least with a volcano in sight, makes perfect sense. I remembered Douglas Adams' 'The Restaurant at the End of the Universe' but unfortunately these books are no longer on my shelf so ... naturally, I went looking for it in BookOS. Here's some of what I found:

That's the thing about pdfs - the severe conversion problems - and provenance. Not one of these BookOS offerings looks like it was scanned - they were all (almost certainly) converted from some other format, more-or-less successfully. So I thought ... Google Books! - they use scans surely. Here are comparable pages in some of what I found:

Same schtick. There are no gross mistakes in what I have shown here - but trust me, you inevitably find fragmentary HTML showing up, usually in the vicinity of missing sentences, paragraphs ... who knows? Sometimes it works the other way too - you buy a 'print on demand' and find mistakes created by scanning software. And it is nothing new - there are lots of typos, some quite serious, in the KJV.                         So what. 

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And Open Source:

I have always disliked Adobe. Never quite on spec, difficult to Copy&Paste from, difficult to search, very expensive to modify ... In the experience with BookOS I came across several new formats - open formats with open readers to accompany. So I downloaded a few and played around with them.

All good ... and if you have nothing else to do, or if your energies are consistently directed at learning new (arcane & eminently forgettable) details, then ... even better. 

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Caveat II:    A corollary of Caveat I possibly, or concommitant ... intimately connected let's say.

The advantage of a standard, even a de-facto one like pdf, is that you get to know it and don't have to re-learn it repeatedly. Efficient use of time and all that.

So, a tradeoff then: many open-source replacements, each with advantages - smaller file size etc. - but each with bugs and quirks and shortcomings too. 

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All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.                                                                           Isaiah 53:6.

It begs an addendum to the background Musak® for this post: 'All We Like Sheep' from Handel's Messiah; a version on Vimeo, and one on YouTube showing the choir & orchestra.

[And on the strength of that I go out to The Messiah for Easter at Knox Presbyterian church over on Spadina. It is always thrilling to witness a choir and orchestra working together more-or-less humbly - and indeed, there are some sublime moments in this performance. Unfortunately the music and KJV texts are not enough for the leaders of the gig, Rev. Reinders and the choirmaster Roger Bergs. They have to interrupt with commentary throughout, paraphrasing and recapitulating - redundant sententious nonsense. Trying to understand why they are doing such a thing the best I can imagine is a hard-core Presbyterian fear of any un-certified aesthetic transcendence. (There is worse but I'll spare you.) But really - second guessing Handel & Lancelot Andrewes? Doh! No wonder these churches are empty and being recycled into condos.] 

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(Still) trying to find simple (minded) rules of thumb around ppm & ppb:

Wikipedia gives a 'drop', and says, "in medicine, IV drips deliver 10, 15, or 20 drops per mL for macrodrip, 60 per mL for microdrip." A simple average makes it 25 drops/mL.

A million drops then is 40,000 mL, 40 litres, ~10 US gallons: so ... one drop in ten US gallons is ~1 part per million (ppm). And a billion drops is ~10,500 US gallons: so ... 3 drops in a tank car is ~1 part per billion (ppb). (A tank car is ~35,000 US gallons according to 49 CFR 179.13 in the US Code of Federal Regulations on tank car capacity.)

Another way to go after it is time: 1 million seconds is ~11½ days, call it two weeks: so a second a week is ~2 ppm, or a second a month ~½ ppm. 1 billion seconds is about 32 years: so ... two seconds in a lifetime is something like 1 ppb.

Or how many molecules of H₂O in a drop? Goes by weight. The density of water is 1g/mL so a drop is .04g. Take the molar mass, 18g/mol for water and compute .04g/18g = .0022 moles in a drop; multiplied by Avogadro's number (6.022x10²³ molecules per mole) to get 1.32x10²¹ molecules. 1 ppm is then 1.32x10¹⁵ - many, a lot, too many to count; and 1 ppb is 1.32x10¹²; not intuitively useful numbers.

What about drops in a human body? An average human is 70 kg/150 pounds, close to the density of water makes it 1¾ million drops: so 2 drops is ~1 ppm and 1/500th of a drop ~1 ppb.

Getting there ... tiny amounts but very many molecules in 'em (and we have come full circle). I hope exercises like this are being done in high-school physics courses; probably not.

[If I told you how often I re-calculated these numbers to get even vaguely confident in them ... I won't. But don't trust me, do the sums yourself; and then consider that <5 ppb BPA in their water stops reproduction in trout. (This article is in BookSC.)] 

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Honey Bee vs Neonicotinoid (again):    Last year it was news. In March a Guardian article Pesticides linked to honeybee decline, referring to two (then) recent studies:
1) Pesticide Decreases Foraging Success and Survival in Honey Bees:

Nonlethal exposure of honey bees to thiamethoxam (neonicotinoid systemic pesticide) causes high mortality due to homing failure at levels that could put a colony at risk of collapse. Simulated exposure events on free-ranging foragers labeled with a radio-frequency identification tag suggest that homing is impaired by thiamethoxam intoxication. These experiments offer new insights into the consequences of common neonicotinoid pesticides used worldwide.

2) Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production:

We exposed colonies of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris in the laboratory to field-realistic levels of the neonicotinoid imidacloprid, then allowed them to develop naturally under field conditions. Treated colonies had a significantly reduced growth rate and suffered an 85% reduction in production of new queens compared with control colonies.

And again in October: Evidence of pesticide harm to bees is now overwhelming, referring to an article in Nature:
3) Combined pesticide exposure severely affects ... traits in bees:

Here we show that chronic exposure of bumblebees to two pesticides (neonicotinoid and pyrethroid) at concentrations that could approximate field-level exposure impairs natural foraging behaviour and increases worker mortality leading to significant reductions in brood development and colony success. We found that worker foraging performance, particularly pollen collecting efficiency, was significantly reduced with observed knock-on effects for forager recruitment, worker losses and overall worker productivity. Moreover, we provide evidence that combinatorial exposure to pesticides increases the propensity of colonies to fail.

BookSC was not much help in finding the source documents. 1) is there; 2) seems to be there but the download gives something else; and, 3) is not there at all. So ... one in three. ... It may improve with use. 

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I eventually found them elsewhere: 2) Neonicotinoid Pesticide Reduces Bumble Bee Colony Growth and Queen Production, and, 3) Combined pesticide exposure severely affects individual- and colony-level traits in bees.

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What I really really REALLY REALLY   do not understand is how most people go on about their lives as if none of this were happening? When I see friends and family getting onto airplanes to go south and get warm - it's not a judgement, I tell you true, but I am shocked, dismayed. As for the politicians and business people, successful ones, admired and respected, who must know what is happening - I am unable to imagine a scenario for them. Their bureaucrats may be driven and confused to stupidity - but Stephen Harper is not stupid; nor Barack Obama; nor these 'honourable' ministers: Peter Kent, Joe Oliver, John Baird; this woman in Alberta - Alison Redford; Rex Tillerson, the Koch brothers David and Charles ...

WHAT THE FUCK'S GOIN' ON HERE?! 

I can understand some struggle over exactly what to do, how best to tackle this enormous problem of which the honey bees are a small part, sure. But ... short of rekindling a superstitious belief in evil and devils I am stumped. All I can come up with is the possibility of some tipping point within the 'social imaginary' (as Charles Taylor calls it) that may trip in their minds and permit them to begin to think properly. Soon I hope.

Lame I know. ... Some time ago I posted a link to the video of Elizabeth May saying, "Any honest person who has looked at this science should be screaming from the rooftops!"; yet she sits in Ottawa (as I sit here) ... doing busy work.
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¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!¡?¿!Back with the 360's & 370's when you tried to divide by zero or multiply a number by a text string you would get an exception and a core dump. Some of us got pretty good at reading hex.

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Dissemblers, hypocrites, thieves, liars, even murderers, rapists, torturers; even the burnt ones with nothing left - I have some idea of how these things work, can work, could work, might work - but this makes so little sense I cannot fathom it. I don't understand kiddie-diddlers either gentle reader. So ...

Maybe Paul Rose understood. D'you think? He died a few weeks ago. Some of the dimwits are trying to lionize him now. You have to laugh.

Here, try the Outlaw Blues again: "Don't ask me nothin' about nothin', I just might tell you the truth." 'Cept in this case I don't know a thing about it.

Be well. 

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Beyond the Zero:    A few more words about 'Against the Day'. (I will have to re-read that last chapter again before I write this; hang on a sec ...)

One could expect to find important things in the last chapter - Deuce Kindred was summarily gotten rid of in the previous one, we do not see Lew Basnight again - what I pick out are four: 1) who remains - Merle & Dally, Dally & Kit, Reef & Yashmeen, Frank & Stray, Yashmeen & Stray, Ljubica & Jesse, The Chums of Chance & consorts, Pugnax & Ksenija ... all in pairs more-or-less, except Professor Heino Vanderjuice, an odd person to encounter (and he disappears, a version of the author perhaps); 2) Yashmeen's sexuality; 3) the cover image explained, una picchiata!; and, 4) Stray's (?) notion of 'good unsought and uncompensated'. There are more: simultaneity, technology, vegetarianism, the Inconvenience becoming its own destination ... but these four stand out for me (for various reasons no doubt).

A memorable sentence: "It is no longer a matter of gravity—it is an acceptance of sky." A-and the last paragraph goes like this:

Pugnax and Ksenija’s generations—at least one in every litter will follow a career as a sky-dog—have been joined by those of other dogs, as well as by cats, birds, fish, rodents, and less-terrestrial forms of life. Never sleeping, clamorous as a nonstop feast day, Inconvenience, once a vehicle of sky-pilgrimage, has transformed into its own destination, where any wish that can be made is at least addressed, if not always granted. For every wish to come true would mean that in the known Creation, good unsought and un-compensated would have evolved somehow, to become at least more accessible to us. No one aboard Inconvenience has yet observed any sign of this. They know—Miles is certain—it is there, like an approaching rainstorm, but invisible. Soon they will see the pressure gauge begin to fall. They will feel the turn in the wind. They will put on smoked goggles for the glory of what is coming to part the sky. They fly toward grace.

Shekhinah perhaps, שכינה.

That's it gentle reader. The effort I put into editing the teasers for presentation in HTML may seem wasted, could be; at least what is there is more easily searched with CTRL-F and grabbed with Copy&Paste ... and I am more intimately acquainted with Pynchon's style - so it was useful in that way. And I did not notice one single typo. (!)

The collection of teasers:
                         One: The Light Over the Ranges part 5 - Lew Basnight becomes a detective,
                         Two: Iceland Spar part 12 - Lake Traverse marries Deuce Kindred.
                         Three: Bilocations part 5 - Yashmeen Halfcourt & Cyprian Latewood.
                         Three: Bilocations part 6 - Kit Traverse on the S.S. Stupendica (short excerpt).
                         Three: Bilocations part 12 - Lew Basnight encounters Lamont Replevin (excerpt).
                         Three: Bilocations part 17 - Kit Traverse's choice (excerpt).
                         Four: Against the Day part 4 - Yashmeen & Auberon Halfcourt (excerpt).
                         Four: Against the Day part 7 - overture and possibility (short excerpt).
                         Four: Against the Day part 11 - A trio (an excerpt some may find salacious).
A-and Entropy. 

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Gleanings from the Bin: (Digging about in the oyster-shell midden near the shore.)

* Coast Guard rescuer describes ‘eerie’ scene where Queen of the North sank.
  Karl Lilgert is now on trial for criminal negligence causing death.
  Previously: March 2006, June 2006, May 2007, March 2008.
* Windfarm sickness spreads by word of mouth, Australian study finds (I knew that).
* World Bank told to investigate links to Ethiopia 'villagisation' project (that too).
* Índios e ribeirinhos fazem nova ocupação de canteiro de obra de Belo Monte (source Xingu Vivo).
  Natives and river-side people (fishermen) occupy Belo Monte work sites again. Good on 'em!
- It looks like the cops grabbed one of the demonstrators: PF prende ativista em Belo Monte.
  Seu paradeiro é desconhecido. / His whereabouts are unknown.
- And they are bringing in the army to ensure that this Belo Monte abomination gets built.
  (The Amazônia website is down at the moment - ructions with Cyberbunker apparently - ... link to follow.)
  Força Nacional tenta impedir novas paralisações das obras de Belo Monte, source Agência Brasil.
* This: SA troops killed in Central African Republic: Why, Mr President?, may appear parochial.
  More from Reuters: U.N. chief condemns rebel seizure of power in Central African Republic, and
  NYT: President Is Said to Flee as Rebels Seize Capital of the Central African Republic.
  Another failed state and it has been for quite a while (I didn't know that).
  But nothing on Joseph Kony. What about him? Wasn't he active in Central African Republic?
- The thing about the Daily Maverick newsletter which distinguishes it from all others, puts it in a class by itself,
       is that it includes (up front, at the top) links to other news organizations with relevant stories.
* Even Zimbabwe’s new constitution is waiting for Mugabe to die.
- EU suspends sanctions against most Zimbabwe officials.
- (From 2011 mind you) Marange diamond field: Zimbabwe torture camp discovered.
* Marikana: Under oath, Phiyega’s bald-faced lie exposed.
- Marikana: Sangoma’s death and Phiyega’s understanding of truth.
* Steve Biko, Mamphela Ramphele, & Andile Mngxitama, and the
  offending piece by Jared Sacks: Biko would not vote for Ramphele.
* Pension Funds Wary as Bankrupt City Goes to Trial,
  (map showing Stocton, California). Bankrupt in one way ...
* ... and bankrupt in another:
  Los Angeles Frets After Low Turnout to Elect Mayor.
  Just 21 percent of registered voters turned out.
* Frank’s feet of Catholic clay. Last mention here of the new Pope I hope.
* Haiti recycles human waste in fight against cholera epidemic,
  and a link to the US NGO Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods SOIL.
* Chinese Solar Panel Giant Is Tainted by Bankruptcy.
And finally, I don't know what to make of this:
  U.S. Example Offers Hope for Cutting Carbon Emissions. (?) 

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Coming Up Soon:

Peter Victor - Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, April 4th 7pm at UofT.

[I wonder if Joseph Kony is 'related' to Séléka? They must know one another, or at least know of one another. What does Michel Djotodia think of Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army? It won't likely be a high priority for his 'government' to go looking for Kony anytime soon. How different are they, Joseph Kony & Michel Djotodia and his allies? How different are any of them from Francois Bozizé?] 

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Down.

A Perfect Moral Storm:

The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change by Steve Gardiner.
Up, Down, Ongoing, Addenda.
 

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A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change by Stephen M. Gardiner.    ISBN 9780195379440 or 0195379446, hardback, 512 pages, April 2011, $35.00 at Oxford University Press (USA); and himself at University of Washington (Seattle).

It was up front in the free part of the London Review of Books: What is the rational response? a review of sorts by Malcolm Bull. I was nonplussed by the cattiness in "... but it does not occur to him that the ‘tyranny of the contemporary’ of which he complains might be coextensive with democracy itself." What's that about (I wondered)?

The Toronto Public Library has a copy, so I asked for it ...



... and eventually it arrived.

I read the preface. His eight propositions do exactly as he intends - they 'pique' (compared with, say, the endless precious, precocious & pretentious 'premises' of Derrick Jensen which do not). That, despite the possibility that it will swallow up its own behind (implicit in Proposition 6 - Shadow Solutions, and the apologies in Chapter 2 notwithstanding). The acknowledgements just go on and on and on - but without any of those earnest thankyous to tireless editors and proof readers (this turns out to be an important clue gentle reader).

The book went onto the return-unread pile at the second paragraph of Chapter 1: "Climate change is complex problem raising issues across ... [sic]" - and that (I thought) is that.

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But the return-unread pile happens to be on a chair next to the scanner, and having scanned and posted the preface (for some reason?) it seemed unkind not to at least check out whatever might be at the end of the final chapter. It is a short section (numbered 11/7 for those with a taste for women encountered in all-night convenience stores, Tarot cards, signs of the Zodiac and the like) titled 'Conclusion' - and the last paragraph has a certain winsome quality. You will have to read it and see for yourself.

He says, "In my view, prominent among these is the task of bearing witness to serious wrongs even when there is little hope of change." This is lame; this is not enough; this is a cop out (not quite); and this may just be nonetheless precicely what it ... is ... true and compelling.

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," says Yeats - and they (and all those inbetween) are alive still (according to Yeats' tense): eating, belching, farting, shitting, pissing (as their prostates permit); occupying space and breath and grasping at any straw.

So it has gone back on the bedside table and a personal copy has been ordered (not on the Internet but from an actual bookshop). I would like to send copies to Elizabeth May and Mardi Tindal but I can't afford it - 40+ $CDN by the time you figgure in the sales tax.

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Laying out the metaphors side-by-each: the prisoner's dilemma (in various colours and flavours) and the tragedy of the commons compared and contrasted with what he calls the PIP (pure intergenerational problem), and all of it wrapped up into a 'perfect' storm.

Wowzers!

A barn burner! Who could resist? How could anyone put it down? 

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There is only ad hominem, nothing else really carries serious weight.

You can watch him here: Climate ethics roundtable discussion at NYU, October 28 2010.

One hears about the so called 'mid-atlantic accent' ... but the unevenness of his spoken word - apparently a cross (very roughly mixed) between Damson plums and the Bronx - echoes of West Side Story an' all.

And the unevenness of his prose, replete with typos and clumsy quasi-official bafflegab, but presenting fortuitous little jewels from time-to-time - just at those moments when the (500+ pages and somewhat heavy) tome is about to be flung against the wall.

There is something appealing about this unevenness but I can't quite think what it is; some coyote-swimming-upstream quality that has hooked me in.

So ... living and loving, bearing witness, whatever ...

Be well gentle reader. 

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Ongoing: ... maybe a few notes as I get farther along into it ...

a.   He seems to fetch up on the shoals of precise definition around 'generation'. Doesn't (or hasn't yet) thought about the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren &etc. categories which seem like the naturals - maybe because there is no easy way to get to that 'pure' PIP state where there is no direct overlap & communication.

 

b.   Aha! A clue! (towards penetrating that enigmatic statement by Malcolm Bull above). Fairytale. Two versions of the 1974 Pointer Sister classic ("Y'all like country music?"): live (a self-parody), and studio. On the generational side: Ruth 1946-, Anita 1948-, Bonnie 1950-, & June 1953-2006. (I will scan & post the relevant sections later on maybe, and look for some biographical details on the fellow - see where he fits.)

 

c.   Once again one yearns for a Chris Alexander (see The Timeless Way of Building for example) style of hitting the high points (which would inevitably involve a more concise presentation). Our Steve footnotes his own points with ... more of his own commentary - which makes following the thread problematic. There will have to be a second reading when my copy arrives - where rude marginal notes will be permitted and may even be appreciated by whatever generation inherits my library.

 

d.   On the other hand: many issues come into clearer and clearer focus thanks to Steve's good efforts. Notably: the changing viewpoints presented on the models he employs - Tragedy of the Commons, Battle of the Sexes, and so on; a view-from-some-height of Kyoto, Copenhagen, Cancun and the whole ridiculous UNFCCC fiasco; and, smaller (but essential) advances such as finally realizing why it is best to use Gt of carbon (despite the confusion with Gt of carbon dioxide) as the proper units for analysis and comparison. Wazizname ... Andrew Leach said as much some time ago but I didn't understand it then.

Now, why hasn't someone put up a web database (with a decent interface) containing accurate, timely, and back-referenced tables of emissions by type, time, nation and so on? This is a deeper question than it looks, including as it does the issue of intentional obfuscation.

Not rocket science. Not that expensive either. Put some of the damned pundits and politicos where they belong (hopefully on the defensive).

 

e.   I am about at the half-way point. Sometimes the prose seems to 'descend into Chinese' (as we used to say) and like the night watchman in Visions of Johanna I ask myself if it's him or me that's in-sane?

Some of the paragraphs just do not computeç but I went looking for an example to include here and couldn't quickly find one - so very possibly it is me being a pig-headed bigot and nothing more.

One of the main clues, one of the opening leads out of (or into?) this Labrador icepack, is Gardiner's notion of 'shadow work' (it may not be strictly speaking 'his', I will check that later). I realized last night, in the middle of a Chinese patch, that I have already read about all he has to say on shadow work - for some reason I had it in mind that the second-last, penultimate chapter would deal with it in depth but I was mistaken.

Which kinda puts me back to wondering about motivations. What is he up to? Is it about self-interested attainment of tenure and a more comfortable life on the scholarly lecture circuit? Is a theoretical ethics something we really need? Is this witness or is it spinning out the time to one's own advantage?

I'm not sure; so I am going to set aside this topic while I plod on through the book. At least until my copy comes and I can read it again more carefully, scan some excerpts, maybe say some more then.

 

That's it. Done for now.

 

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Addenda: (the long way round)

1. Fugue!   Bring on Bach and that pipe-organ-tuning concerto of his.

Bring on Walt Whitman, "O Captain! my Captain!" ... "O heart! heart! heart!"

Bring on Lear, in from the heath carrying his Cordelia and wailing "Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stone."

An image that has stuck, from an Omar Sharif film The Last Valley, is this short clip near the end.

This seems to be the landscape we now inhabit - the internal/psychological closely mirrored everywhere we look. Men of stone indeed - trolls I suppose.

"She's dead as earth." 

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2. Complicity:

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves," says Cassius , and goes on with, "that we are underlings," (as he works his Wall Street calumny). We could easily turn it around, make it, "that we are overlords." One way or the other though, it is as Pogo said way back in '71: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Some 30,000 years ago someone made an image of their hand in the Chauvet Cave.

There are dozens of copies of it on the Internet; many slightly changed, retouched, lighted differently - but the original looks (I think) more-or-less like what you see here (click on it for an expanded view).

I have no idea what she or he was trying to say if anything - a 'mute testament' as they say.

There is a line beside it. Again, no idea if they were even drawn in the same epoch - but as linework goes it is ... eloquent.

I was coming along the eastern shore of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas in Rio one afternoon in a cab, and looking up at one of the highrises I saw a banner on the railing of the topmost balcony - BASTA in large red letters. There was a popular campaign against street violence at the time - groups would march along beside the Ipanema beach sometimes carrying such banners - so I thought ... one of the demonstrators must live there.

Later on I learned to write it the Spanish way ¡Ya basta! with an upside down exclamation point ("anyone lived in a pretty how town, with up so floating many bells down").

Enough!

There is so much unnecessary complication, intentional mystification - 'setting out' becomes prolegomenon - but there is the odd bit of essential simplicity too: Frye distinguishes primary and secondary somethings-or-other; the primary being: food, shelter, sex (as I remember it - I will try to look it up) ... but ... hardly radical is it? Or hard to comprehend? 

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2b. (or not 2b.) Digression - Hidebound & Lotusbound:

I was in an airport, maybe it was Tel Aviv or maybe it was New York on my way there, and a group of Hasidic Jews were performing a ritual in the waiting room. A small box was strapped to someone's forehead and the leather thong holding it was wrapped round and around their arm (as I remember, it was a long time ago). This must be what they mean by 'hidebound' (I thought).

The lotus figures into official Buddhist symbology, a Pilgrim's Progress from mud to enlightenment. But it is some other kind of thing for me: that never-to-be-achieved orgasmic opening of the 7th kundalini chakra (or the handful of moments, no more than a very few in an entire lifetime, when the veils shift slightly in a spiritual breeze, cloud and zephyr); floating lily-pads (the white flowers full of flies) viewed as a boy with his chin on the edge of his father's canoe; a Buddhist phoenix bird rising out of ashes; Aung San Suu Kyi perhaps.

And then there are the lotus-like Bahá'í temples springing up in Delhi & Santiago - built on nines and multiples of nine, and light - "Architects are people who eat light," (thanks again Glen) - and lots of cash and intergenerational commitment one presumes. Not so unlike European cathedral building through the ages, or more recently, Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona 130 years into it.

And yet, just as the Pope is infallible, so is the Bahá'u'lláh's Universal House of Justice and his demand for obedience among the Bahá'ís - or else it's excommunication, takfir for the covenant breaker - no inquisition but shunning is ok. All good: you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs (though you could consider Hannah Arendt's take on it); you can't have a theology without orthodoxy and some kind of enforcement; but it seems fair to wonder at least about the quality of the light that is being shed. Isn't it?

What brought this on is a report in the NYT today about Tibetan Buddhist self-immolations, and in particular this photograph in which the candle flame resembles a ... lotus. (Even if it has been touched up a bit.)

The Han Chinese, like the MBAs of McDonald's Corporation or Tim Horton's, arrive to enforce global efficiencies; mystified maybe (and no more), bemused that some would rather burn than bow ... and I am horrified but not quite surprised. An extreme form of voting with your feet is it? There are exemplars: Childhood's End as the remaining souls depart, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, even the ridiculous "Who is John Galt?"

One fine morning glory by and by I'll fly away. They (whoever they are) may be expecting something magical, transcendental - or not, and may not even be disappointed when it fails to materialize. (Surely this will crop up somewhere in Stephen Gardiner's book. I'll let you know.) 

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2c. Complicity Again: Who are the 99% exactly? A question not an answer - but not a very polite question I guess; apologies.

Women live some half-dozen years longer than men on average. I'm guessing but I think many if not most North American and European widows currently in the 65+ zone (pre-boomers that is) have been provided with a substantial nest egg by their dearly departed, a portfolio; and I'm guessing again but I bet the bulk of these portfolios are managed with little selection by or interferance from the owners.

How many of the problematic corporations listed in the recent (May 2012) report by the Union of Concerned Scientists: A Climate of Corporate Control: How Corporations Have Influenced the U.S. Dialogue on Climate Science and Policy; are well represented in those portfolios d'you think?

The exercise (nothing more than gross innuendo) could be expanded to include pension funds generally - at which point I wonder how much Western economic 'growth inertia', how much clout, would be carried there by, say, elderly Miss Muffets sitting on their tuffets?

At the Probus meeting with a gold-plated Lelo Lily tucked discreetly between her ass cheeks; not being in the gigolo market for one reason and another, not quite in that 'bracket' maybe, but with a Golden Olga waiting at home nonetheless; and a clutch of receipts for donations to African charities jammed (wet with tears, crocodile tears) into any chinks in her ethical armour.

e=mc² : Entropy equals Muggle Complacency ^squared 

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3. The Keeling Curve and an annual miracle:

Everyone knows what the Keeling Curve is, right? I used to wonder about the sawtooth profile of the annual oscillation - the result of carbon uptake in the relatively larger land masses of the Northern Hemisphere; Hawaii is north of the equator too, so there could be biasses, north/south differentials and what not, but it's close enough for the girls I go with, all good.

This year, I was surprised to finally realize (having only witnessed the process sixty or so times) that the mostly deciduous trees I watch out my window go from bare branches to fully covered with leaves in a matter of three or four weeks in April and May. Raising how many tons of material from the ground high into the air so quickly? A botanist could quantify it for us and tell us how much work is being done (in incomprehensible metric units) - but obviously it is a LOT of stuff to lift (if it was a government contract it would break the bank).

The pictures of 'my tree' were taken three days apart a few years ago - and there it is, clearly reflected in David Keeling's ongoing artwork. From here the meditation gets murky so I'll leave it to you. 

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4. Jack:

A very clever Newfie, Andy Jones, (re)tells the story of Jack and The Queen of Paradise’s Garden in which occurs this phrase: "... which is three miles this side of the end of the world."

Being as we are just about there (three miles this side of the end of the world that is); and since the only antidote I can imagine is a serious slathering on of Good Samaritan energy (without any christian over- or under-tones beyond 'you dropped the ball y'arseholes and now t'anks be ta gawd! (if) someone else picks it up!'); I wonder if certain elements of the story are not amenable to being 'culturally appropriated' in a Newfoundland hijack?

"Fallen among thieves," for example: was this maybe not a man in jeopardy at all but a fallen woman? How far did she fall and into what? How long did this falling go on? Did she possibly consort? What happened between the time she fell and the time she was stripped, beaten and left for dead? Was (an early version) of the Stockholm syndrome in play?

Would the Samaritan's compassion be coloured at all, encountering a nubile young déshabillé? How might it affect Rembrandt's artwork?

There are a host of difficulties in re-writing the story of the Good Samarzitan of course; not least of which is preserving his essential manner of seeing.

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In fact there are three Andy Jones titles available at Running of the Goat: The Queen of Paradise’s Garden, Jack and the Manger, and Peg Bearskin.


Darka Erdelji, the illustrator of The Queen of Paradise’s Garden is to be commended as well - for depicting a princess with hips. 

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5. PIB (Produto Interno Bruto), aka GDP (Gross Domestic Product):

Despite the best efforts of water seeking its own level, the pundits wring their hands over falling GDP. Moribund (or should be) as a concept, a goal, and a fact.
 

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6. Cheap Shots:

Is there any other kind?
 

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7. Lucky Seven (last but not least):

On 'World Environment Day' (another UN joke, quelle blague!) Dilma Rousseff announces a new national park (aptly named Furna Feia / 'ugly grotto'), a biological reserve, and progress on indigenous landholding (here and here in English).

So to the reader of news in El Norte the Código Florestal brouhaha all becomes 'He said / She said' (or acaba em pizza / 'ends in pizza' as they say in Brasil) and can be safely shoved to the end of the attention queue.

Marina Silva registers her opinion. A friend of mine, one of the few who still talks to me, thinks that because Marina is an 'evangelical' she can't be trusted, which notion, despite my bigotry around christians, I do not support. She calls it, "todas as maldades" / 'all sorts of badness'.

Got that right querida Marina! AI AI AI!

 

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Down.