WHY FROGS DON'T NEED POCKETS

This morning before setting off to take the train into the city to go into a building and sit at a desk all day for money so I can feed high quality tomatoes to the local monkeys, I was heading out onto the deck to move the ladder so I could put up the sudare (reed screen) to keep the hot morning sun out of the living room when a flurry of green movement down around foot level caught my eye: inside the screen door was a frog, repeatedly leaping at the screen beyond which gleamed the dawning sun.

The frog was leaping in the green amphibian certainty that such a course would take him toward the light (much in the way we embrace one creed or another). He'd jump and bounce back, recover, jump and bounce back, again and again as I watched, his effort not diminishing one bit; he looked like he might continue until he ran out of jumps without ever considering a possible alternative, so I opened the door and let him hop out. (I don't mind being a miracle, when I get the chance.) He hopped a prodigious distance, having built up quite a charge, then assumed a forthright stance and simply squatted in place, turning his head as though admiring the new and panoramic vista his very own energy had earned for him; then he chose a new destination and set out for it in obviously satisfying leaps and bounds, the irony of it all being that none of this progress was costing him a dime. And we humans call ourselves sapient.

Still, it's nice to be a miracle now and again.

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HENRY'S ANNIVERSARY

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."

Walden was published 150 years ago today.

"It is remarkable the rapidity with which the grass grows."

See The Blog of Henry David Thoreau! With thanks to Sage

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WILD PORK STUFFED WITH RICE

Last night as at dusk we were heading down the mountain on our way to the Katata Fireworks Festival (described a couple of posts ago) we disturbed what appeared to be a large male inoshishi (wild pig) who had been about to depredate the lusciously heading rice stalks in one of the paddies on the north side of the road. (The wild pig-preventive electric fence mentioned previously stands uselessly incomplete.) As we came around the curve, our headlights caught rice-fattened hindquarters just disappearing into the thick bamboo undergrowth on the south side.

[Splendid fireworks.]

As we were returning home, we'd gotten up near the house when we saw the same wild pig guy standing very large on skinny legs, ready to maraud the paddies on the upper north side across the road from us, when at the sound and then sight of our car he vacillated a moment whether to continue with his supremely delicious intentions or go for the better part of valor, which as we drew near he did, diving into the bamboo thicket below our house.

This morning I walked down to where he had stood deciding, and sure enough, he had come back during the night. I'd expected to see a visibly ravaged rice field, as though a dozen or so sumo wrestlers had rolled around and flattened everything, but judging by the traces of his rice-ravaging technique Mr. Pork, like all the porcines, is very smart.

Instead of just pigging out right there visibly at the tempting verge, where all the succulently drooping rice stalks invited big piggy bites, Porco had restrained himself, first delicately and almost invisibly entering the rice field itself, thereby disappearing from view; he then-- as I could make out from his thin walking track through the tall stalks-- gorged randomly around the paddy in the dark (for him no doubt a form of heaven), scarfing the rice heads as they presented themselves to him at just about jaw height. He'd wandered a dithery path at his leisure; then when replete with only the finest food in a wild pig's world, he'd exited the field on another side away from the road, where no one would see.

Right now in a cool copse somewhere in the hot day sleeps a wild pig stuffed with rice and a certain knowledge of heaven.

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WE CAN HAVE SALMON AND TUNA AND TROUT EVEN AFTER THEY'RE ALL EXTINCT! WHOOPEE!! PROFITS GALORE!!!

"In the first successful species swap experiment of its kind, Japanese scientists have created a strain of salmon that spawns baby rainbow trout. [?!]

The technique could cut the time, cost, rearing space and intensive labour that were normally necessary for fish production, Dr Takeuchi said. [!?]

Primordial germ cells of endangered species could be frozen and converted into live fish, even after they were extinct in the wild, he added."[?!]

Is anyone else weirded out by this?

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WORLD HERITAGE FOR SALE

We have forest problems around here, but nothing as high-level unscrupulous as this.

"Bush's policy advisers don't see the benefits we've received from our investments in America's environmental infrastructure. All they see is the cost of compliance to their campaign contributors - a group led by the nation's most egregious polluters....

In summer 2003, my cousin Maria Shriver's husband, Arnold Schwarzenegger, approached me out on Cape Cod. He was determined, he said, to be 'the best environmental governor in California history....'"

From: The Forest For the Trees
By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

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SKYBLOSSOMS

Last night after a day of extreme thunderstorms crisscrossing our location, in the evening the Lake was still ringed with a noble procession of tall pink thunderheads waiting their turns to perform as we went to cap it all off in Katata (the lakeside town south of us, where Ukimido is) at the Katata Fireworks Festival, held conveniently between the rains with the calm Lake as foreground and backed by the sleek silver/gray/black dynamic cloud shapes beyond which distant lightning flashed in the layered darkness.

The fireworks as always were eyefilling and heartstopping, the Japanese really know their stuff when it comes to skyblossoms, but the special thing was the way they introduced each major fire"work": "And now, a firework that was first 'performed' last year at the Lake Suwa Firework Exhibition, and the firework was shot off, spiraled upward to invisibility and then did its amazing stuff with light and fire and color and motion and trajectory up there in front of the lightning, and everyone went "AWE..." You had to see it.

Then, "And now a special performance of 'The Peacock:'" and from across the Lake a series of fireworks was set off on the ground that when at last finished was cheered by the many thousands of onlookers on both shores, many of them bright in their own summer kimono. All of this amidst a long variety of firework performances with all kinds of work-of-art names. With lightning as backup, it was a one-of-a-kind performance. Free, too. They do it every year.

Tonight is the BIG fireworks festival at the south end of the Lake in Otsu, the old capital of Japan, where Shikibu wrote some chapters of The Tale of Genji.

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still pond
pebble
thoughtmotion

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SUDDEN LAS VEGAS

These summer nights as we sit talking after dinner at the kitchen table and have forgotten to turn off the light over the sink in front of the big window on the garden, our post-dinner conversation is punctuated with big B-O-N-N-G-G-GS as the zany cicadas and other large bugs zooming around out there looking for a big date in what should be darkness are thrown off-track by the sudden Las Vegas that is our kitchen, certainly the flashiest thing in this neck of the woods.

Not surprisingly, they turn and head straight for the bright lights and hit the window B-O-N-N-G-G-G, which leads to big buglife headaches and major changes in fortune, like a very fast night at the slots; every other sentence there's a B-O-N-N-G-G-G and some poor love-hungry bug staggerwings off into the darkness shaking its head, until one of us realizes the light is on and goes and turns it off so the poor things can fly about their actual business, perhaps find true love in the native darkness and we can have a naturally punctuated conversation. The bugs don't miss the bright lights; not one of them insists at the dark window, or says: Hey, where'd Vegas go?

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BE PREPARED

"Have you any idea what would happen if al-Qaeda lights up any of the 300,000 miles of mostly unprotected oil pipeline that supplies the world appetite for fossil fuel? Do you really believe that shipping routes are free from challenge? Oil is unprotected, and a sitting duck for plunder, should the opposition decide to move on it. What a mess has been spread over the world by the removal of Saddam Hussein. He was the only stop-gap between Iran and the rest of the oil-rich countries. He was removed, thanks likely to misinformation whispered into the eager ears of Washington by Mr. Chalabi, a man described as an Iranian agent of sorts.

We have not yet seen the worst of this unfolding drama. Iraq is headed into the hands of Iran. Iran is headed towards becoming, or may already be, a nuclear power. The West is going to be starved of oil. Markets will be vandalized by the event. Currencies will go into turmoil that cannot be stopped by more lies, and any or all central bank interventions. Derivatives will surface as the total frauds they are. Emergency loans in the hundreds of millions of dollars will be made to major brokerage firms and international investment banks to hold up a crumbling system. Price and monetary inflation must go wild as the big-wigs maneuver to save their bacon. The West simply cannot rule Islam, if only on the major criterion of size. At no time in history has anyone had the gall to believe they could (in a military sense) occupy such a vast territory in the name of bringing Democracy to the Muslim world -- a place where Dr. Benner has said there are no democrats to be found. Neither Attila The Hun, nor any other world conqueror, has ever undertaken a quest of the magnitude inherent in the stated second purpose of the invasion of Iraq by the Coalition of the Willing.

Societies have been crippled by winning wars in the past, but this war now has no borders and covers an area greater than any war on the planet. It has sucked the U.S. dry and soon will suck the dollar dry. Now the opposition senses the hemorrhage of the system and plans to starve it of its lifeblood, oil. In the red fog of combat, leadership may not realize that in victory lies total defeat. It is never too late to cut your losses, but politics is the madness that often drives men and nations to their destruction. It is that bad. I have seen the future and it is not pretty."

Jim Sinclair Tuesday, August 03, 2004

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ENEMIES 'R' US

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said. "They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

You can say that again.

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RESPONSE TO JAPAN'S WHALING COMMISSIONER

My responses (plain text) to comments (posted on my anti-whaling post) by Japan's Whaling Commissioner Minoru Morimoto (bold)

so what is the precise definition of a 'cultural right'?

'Cultural right' is one of those button-pushing but meaningless concepts (like 'racial purity') that are often used to justify dishonorable aims. Things change; times change; awarenesses change; cultures change; the killing of whales is not a 'cultural right' of Japan. It has been more reasonably argued that whales are a traditional dietary component of North American coastal indian tribes, but even that is being questioned in this day and age, and minimized as ritual to the point of disappearance.

why do you snigger about horse meat ice cream, but get so excited about whale meat? minke whales aren't in danger of becoming extinct. (basashi ice cream is amusing, to be sure -- but the creators of it probably were aware of that.)

I wasn't 'sniggering' about horsemeat, but about horsemeat-flavored ice cream. I'm surprised that the fact doesn't strike you (I'm sure it does, but facts often don't fit commercial agendas) that beef, pigs and horses are raised commercially; nobody ever has or ever will raise whales for food. Personally, I'm against the consumption of meat as a major food group, both dietarily and ecologically. (If one is starving, this is all another matter.) Someone will always want to eat meat, but they'll raise it, if they have the land, the time and the 'heart' for personal slaughter, as they do with beef, pigs and horses. There will never be a whale ranch.

no, no japanese is starving because of a lack of whale in their diet. but if pork or beef eating were banned, they wouldn't be going hungry either. the point is that whale is part of japan's traditional cuisine, and it has a distinct taste. why do the japanese need to stop eating it if whales aren't in danger of becoming extinct (unless too many of them are hunted, but that seems unlikely, world opinion being what it is...)?


World opinion being of some validity, I should think. Personally, I'd have no argument with a ban on pork and beef. Nor, if things keep going the way they are (with mad cow etc.), will anyone else, perhaps, a century from now. 100 years ago, NO whales were in danger of becoming extinct. Minke are still extant in relatively large numbers only because all the others (more profitable, more abundant, easier to catch etc.) have been hunted to near extinction. This is not a matter of gourmet lust for minke whales. I don't see this as only Japan's effort; Iceland, Norway et al. make similarly selfish claims; it's just that I live on this planet too, and the whales belong to no one. Whale eaters should bite the harpoon and move on, as the mammoth eaters did perforce. Hopefully earlier, so our descendants can actually see whales in the ocean and thank us for what we've left them, not curse us for what we've stolen to ourselves.

Email the Japan Whaling Commission at: webmaster@whaling.jp

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HEALTH ON THE NET FOUNDATION

Searchable source of accredited health information worldwide. Health information you can trust. Try a search.

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VOTE FOR CHANGE

Pearl Jam, Dave Matthews Band, REM, Bruce Springsteen and Dixie Chicks, have announced the Vote For Change Tour.

"I felt like I couldn't have written the music I've written, and been on stage singing about the things that I've sung about for the last 25 years and not take part in this particular election."

--Bruce Springsteen

"A vote for change is a vote for a stronger, safer, healthier America. A vote for Bush is a vote for a divided, unstable, paranoid America."

--Dave Matthews

More from Bruce about the reasons...

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SUBINTELLIGENCE: WHAT'S IQ GOT TO DO WITH IT?

"Bush administration officials acknowledged yesterday that the latest terrorism alert was based primarily on information that is three to four years old, but they aggressively defended the decision to warn financial sectors in Washington, New York and Newark because of the continuing threat posed by al Qaeda."

Alert, Alert! November draws near...

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WHEN IS A DECK NOT A DECK?

Well, we have the new cedar boards nailed in place on the deck, which is thereby according to strict definition a deck again and can be walked upon and trafficked over, were one to seriously desire to do so, though I might have to stop one, since the boards haven't yet been weather treated, to which end we have the new section tarped over in wait for the boards to cure a bit during, say, a 72-hour duration of no moisture cascading from the sky, which these days seems about as likely as winning the Jumbo Lottery, so no, according to an even more personally stringent definition it's not a deck. Does that answer your question?

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WATER QUALITY WORSENING IN LAKE BIWA, SAYS MINISTRY

"The Public Management Ministry notified three ministries Tuesday that the quality of water in 10 lakes and ponds was still below expected standards.
The ministry's first evaluation of policies related to the conservation of the quality of lake water was delivered to the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, the Construction and Transport Ministry and the Environment Ministry.
The ministries also were sent advisory statements that called for them to review their plans to conserve water quality as well as consider new policies to regulate the discharge of waste water.
The ministry conducted chemical oxygen demand tests to assess the level of pollution in water samples taken from 10 designated lakes and ponds that had not met the requirements set by the Environment Ministry. Public Management Ministry officials also talked to local government officials regarding water conservation.
The ministry determined that none of the designated lakes and ponds met its standards. It also concluded that the water quality at four of the lakes, including Lake Biwa and Lake Nakaumi, was worsening."

Yomiuri Shimbun

I would suggest, offhand, for a start, that they CANCEL THE INDUSTRIAL WASTE PYROLYTIC INCINERATOR PLANNED FOR THE WESTERN SHORE OF LAKE BIWA (DRINKING WATER FOR 25 MILLION PEOPLE). Otherwise, scrap these purposeless ministries and start over with meaning.

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SCATHING POLITICAL TECTONICS

"... you could feel, a couple of months back, as summer spread across the country, the ground shifting beneath your feet... I began to get calls from friends whose parents had always voted Republican, 'but not this time.'...

Does anyone really favor an administration that so shamelessly lies? One that so tenaciously clings to secrecy, not to protect the American people, but to protect itself? That so willfully misrepresents its true aims and so knowingly misleads the people from whom it derives its power?"

From The Case Against George W. Bush

By Ron Reagan

"The son of the fortieth president of the United States takes a hard look at the son of the forty-first and does not like what he sees"

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BLINDS AND VISTAS

I hear the city is hotly calling for closed windows, blinds and air conditioning; at our house, in contrast, everything is open, cool and filled with vistas; got up this morning and the Lake was centered with a band of brilliant orange-gold from the sun behind some purple clouds over all that was silent but for the early semi, all that was unmoving but for an orange-headed, golden-eyed white cattle egret, gliding through the intense jade feathers of richening rice stalks, long-black-legged slow, as though doing all that need be done in the world, and carefully. Made for the job, as one might suppose we were too, until we go into the city.

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CAREER MALE CELIBATE DICTATES SEXUAL ROLE ADVICE TO WOMEN

The lifelong-celibate male leader of an exclusively male celibate priesthood (recently charged with shuffling child molesters from parish to parish worldwide for decades), advises women to get back into their absolutely non-priestly places as passive vessels of darkness, wear hats in church and otherwise do as they are told, as god (also definitely male) intended, it says so right here in this book, if you need proof.

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VESTED INTERESTS

"There are those - and it looks suspiciously like George W Bush is one of them - who will take decisions that are counter productive to the welfare of Society as a whole in order to ensure a maintenance of the vested interests of a small subset of greater Society. They rationalise that these people have superior capabilities and that they therefore 'need' to be protected so that they can 'get on with the job' of 'saving the world'. There is a word that describes such a rationalisation, and that word is 'arrogance'."

From Managed Markets
By Brian Bloom

This reminded me of a passage I read a few weeks ago in Some More Thoughts on Moore, by Joyce Marcel:

"For me, the most troublesome scene in the film [Farenheit 9/11] comes when Bush is speaking to a group of wealthy supporters at a formal dinner. With a smirk, he says that while some might call these people 'the elite,' he calls them 'my base.' The well-tailored men and diamond-bedecked women smiled, preened and applauded; my heart dropped.

That was the moment I realized that these people know George Bush very well. They know he's a charming idiot, a wealthy, well-connected ne'er do well. They know that he's run every business opportunity he's ever had into the ground. They know he's not qualified to be president of a local garbage-hauling business, much less of the United States. And they don't care. They flat-out don't care.

The point is that he is one of them. They can trust him and his handlers to protect their privileges and increase their wealth. They'll fill Bush's coffers for this election and vote for Jeb Bush in the next one. The rest of the country can go to hell for all they care."

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IN CASE SOMEONE IS PLANNING TO BUILD A 'CLEAN' AND 'SAFE' PYROLYTIC INCINERATOR IN YOUR BACK YARD, LIKE THEY'RE PLANNING TO DO BESIDE LAKE BIWA, UPWIND AND UPRIVER OF ABOUT 25 MILLION PEOPLE:

"Thermal waste treatment technologies fall into two broad categories: 1) those in which wastes are combusted. burned in the presence of oxygen, i.e., incineration technologies; and 2) those in which wastes are heated in the presence of little or no oxygen so that there is no direct combustion , i.e., pyrolysis (sometimes referred to as thermolysis) and gasification.

When oxygen levels in an incinerator are reduced to levels below the optimum for combustion, the incinerator is said to operate in a 'starved air', or 'pyrolytic' mode. Pyrolysis, also sometimes referred to as thermolysis, is defined as the thermal degradation of a substance in the absence or with a limited supply of oxygen. However, with medical wastes and similar materials a complete absence of oxygen is unachievable. As a result, some oxidation will occur during pyrolysis so that dioxins and related products of incomplete combustion are formed."

From Health Care Without Harm

For a broader picture visit GAIA (Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance)

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