the frig blig

On this day in 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assasinated…making today the 60th anniversary of his death. They don’t make ‘em like that anymore.

Could bird flu be nature’s way of countering global warming?

I knew there had to be a gas station like this…unfortunately you can’t judge a book by its cover, etc. (and it’s way down south in Georgia).

Harvard psych professor Steven Pinker’s intriguing article ‘The Moral Instinct’ (New York Times Magazine 13-Jan cover story) made me dig out my old copy of the book ‘Mutual Aid’, in which author Kropotkin uses countless examples of animal behavior to illustrate how cooperation is at least as big, if not bigger, a species survival technique as is competition (Darwin’s ’survival of the fittest’).

Could this be moral philosophy’s prehistory?

I’ve been teaching myself to play guitar for the past few months. I try to play 15 minutes a day, although a workingman’s schedule doesn’t always permit. It’s tons of fun (although I can have hours of fun with almost any musical instrument).

Last night I dreamed I was playing a song on the guitar…I remember figuring out what would work for the chorus…I awoke and forthwith in groggy state, went to my guitar and played the song. I then found a piece of staff paper and wrote it out.

I was mightily pleased, I’ve dreamed compositions before but never for guitar. This bodes well for my future with the instrument I think.

Savannah’s Forsyth Park fountain, shortly after noon last Thursday. It was rather a pleasant surprise to arrive in Seattle the following midnite, where temperatures were in the balmy 40s F.

…so what do you think the chances are that the video of the CIA’s interrogation of Abu Zubaydah was digitized? If so, most likely the files were deleted when the tapes were. However, most computer systems have automated regular backups. A good technician possibly could resurrect the controversial video from backup or archive sources…should such a person decide it’s worth the risk.

This big guy taking a breath is a manatee at Homosassa Springs. All they do is swim around all day and eat in fresh 73-degree spring water. What a life! I visited these guys whilst driving from Tampa to Tallahassee last Sunday.

I’m wondering about why people seem to have a stronger response to the attack on the world trade center than the news that peoples carbon dioxide emissions have actually changed the planet’s climate, and worldwide changes are already occurring as a result. These changes include increasing global temperatures, vanishing glaciers and permafrost (which is expected to lead to rising ocean levels), and changes in the amount and pattern of precipitation.

An outbreak of malaria in southern Italy is a recent unpredicted effect, caused by the migration north of tropical mosquitos to places where they formerly could not thrive.

Obviously global climate change will have (and is having) a lot more impact on the lives and living conditions of people and other species all over the world; whereas the attack on the world trade center killed a few thousand people immediately, and indirectly led to the killing of a few thousand more (plus causing political changes such as repeal of the writ of habeus corpus, destabilization of Iraq, warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens and turning the U.S. budget surplus into the biggest deficit in history).

Obviously the twin towers going down in flames plays better on TV than a slow incremental temperature increase caused by invisible gases. And psychologically it’s more attractive to blame and attack enemy terrorists than to deal with our own culpability in the greenhouse effect.

But imagine if this country had spent the same amount of money spent on the Iraq war, on research and development of greenhouse gas reduction policies and technologies. It might still be too little, to late; but I can’t help think of the old proverb “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Known outside the U.S. as “a milligram of prevention is worth a kilogram of cure.”