An article worth reading....if you are puzzled by the anti-intellectualism of Santorum

"What really aggrieves right wing conservatives is that professors of "The Liberal Arts" actually teach the "liberal" arts and so promote a way of looking at the world in which "truth" is derived through research and reason rather than by mindless adherence to the ancient scribblings of some book.

The gripe that conservatives like Rick Santorum have against higher education, in short, is not that liberally-biased faculties are forcing their students to think like Democrats. Their real complaint is that college professors are teaching students to think for themselves."

This is an excerpt from an article on Salon.com by Alex Pareen.  It is a very clear explanation of how the far  right conservative element got to the point where having an education, learning to think, has become a liability.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/29/rick_santorum_liberal_penn_state_punished_me_for_being_conservative/

The Awareness of Nature...is not ours alone

Well, I was back at Portland Head, which is also the location of Portland Head Light, a magnificent lighthouse that was built when George Washington was president. And, this time I had my Nikon spotting scope with me. This optic is tripod mounted and offers magnification from 15x to 45x.  In other terms, it is up to 4.5 times as powerful as my binoculars and needs to be on a tripod because at the higher magnifications it would be just too shaky to be useful.

I set up the scope and was looking at a sizeable flock of Common Eiders that were working their way along the rocky outcropping that forms the shore of most of Maine, in fact.  I glanced a bird in the small cove just below me and saw that it had a lot of white but was certainly not an Eider.  So, I moved the scope and when I finally got on this duck, I saw a stunning creature.  His eye was bright yellow, placed on a smashingly irridescent green head, with a large white spot on his cheek. I knew it was a Goldeneye, but without a birdbook in hand, I guessed it was a Barrow's Goldeneye, and didn't realize I was wrong until I got home and looked him up.  It was indeed a Common Goldeneye.
But, despite a name that would lead one to believe this duck is like some kind of Mallard or the ubiquitous Black Ducks we have all over this region, this little duck is far from ordinary.  He's another example of how amazingly Nature can design a creature.  See the photo to know what I am saying; he's just a jewel with feathers and a truly golden pair of eyes.

When I come across another reminder of how Nature combines color, design and an overall package that works so perfectly, it often makes me wonder about the reason that Beauty is so consistent in the natural world. I have no idea that the birds and flowers, the clouds and waves, the light phenomena, and Nature in its entirety were created by chance.  Nor do I sense that an anthropomorphized deity created all of this for our amusement or benefit in any way.  Nature--all of it--has evolved over the millions of years since this planet was a hot roiling mass of elements careening through space, because it has self-selected the qualities that it needed to continue the process of 'becoming'.  Each species--in whatever kingdom--has continually refined and evolved as it needed to in order to persist.

But, the real take-away from this scientific reality, is that Beauty is an integral part of the entire process.  It's not here for us...most certainly not....although there have clearly been legions of humans who have erroneously assumed that Nature is only here for us to use and to amuse us.  This is an unattractive artifact of the human ego, but it's been given a great assist along the way by the anthropocentric aspect of much religion too.  A male Goldeneye--or name your species of bird--became the stunning creature who now represents his species as a way of attracting a mate.  It needed to be ever more appealing in order for the species to propagate.

What this is telling us, is that birds, and a plethora of other species.....RECOGNIZE BEAUTY.  A particular bird of paradise from Papua New Guinea--it could easily be argued--is perhaps the most over-the-top beautiful creature on the planet.  When I saw such a bird on video, it almost took my breath away.  And then this 'bird-brain' put on a mating display that had me totally and utterly GOB-SMACKED.  And, it was indisputably all done to attract a female of his species.

So, what I am coming to here is this: we are not the only species on this planet that is aware.  If a simple duck or warbler can recognize beauty and respond to it, whose to say it cannot also respond to other forms of beauty in its environment.  We insist on holding ourselves up as so vastly superior, that we must be the focal point of all the natural world.  Well, the times are sending us the contemporary version of the same message that has been coming for several millennia now: we are not doing a very good job of being the 'smartest and only self-aware' beings on Earth.

In fact, we pretty much suck at it.  We are creating almost all of our own problems by means of our own arrogance, selfishness and stupidity.  Perhaps it's time we backed-off a little on the idea that God put us in charge and gave us permission to fuck everything up if we wanted to.  Doesn't that sound like a teenager who has burned down the house because he wanted to have a fire in the livingroom?

Meet the new Old Squaw, the Long-tailed Duck

I have been a passionate, if not methodical, birdwatcher since childhood. This very likely is an inherited trait, because my father and his father before him have all been likewise fascinated by our feathered friends.

I recall my father with his arm and forefinger extended, excitedly whispering, "Look, an Indigo Bunting!", as if he'd just spotted an African lion in the New Jersey woods.  My grandfather had a collection of birds' eggs so exquisite that it was given to a university after his passing in the early 80s.  But, among all the vast variety of beautiful birds that are around us....ducks have always been special some how.  If asked why that is true for me, I usually explain that they are rather the ne plus ultra of the bird world: they are among the strongest fliers (Blue-winged Teal can do 90 mph in level flight), they swim, they have an astonishing array of plumage designs.....and they 'QUACK', at least many of them do. The sound of a flock of ducks at rest is enough to make me smile: "...quack, quack, quaaaaack" like a bunch of seniors at a bingo game.

There are, however, a few ducks that I consider to be even more extraordinary than their peers. One is the Wood Duck, with plumage so stunning that it hardly seems possible that it's real.  Another is the Harlequin, also an absolute masterpiece of duck-design.  But, yesterday, I saw a small flock of a species that I have seen only twice in the previous 33 years: the Old Squaw.  Apparently, however, some birders in positions of influence felt that name was too politically incorrect and offensive to persist, so the Old Squaw has been re-named the Long-tailed Duck.  Okay, I get it.  Birders are not the kind of people who want to offend others.  Fine, but, I wish they were also a little more imaginative and creative. I mean, "Long-tailed", just doesn't sound like much, no big deal.  And then you see the actual duck!!  Designed in perfectly harmonious shades of grey and brown, with white and black accents....and with a jaunty curled-up tail of pin-feathers that looks like they belong on a British royal's hat. Surely, such a magnificent bird deserves a more august, more inspiring name than one that simply states the obvious. Maybe such beauty is just that which is beyond description....so, they just settled for gross under-statement.

I do not really care.  But, I can tell you that when my binos took in the sight of eight of these stunning creatures bobbing gently just off the rocks of Portland Head, I felt a rush of joy that only the sheer power of Beauty, yes, with a capital 'B', can bring about.

And, here's a Harlequin...just so you can see for yourself what makes me stretch for superlative adjectives when I try to describe such amazing creatures.

My thanks to Kevin T. Karlson, who is one of the best duck photographers out there, in Cape May NJ.

Dear Anonymous.....

This is addressed to the people who think they should be able to share their opinion as if it were a muffled voice, coming from behind a curtain. I am only rarely--as in once to date--willing to publish a comment that is being offered by a person who is either too scared or unwilling to assume responsibility for what they are saying.

I did post one such comment recently because the person wanted to share a resource that could be of value to readers.

For the most part, however, if you can't stand behind what you are saying, it probably isn't worth saying.

One such comment came just the other day, in the form of a rather pointed question: Are you saying that the hordes of people won't be coming out of the cities looking for what we have? That's a paraphrase, but the essence is accurate.

Answer: No. But, the question in response to this possibility is, how are we going to behave as a nation of people? If we are now working on mentally preparing ourselves to regard people who have been caught-up in a disaster as 'zombies', i.e. 'other', and are girding our loins to be able to shoot large numbers of them, thereby increasing the chances of our own survival...then we are a nation of people who have lost our way.

There is an alternative, but the people who are getting ready for the Great Zombie Invasion don't want to hear about it. Last summer in Vermont, as a result of the hurricane, turned tropical storm, that came up the east coast, entire towns were flooded and some were completely cut-off as bridges were destroyed. It was a dire situation. No, it wasn't Katrina, but, for the people caught up in it, it was every bit as serious. And, in their intrepid yankee way, Vermonters responded to it by pulling together. I saw one t-v interview with a woman who had lost absolutely everything. Her most notable comment was: "We're going to be okay because we have each other."

If indeed we are, at some point, going to have a situation in which very large numbers of people are put at risk, if we eventually do face a breakdown of the logistical supply system, and people are going to go hungry, we will be forced to decide WHO WE REALLY ARE. And, if the answer to that is that we're not much better than a pack of wild animals who are willing to kill our fellow Americans...all the while pretending that they are not really even human beings....then we are also going to be confronted with the realization that we're a far cry from being the nation of courageous, hard-working, inventive, NOBLE and compassionate people that we have been imagining we are all these generations.

We will be just one step this side of being inhuman ourselves...and, at this moment, I just am not at all sure that I would be willing to struggle to survive so that I can live in such a place. There was a time when I felt en-nobled by being an American. I was willing to die for this country and the ideals it represents, and I put my ass on the line to back that sentiment up: three years in the infantry.

Now, I am looking around and I am hearing the din of selfish people figuring out how to be selfish in ways that are positively nightmarish, not merely lacking in compassion or a willingness to sacrifice for others, but so utterly devoid of humanism that embracing becoming a human predator is now somehow justified.

Sooner or later.....we WILL BE TESTED. And, if this is our response, if survival depends on being the baddest s.o.b., with a willingness to kill anybody we feel threatened by, we will have become that which we have traditionally eschewed and rejected: a nation of hateful and selfish people who care only about our own well-being.

Sucks, if you ask me.

Big Oil's to die for profits......but, you're the one doing the dying

If you click on the above title you will be taken to an article by Bill McKibben--originally posted on TomDispatch, now re-presented on Salon.com--that spells out in very accessible terms the roots of climate change denial and why Big Oil is funding it so lavishly.

The future bottom-line is so potentially vast for them and their businesses are already so amazingly profitable that they are willing to destroy life as we know it on this planet. This is not radical rhetoric; it's the simple truth. Greed is perhaps the most powerful of all human motivators, and people--much less countries and corporations--have always been willing to commit murder when the possibility of financial gain is sufficiently tempting.

In this case it is the promise of profits that are wildly beyond most peoples' ability to even conceive of how much money is at stake. At present the big oil companies are already posting record profits. They are awash in money and have a vision that this will become ever more vast as time passes and the demand for oil continues to grow, even as the overall supply fades. McKibben points out that Big Oil is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the notion that global climate change is just a hoax...brought about by such kings of sleaze as THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE COMMUNITY. Mountains of undeniable data have been acumulated proving beyond any doubt whatsoever that climate change is not merely real, but that if it continues unabated....it will be a disaster of stunning, unimaginable proportions. But, that is anathema to Big Oil's plans to reap untold trillions of dollars as we move into the future. It seems oddly surreal to me, that they are so devoted to this financial goal that they have voluntarily blinded themselves to the fact that they will not have a future anymore than the rest of us if the plan to pump gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere continues as planned.

PLEASE READ THE ARTICLE.

BTW: Rick Santorum is now emerging as the latest Republican with 'The Big Mo" behind him. He has bragged that he's wiser and more qualified to lead this country because, after all, he spotted the global climate change hoax before Romney or any of the others. Wow!

More on the zombie invasion...

As if it weren't enough that a major ammo maker is producing Zombie-Max ammunition....America's most respected maker of rifle-scopes, Leupold, is now offering a new scope, made especially for killing the already dead, formerly humans who are headed your way.

This little cutie--listing for almost $700--is no toy either. It's festooned with appointments in zombie green and has a zombie brain on the inside of one of the scope caps and a zombie head on the other end. It seems that the industry is having a ball marketing zombie items, all the while knowing full well that it is deadly serious underneath all the joking about mythical comic figures. I have no doubt that the sly marketing types who sit around conference tables in companies like Leupold and Hornady think the whole business is just another way to sell more products to shooters.

I also know that the target audience (okay, you caught me....it's a really bad pun) knows exactly what the 'zombie invasion' is....and that pretend ammo, and toy rifles are not going to be sufficient to repel it. Click on the title above to see a short video on a company rep at an industry show introducing this product.

What's with all the Zombie stuff?

In the last year or so, Zombies have come up again and again. There was a television series called "The Walking Dead", a self-defense gun show about them, coyly presented with care to give the viewer the impression of it being 'tongue in cheek', and there is even a group on the web calling itself 'The Zombie Squad'. Turns out, they actually offer training to municipal governments, i.e. police departments, and to institutions or other groups. Training for what, you say? For when the Zombies arrive.

But, Zombies are just cartoon monsters, right? They are the 'un-dead', the 'walking dead', the not quite human anymore dead people who stalk the land, looking for living souls to feast on. They move sluggishly, drag their feet, look and smell like rotting flesh, are, in fact, in a state of nearly complete decomposition.........right?

Not so much, it turns out. The photo included here is of ammunition made by Hornady, one of the most respected ammo manufacturers in the business. So, if Zombies are just imaginary creatures from the Black Lagoon...then why is this deadly serious company--who's advertising slogan is "Accurate, Deadly, Dependable"--making real, live ammunition for killing the 'un-dead'? It says right on the box: "This is not a toy." That's Hornady's way of telling you that zombies aren't really a joke after all.

As you begin looking around the greater gun community online, you can drop-in on forums where people are discussing the right kind of weapons to have for SHTF--uh, that is Survivalist or Prepper speak for "Shit Hits the Fan"--and you will begin to realize that there are a large number of people who are very sure that we're on the verge of a descent into social unrest. Well, actually, 'unrest' is way too insipid to describe what they are anticipating. 'Chaos', and 'Armageddon' are much closer to the image they see of our future.

On some level, given the way the news media--especially our dear friends over at 'Fair and Balanced' Fox--portray the state of our society, it is understandable that people would be fearful of a bad outcome. There are times when my wife and I have wondered if we will come through all the challenges we face intact. There is the ever degrading environment, and the projections of what global climate change could mean. Then there is 'peak oil' and the specter of oil becoming so expensive that it initiates a world-wide financial collapse. The punditry is, by and large, telling us that the world's economy is teetering on the precipice of an abyss, lacking only one small shove to send it into complete collapse. Then there is the ever-present possibility of more bad behavior by terrorists and even terrorist states...with WMDs, quite possibly. Add to that the growing stratification of wealth and economic opportunity...an historic precursor to violent revolution throughout modern history. It appears that most of the world's major religions cannot even avoid causing conflict and have become a major source of hatred and violence. Religion used to be seen as a source of good guidance, 'wisdom', compassion, orderly and right conduct....not any more.

So, yes, it's no wonder that so many people are fearful of what the future holds. But, this whole 'zombie thing' has become almost a pre-occupation,...and here's the thing...it is NOT ABOUT mythical monsters. It is about people coming out of the cities of this country looking for food and shelter. The SHTF scenario includes the idea that there will be virtually hordes of people who were stupid enough and uninformed to the point that they failed to anticipate social breakdown. These people will be desperate and they will want what we, the wisely prepared, have.

"SO YOU WILL NEED TO BE PREPARED TO KILL THEM" now becomes an acceptable viewpoint, even without openly acknowledging that this is what is being unofficially 'authorized'. And, people accepting this shift in moral convention, are gently guided towards the understanding that they will very likely have to do so in great numbers. It seems that the whole zombie concept has become an unacknowledged euphemism for 'other', for 'the enemy', for people who will drag you down too if you are not willing to kill them. Furthermore, if you are so stupid as to think that you can help them, you will become just like them....exactly in the same way that if a zombie salivates on you, bites you, or breaks your skin, you will become a zombie too. How helpful, then, to be able to see them as less than human. How convenient it is to be able to relegate these souls to the status of 'other'. It was exactly that shift in Germany that paved the way to the Holocaust. Jews became sub-human others....so much easier to accept a policy of extermination then.

"Prepper" is a term that you may have not heard. It is referring to the ever growing number of people who are devoting a great deal of their financial and physical energy to preparing for the big SHTF scenario. Many 'preppers' have formed rural communities, most not much bigger than a few families, and have purchased homes in the country that they have worked to 'harden' and to sustain them as society collapses around them. There is a new series on Nat Geo t-v in February called, "Doomsday Preppers". [ click on the title above to see a YouTube preview of the first part of this series.] If you make the time to watch it, I believe what I am saying here will sink in to the point of your sitting there mumbling to yourself, "Holy shit. These people are serious." You might even question their viewpoint and their sanity.

But, you will not question that they are out there, all across the land, and they are getting ready for the zombie attack that is inevitable in their eyes.