Kennedy/Lense Cap/Mary Oliver

Bulletin: I'm 63-years-old today! 1-24-07. Ed Coletti




(P1) Philosophical

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
01.16.2007
For the Last, Stubborn Holdouts on Global Warming
READ MORE: Robert F. Kennedy, New York

Last week I saw robins and bluebirds in upstate New York where they don't usually arrive before April. Crocuses and daffodils were in bloom everywhere. A friend ate asparagus he harvested in the normally frozen Catskills in the first week of January. Turtles in downstate New York, like bears in Scandinavia, forgot to hibernate for the first time in human history.

For those last stubborn holdouts still skeptical about the existence of global warming--e.g., CNN's chief corporate fascism advocate Glenn Beck, who broadcast another of his denial tirades last week--and to those who exalt the warmer weather as preferable to a snowy winter, consider the impacts on our fellow creatures. Last April an early spring in Wyoming's Teton Range caused horseflies to arrive early. The young Redtail hawks, who were still unfeathered, were devoured in their nests by the voracious bloodsuckers. Not a single baby Redtail survived to fledge in the Jackson Hole valley.

The macro impacts of global warming--catastrophic storms, flooded coastlines, melted icecaps, shrinking glaciers, dwindling water supplies and agricultural disruptions are finally getting some attention by America's lethargic press. But the seismic shifts in global weather patterns are already dramatically altering the local ecosystems that for eons have defined America's landscape. Nature has achieved a balance that has been relatively stable for 20,000 years. The reliable milestones of its annual rhythms--like flowers blooming and robins returning in the spring, and animals hibernating in winter--form the pulse and fabric of the passing years. They connect us to our history, give context to our communities and form the foundation of American culture, our art, literature, poetry and architecture.

The recent disruptions to animal and plant behavior are evident to anyone except for ideologically blinded right-wing flat-earthers and Exxon/Mobil's political and media toadies like Michael Crichton, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.

stopglobalwarming.org

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in as "Other" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net.

(P2) Poetical

Please Protect This

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

from Dream Work by Mary Oliver
published by Atlantic Monthly Press
© Mary Oliver

Comment Here on any of the above or below and read the comments of others too. Log in as "Other" if you like, but please be sure to sign some facsimile of your name. Or email me at edcoletti@sbcglobal.net.


(P3) Political


Lens Cap?