Somehow this poem, The Second Coming by WB Yeats, seems especially prescient. The first stanza seems especially poignant and appropriate to me. Turning and turning in the widening gyreThe falcon cannot hear the falconer;Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned;The best lack all conviction, while the worstAre full of passionate intensity.Surely some revelation is at hand;Surely the Second Coming is at hand.The Second Coming! Hardly are those words outWhen a vast image out … [Read more...]

Wine comes in at the mouthAnd love comes in at the eye;That's all we shall know for truthBefore we grow old and die.I lift the glass to my mouth,I look at you, and I sigh. … [Read more...]

If you think the oil crisis is bad, wait til you see the impending global water crisis. Civilizations have collapsed simply due to problems with adequate water supplies (e.g. the Numidians of Petra, the Anisazi of the American southwest, the medieval kingdom of Timbuktu, et al).Check out http://www.wired.com/politics/law/magazine/16-10/sl_gleick for a nice discussion from a true expert on the subject. … [Read more...]

Here's a collection of tons of websites and webpages that I've been reading over the past couple days.1. JournalNow.com has an interesting article about why parents and kids pick very different types of mates. Kids tend to pick smart, funny, and attractive mates. Parents tend to pick socially and economically superior mates for their kids. (Read it at http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2008/may/15/checking-mates/?living.) It also brings up the very interesting point about how marriage used to have no relationship with the concept of love. That'd put an interesting spin on the whole gay … [Read more...]

You simply must check out the art of Felice Varini. He takes a large space and paints an image within the space that is only properly viewed from a single angle. If you look at it from any other angle, it distorts to the point of being unintelligeable.The following image is a good example. When standing in the proper location, you'll see two circles. When standing in any other position, you'll see something very different. The webpage http://bored-night.com/index.php/Amazing/Big-Anamorphic-Illusion-Unbelievable.html has lots of examples of his amazing art. And a quickie Google search reveals … [Read more...]

I've always been a bit of a conservationist as far back as I can remember. Maybe it was all of those lazy summer afternoons spent looking through my family's decades-long collection of National Geographic magazine. Maybe it was the conservation badge I got as a Cub Scout. Maybe it was from my dad's love of trees and my mom's love of gardens and flowers. I'm not exactly sure, but I got the bug early.One thing I've been strongly interested in is viable alternative energy sources. For years, I'd thought that wave power was the best alternative to our fossil fuel needs. I felt like wave … [Read more...]

I gave up on Sears back in the late 80's when the stopped taking Visa, Mastercard, and American Express in order to shill the Discover Card. Although I liked their product lines, especially Craftsman tools with their unlimited lifetime warranty, I decided I didn't want to buy from any company that didn't want to take my money on my terms. (And why is it that big, successful American companies, think GM and others, always seem to get so arrogant like that?)Anyway, I received a possible chain letter from a friend, shown below:I know I needed this reminder since Sears isn't always my first … [Read more...]