I have been thinking further on the Tiger Trail, and its connection to the purpose of this site.  Usually I muse on the wisdom of the judge that took the risk to allow convicted poachers to serve out their life sentence in the national park rather than in prison.  The opportunity we have to visit the wilderness with them, and to relay that story, is certainly a privilege, for this site and for the individuals who write about it.

But the reason I keep coming back to it is that the men who represented the risk have, by all appearances, made good on their promise not to return to poaching for all these years.  Why?

If the men were inherently good, an argument could be made, they would not have hunted and killed tigers for money, or destroyed the cinnabar ecosystem for money.  But to meet the men today, they certainly seem good, by nurture if not by nature.  And so, why? Continue reading →

Milo’s post reminded me of the surprise I had, 30 years after first reading Brave New World, when (thanks to the generosity of The Paris Review, which started providing some of their archives online, free for the taking) I came across an interview with Aldous Huxley.  By most accounts, not least your high school English teacher’s, he was a visionary, right?  So ponder this, if you did not already know it:

…INTERVIEWER

How did you happen to start writing? Do you remember?

HUXLEY

I started writing when I was seventeen, during a period when I was almost totally blind and could hardly do anything else. I typed out a novel by the touch system; I couldn’t even read it. I’ve no idea what’s become of it; I’d be curious to see it now, but it’s lost. My aunt, Mrs. Humphry Ward, was a kind of literary godmother to me. I used to have long talks with her about writing; she gave me no end of sound advice…

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The first time I remember having heard of Nicaragua was during an evening newscast sometime in the autumn of 1980.  The first time I had the opportunity to vote in a presidential election was November, 1980.  Most of the students I knew at that time were somehow very certain about what was right and wrong in general, about what would be best for Nicaragua, about who could best lead the United States, and about lots of other things. And most seemed to have similar views to one another. Some days I was impressed by the coherence and consistency, others nauseated.

It was the nausea, in the end, that motivated me.  That sickening feeling was not the result of judging people around me, but of realizing that I did not have sufficient experience to have such strong viewpoints.  That was why I left college (the ad below, which I did not see until a few years after graduating college, summed up in 30 seconds what I had been looking for).

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Some time between 1980 and 1981,  when I first became aware of Nicaragua, I started leafing through this book that I saw many fellow students carrying around with them.  It was the text for a course I was not taking, but maybe that was for the better.  The short bursts of exposure to the explication of “the new” in art were probably all I could handle while being shocked by everything else, all new too.

By the summer of 1981 I had dropped out of college, and away from all that other too new stuff, and began apprenticing with a blacksmith.  It was a reaction to the news about Nicaragua, in part.  Today’s news reminded me that in the ensuing 30 years answers have not gotten any clearer, or easier.

I do not have any photographs from my time as would-be artisan, which was short-lived.  I have visual and sensory recollections of it, including my first listening to Blood On The Tracks and long motorcycle rides through the blue grass hills of northern Kentucky and southern Indiana.  And through my nose I can recall the smithy coal fire and grunting leather bellows, food cooked over a wood fire, and Sunday morning folks in clean clothes on church pews. Continue reading →

That bumper sticker activated my reflective reflex.  36 hours later I was going back, trying to find an article I had read (but when?) that quite artfully illuminated “things” for me.  Things related to that bumper sticker and the recent visit to New York City.  I found the article, re-read it, and recommend it.

At the same time I had photos and correspondence with Tal (he is the one looking at his camera in the photo below that Milo took) in the mix.  That all seemed related too (but how?).

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In an earlier post I was reminded of the origins of the metaphor we now commonly use to consider the impact we have on the environment.  Then a few weeks ago Seth mentioned that he was invited to have dinner with the fellow who brought that metaphor into common usage.  He did not post on the discussion that took place during that dinner, but here is how Cornell’s newspaper of record covered the presentation that followed.

Now, thanks to the BBC’s website, I have encountered this metaphor once again.  If you click on the image above and plug in your birthdate, you can have a quick snapshot of where you fit into the timeline of human history (I was approximately the 76,944,046,711th person born in history, according to my birth date, whereas someone born today would be somewhere around the 83,214,560,807th).

If you click through from that first step to the next in this mental exercise calculator, you can consider a couple more variables related to the human footprint over time and space.  Thank you again Mr. Wackernagel.