It's Only A Game

I read on Drudge today Tiger Woods is settling his divorce for 750 million.  If the reports are anywhere near accurate, he had affairs with 17 ladies.  Assuming my math is correct, that amounts to roughly 44 million for each adventure in infidelity.  I predict a return to a new, better Tiger on the course, one with ice in his veins.  What?  Me worry about a lousy putt that might only cost me 2.5 million? Don't be silly, fool.

EXTINCTION dramatic short

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCKNUi1A-GA

Save a whale and chop a tree.  Stop drilling and put a giant windmill on your lawn.  Whatever, the choices aren't easy.  And sometimes we don't think them through.  Take the case of Miss Twillinger, high school biology teacher.  Filled with pride at being on top of the food chain, and with responsibility to safeguard the planet, she heads to the desert to 'save endangered species.'

I know there are those of you out there who will beg off, "nobody is that naive."  You could be right, but I have observed tree huggers, and there seem to be no mirrors in the forest.

best,
John K.

THE FIRST PODCAST

Supposedly there exists a 'wax cylinder' audio recording of Alfred Lord Tennyson reading the first stanza of "Charge of the Light Brigade".

LET'S NOT GO ALL CRAZY HERE

Stephen Hawking is truly one of the wonders of the world.  But his recent interview suggests he falls a few ticks shy of god status.  The "big draw" of the interview was his comment to the effect that there "may be" aliens out there, and they may not like us.  But the centerpiece was the series of questions he posed:  Where did we come from?  In other words, how and why did the universe come into being?  Are we (as sentient beings) alone in the universe?  Why are we here?  That is, what is our purpose for being here?  Where are we going?  

Big, important questions.   The answers...well, he didn't really give any.  His conclusions seemed about the same fustered mulling as the average intellectual's, whether religious or anti-god, and actually resembled the sort of conjecture you or I might come up with after our 2nd glass of wine.  Stephen thinks chances are there are alien creatures/cultures out there.  Well, so did the producers of The Blob and War of the Worlds. Taking the other side, he notes there is no concrete evidence of such visiters...not exactly news.  However, noting the billions of star systems and millions of planets out there, he gives a nod to the probability.  As to who we are, what we are doing here and where we are going... well, he did ask the right questions, the same ones people everywhere both  ordinary and famous have been asking since the dawn of time.  

So tonight, looking up at the stars, let's raise a toast to Stephen Hawking, for his courage in the face of adversity, and for his honest curiosity.  And then a toast to each other for the same.  And, powers that be, forgive us if we don't genuflect.

Indians, Missionaries, Pioneers, Developers

When the Europeans came to the Midwestern United States, the views of the missionaries must have been discomforting to the shamens of the Iroquis Nation.  But they were hunting souls, not land, so it was a curious but not society-shaking intrusion on their way of life.  When the pioneers came, cut and cleared the forests and plowed the land, that was a revelation of a more serious order.  Who would have known that, barely two hundred later, many of the farmer-descendants of those original settlers would be forced off their land by incorporation and development?  On a basic level, there's probably not much difference between an American Indian who has lost his way of life and an American farmer who has lost his.