11.18.19
From Muir’s Letter to Emerson 03.26.1872
I have been going about the valley all morning day, anxious to learn what I could of this magnificent power. The ground is still in motion. It has never fairy settled since the first shock. Between each of the greater shocks a heavy rumbling is heard, not always dis- tinguishable from the explosive notes of the Upper Fall. These are the first spoken words that I have heard direct from the tender bosom of Mother Earth. Frogs cease their songs when a severe shock occurs. I noticed a pair of robins flying with a frightened cheep cheep from a shaken oak. Butterflies seem to know nothing about it. Vertical animals are mostly in sore consternation. Two or three have fled. A little girl of Hutchings cried terror stricken in the night, Grandma Grandma Pray to God to stop it. I met? two violets up by Indian Canon I asked them while I looked in their eyes, what they thought of the great quake storm. They replied It’s all Love . We have lost Eagle Rock but have gained another that is more beautiful, Distruction is always creation; storms of water cloud, Storms of azure wind, purple granite, are things of Beauty Love, working Beauty Love constantly higher yet higher – I did not purpose sending so much storm. I write mostly to repeat my invitation to Yosemite next summer. for this year Pacific letters fly Atlanticward like wounded birds, All are unsteady many fall dead in drifts.
Our thoughts and love are with our friends, family and all the people of California.
11.14.18
11.13.18
The Digital Gap Between Rich and Poor Kids Is Not What We Expected
The parents in Overland Park, Kan., were fed up. They wanted their children off screens, but they needed strength in numbers. First, because no one wants their kid to be the lone weird one without a phone. And second, because taking the phone away from a middle schooler is actually very, very tough.
“We start the meetings by saying, ‘This is hard, we’re in a new frontier, but who is going to help us?’” said Krista Boan, who is leading a Kansas City-based program called START, which stands for Stand Together And Rethink Technology. “We can’t call our moms about this one.”
I first noticed this gap almost a decade ago visiting college campuses. When I would sit in on classes at small private collegess students with laptops were a rare sight. At community colleges, they were slightly more common. At state universities, with amphitheater sized classrooms, they were all too common. Equally all too common was how many were all tuned to social media.
11.11.18
Warmed Olives Are A Gift From The Gods
(The Cut)
I have loved olives for as long as I can remember — thanks, mom. I have had most every variety at some point or another. Also, if you stuff a soft cheese into an olive invite me over. But it was not until five or six years ago that I had sauteed olives at a little wine bar in the Sea-Tac Airport. As this article suggests, I too discovered I had never really eaten olives optimally until that moment.
Margaret Fuller On Falsehoods
It is astonishing what force, purity, and wisdom it requires for a human being to keep clear of falsehoods.
— Margaret Fuller
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler’s trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar’s garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.
― Nature
This is the ‘last generation’ that can save nature, WWF says
The proportion of the planet’s land that is free from human impact is projected to drop from a quarter to a tenth by 2050, as habitat removal, hunting, pollution, disease and climate change continue to spread, the organization added.The group has called for an international treaty, modeled on the Paris climate agreement, to be drafted to protect wildlife and reverse human impacts on nature.It warned that current efforts to protect the natural world are not keeping up with the speed of manmade destruction.The crisis is “unprecedented in its speed, in its scale and because it is single-handed,” said Marco Lambertini, the WWF’s director general. “It’s mindblowing. … We’re talking about 40 years. It’s not even a blink of an eye compared to the history of life on Earth.”“Now that we have the power to control and even damage nature, we continue to (use) it as if we were the hunters and gatherers of 20,000 years ago, with the technology of the 21st century,” he added. “We’re still taking nature for granted, and it has to stop.”
Dean’s List 