paean to the self-appointed author of the great american novel

I wanted to soar, shine, burnished by utterance
Instead I got dirty and lost my frickin sense of direction

Book: "Hunger" by Sharman Apt Russell

Great on the physiology of hunger, its spiritual history, and on the
state of famine in the world. Works up to the Irish famine at the
very end. Written competently, not beautifully. Xmas present from
Mark & Skart.

Mortality to Nature

Something about the state of things now bringing a sort of mortality to nature as we know it by the disruption of natural systems. Nature used to be our place of refuge, of learning cyclicality and finding a needed corollary of the resilience we need spiritually. I got this strongly as a 13 year-old coming to the Adirondacks, and I've been frantic for several years now to see that natural identity under threat here, dissipating. Stresses tell in the trees, lake levels etc. Which brings me to the second point to think about, which is the possible transformation of the relationship to nature from one of piety to something of necessity other. Nature stumbles, systems suffer destruction; an active hand is needed, a perception of fragility to the environment that is occasion for our caring. It's almost as if the province heretofore occupied by stargazing sci-fi enthusiasts must welcome in the disaffected nature lovers. What does simple reverence become when it's object is evaporating and a larger than eco-historical perspective is called for? The unfairness, after all, of it having taken so long for humans to pull away from the Ptolemaic idea, the Protagorean idea, the man-centered idea to appreciate that we aren't the measure of all things, only to now have to grapple with grave problems that should rightly be seen as having been created by us, affecting everything negatively; yes we are the central problem to be solved now, it's radiating outward from us! The infuriating global warming skeptics trade on this recognition so counter-intuitive to enlightened principles, and, idiot charlatans that they are, actually continue to get way with it in many quarters... (after midnight on new year's 2006-07)