As delta-T approaches infinity, P approaches 1.

Seventy years uptime, there are two toddler-age girls playing in a park in Tokyo while their mothers chat. One of the girls used to be--or carries the memories of, whichever suits you best--Donald Rumsfeld. The other used to be a teenage boy in Fallujah, whose life ended in blood and smoke when the bombs fell. They play together, occasionally giggling as if at a private joke that even their mothers don't understand. They hug, getting cracker crumbs in each others' hair.

Tucker

(And that's what I find comforting.)

Considering how much outrage has been amassed over the displacement of the Palestinians, I think the time is right for the Un-Settle Turtle Island movement to take hold.

This Un-Settlement will return to its original owners the land that was stolen and swindled away from First Nations peoples by the Europeans. That this crime began hundreds of years does not make it any less of a crime, nor does it make the nation that now occupies that land any less guilty of (at the very least) receiving stolen property.

My proposal is this: If I own any land, I will make a provision of my will that upon my death, its ownership will revert to the Nation that originally lived there. They can use it or sell it at current market value if they see fit--either way, they will get their property back.

If enough occupiers of North America do this, eventually the First Nations will regain much of their original land! I am sure they will let the rest of us keep living here.

Tucker

PS. If you won't join this movement, why won't you?

and all we can do about it is tend to our gardens?"--Leonard Wibberley, Adventures of an Elephant Boy.

I pretty much think things are hopeless, too; just what I know about the climate, Peak Oil, and the cycles of empires falling tells me that. On a personal level, I am a post-reproductive female of no special value, possessed of no great talents, low in status and small in territory. I am an utterly superfluous person, whether I look at it in the terms of our culture (I'm not "hot" and not rich and not Important) or in the stark language of ethology. I am a non-entity, citizen of a corrupt and crumbling empire on a small blue planet that for a while was called Earth.

Since there's no action I can take that will change any of this, I emulate the monk in the story who, chased off a cliff by a ferocious tiger, managed to grasp a vine and hang on. As he hung there, relieved at his narrow escape, two mice started to nibble the vine. Just then, the monk saw a strawberry within arm's length. Faced with the tiger above, and the jagged rocks below, both certain death, he picked the strawberry and ate it, and it was sweet.

We all die. The day will come when I do it too. Most people die in pain, with regrets, frustrated; I doubt I will be an exception. Most people have several bad years before they die; I most likely will as well. Most species go extinct sooner or later; all civilizations fall; and if nothing else happens, there's still the Heat Death Of The Universe to think about some billions of years from now. In a very real sense, there is no hope.

What gets me through it is enjoying the small things in the present moment. Right now I am fed and warm and safe. Right now I am able to turn on an electric light and have it work. Right now I still have a place to live indoors and am free of pain. Right now no bombs are falling on me and I can afford to give some of my bread to the ducks outside. That's all there is: right now.

Tucker

The push to get out into space would spur research into clean energy and ways to keep a biosphere running well, which will in the long run benefit Earth. Additionally, mining resources from asteroids would mean those resources needn't be dug out of Earth, which means that the devastation of strip-mining and other resource acquisition will be averted. In the end, preparing to spread to other planets may be what makes it possible to live on this one for longer.

Hawking is right about the long-term survival; eventually, whether humans cause it or not, Earth will become uninhabitable for megafauna, including humans. Spreading to space will allow humans and many other species--perhaps some of everything that lives here--to survive. Remember, if an asteroid hits Earth now, not only will there be no more humans, but also no more gorillas or whales or cheetahs or coral reefs or luna moths. Imagine if humanity, instead of being the thing that threatens the survival of all that is rare and wonderful, is instead destined to be the thing that saves it all, to go and prosper on new worlds!

Hatch, or die.

Tucker

R.A. Lafferty wrote a story called "The Groaning Hinges of the World," about places on Earth where the overworld and underworld occasionally switch places, and the mild and sane people are all replaced by fierce and bloodthirsty people. I think he was onto something; every so often a change in culture occurs, and what was virtue to one age--to be compassionate and charitable and tender--is seen as vice; and the vices of the old world--selfishness, greed, and cruelty--become seen as virtue. It happens occasionally, in some cultures.

I think we are at the beginning edge of one of these cycles. I think the hinges of our world have turned, and a few of us are left with the set of values belonging to the younger age, and it is we who will be crushed, as always, by the onward march of cruelty. I expect more of this. If you can get your hands on the Lafferty story, read it; it's good.

Tucker

A couple days ago, the people I work with were sitting around the breakroom table. The boss, who shows the signs of a hard life lived as well as he could, was there; and so were two recent high-school graduates who are in the same junior college; and the fiftyish woman from Holland. The topic of health care costs came up.

"Is it better to go broke trying to fight a disease, and end up on assistance, or not to seek care and die, leaving your family behind?" the woman from Holland asked. "Me, I wouldn't fight it."

"What it boils down to," said the boss, "is we have to address the very basic question of how much we are responsible for each other. And I won't get into that." The boss wears a cross around his neck and is probably Republican, but is also a very Christian sort of Christian, always looking to give people second and third chances.

"We need socialized medicine," the woman from Holland said bluntly. "In Holland everyone gets it all. Here you need to be rich."

I put in, "What would happen to any of us if we needed, say, a heart transplant? What are we supposed to do if we get seriously ill?"

One of the junior college students spoke up. This is the future of our nation speaking here, and I fear we must listen to what he has to say. "We will have to get used to dying again," he said. "In the past, if you got sick, you died. Babies died. Children died. Young people my age died. Now people think only the old should die, and doctors should do whatever expensive heroic measures they have to keep us alive, and we need to get out of that attitude. Look at the art of the plague years, people knew about death then and they were used to it. We just have to get used to it, too."

There was some silence, and then the woman from Holland spoke again. "We need socialized medicine, but nobody in this country will go for it."

"It's easier," said the junior college student, "to get used to dying."

Tucker

It's Baby Season again, and DUers are going to find the occasional baby bird or mammal. Here are some resources for when it happens:

The first priority if you have found a baby wild animal is to locate the nearest wildlife rehabilitator. Here's a place you can look them up by location: http://www.tc.umn.edu/~devo0028/contact.ht... Wildlife rehabbers are skilled in caring for wild babies (and injured adults) and returning them to the wild. They have veterinarians on-call, proper facilities for the babies to develop normally, and they don't mind the lack of sleep. (Baby mammals, depending on size and age, will need to be fed every 2-4 hours around the clock. Baby birds usually need every-half-hour feedings from sunup until 10:00 pm, sometimes later.) Everyone should have a list of their local wildlife rescue places and vets who take in animals for them; it makes things easy when the need arises.

If you find a baby bird on the ground and can put it back in its nest, you should do so. The mom won't smell you on the babies and abandon them, she'll just be relieved that her chick is home. If an entire nest is destroyed, you can even make a nest in a basket and put the babies in that. (We did this when the wind blew a robin's nest out of a tree. The babies grew up fine.) A baby bird who is fully feathered out and hopping around, almost flying, is a fledgeling and should be left alone--just keep an eye out so cats don't get it, and it'll be flying very soon.

If you can't put a baby bird back in the nest, put it in a small dark box (darkness reduces stress), keep it warm, and bring it to a wildlife center or an intake vet as soon as possible. Unless you've hand-fed birds before, don't try to feed it. Birds' airways are in an odd place (floor of the mouth, right behind the tongue) and it's easy to miss the throat and accidentally drown/choke them. Don't try to give a baby bird water, either: they get all their moisture from food, and they aren't coordinated enough to drink liquids without choking yet.

Any bird that's been in a cat's mouth is in danger from bacteria, and must be brought to the rehabber for treatment, even if the nest is in reach.

Here is where you can find an avian vet; http://www.aav.org/vet-lookup / Your local avian vet will almost certainly know how to contact your local rehabilitators, for mammals as well as birds.

For baby mammals, the first thing to do is make sure it's actually an orphan or abandoned. Some animals, like deer and rabbits, leave their babies alone while they go off to eat. If the animal's in a den or a nest of grass and doesn't look gaunt, chances are it's not abandoned. If you *know* the animal is orphaned or in trouble (see a dead mother on the side of the road, your cat brings it in, whatever) carefully put the baby in a towel-lined, secure dark box and bring it to the rehabber or intake vet. If the animal is a baby raccoon, don't handle it bare-handed! Raccoons can have a skin parasite that is deadly to humans; use gloves and towel it to pick it up. Again, don't feed the baby critter, as tempting as it may be; many animals need somewhat specialized formulas, and opossums need extra-special formula because they can't digest lactose. Regular human formula is too high in iron for baby wild mammals, and without a scale and growth charts and all that good stuff it's hard to know if the baby is getting enough to eat.

Here are some specific "found a baby" sites:

Squirrels: http://www.squirrelworld.com/ifounda.html
Bunnies: http://www.webbedworks.com/messingerwoods/...
Birds: http://www.webbedworks.com/messingerwoods/...
Fawns; http://www.webbedworks.com/messingerwoods/...

Books for people who want to become rehabilitators: http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania...

Tucker

Years ago, Americans rooted for the underdog. American culture was all about the little guy getting his chance.

Since then, I've watched the culture in this country become increasingly cruel. I remember early on arguing on a mailing list that the sudden popularity of "Survivor" was a bad sign, that encouraging people to think in terms of "kicking people off the island" and eliminating "the weakest links" pointed to an emergence in social-darwinistic thinking that would eventually lead to very dark places.

Since then, the culture of cruelty has increased, to the point where openly cruel, "who cares about them?" sentiments are appearing in mainstream political discourse. Think of the way Republican talking-heads spoke of the victims of Katrina. Is there any doubt that a large portion in this society would kick all the less-than-rich, less-than-healthy, and less-than-fortunate off the island if they could?

Where has the country gone that rooted for the underdog? How many decades before we look back as a culture and find ourselves appalled at the cruelty of the times?

Tucker

Transphobic comments are not an innocuous way to blow off some steam venting about certain vicious right-wing windbags. Transphobia hurts all transgendered people in exactly the same way that racism hurts black people, anti-semitism hurts Jewish people, and homophobia hurts gay people. And it hurts the friends and families of transgendered people. Which includes me, which is why I take this very seriously.

There are PLENTY of things to say about nasty right-wing personalities without stooping to bigotry, and I know we DUers are creative enough and resourceful enough, and most importantly, ACCEPTING enough and KIND enough, to find ways to poke at right-wing jerks without accidentally poking our friends in the eye at the same time.

Tucker

Today I started wondering about the feeling this poem (and other really great poetry) evokes in me. It's about the same as the feeling I get looking up at the stars and knowing that light left a hundred thousand years ago. What is the source of the reason I cry when I see the meeting of the incidental and infinite? It's a form of pleasure/fear/sorrow, but what on earth lights up in my brain? What combination of neurotransmitters create this? What is it for, evolutionarily? Do other creatures feel it--is it what the tern feels pulling him from north and south poles to compel him on his lonely flight?

So, gimme your best guesses, neurological, evolutionary, psychological. Help me figure out this feeling (I sure hope you've all felt it too, because it is very enjoyable).

Tucker

Parrot Understood as Therapod

I look into your eyes
and the Mesozoic looks back.