Blog
Secretamos la concha / We secrete the shell
Un ensayo ilustrado sobre el conocimiento / An illustrated essay on knowledge. Mini-illustrations about not grabbing too tight and instead growing that which we’ll carry with us. In English (plain text) and Spanish (in images).
Why do politicians ‘swear in to office’ on a Bible?
Doing so is supposed to appear solemn, but it can’t really bind them to their promise. The politician may not believe God holds them accountable for promises on a Bible. Swearing in on a Bible only shows the cultural power of Christianity.
Two Duggar memoirs: Jill and Jinger as adults
Neither their abusive older brother nor the IBLP Christian fundamentalist organization is part of their lives now. The IBLP not only opposes women’s rights and no-fault divorce, it also promotes the idea that husbands are the leaders of their wives and children.
Climate change, predicted (three decades ago)
Returning to an environmental classic: ‘The Ages of Gaia’ by James Lovelock. We don’t yet know what it will be like when the forests are gone. But we should live in a way that prevents this outcome. We must support our own survival.
The Industrial Revolution: All of it has to change again
Trains represent where we’ve been & where we‘ll go next. Steel, aluminum, concrete; fossil fuels; electric light; transportation, communication, refrigeration, medicine. Do we know what we have to change?
Tadpoles teach us in Kern’s ‘Real Sugar’
Stories for those who feel ‘fragile about frogs’. We can grieve “all the frogs that aren’t.” Some of our stories going forward, though, have to be about the frogs that are. Which will those be?
How we’re here now: Poems of California
Poems in ‘Rift Zone’ and ‘Last West’. We know in our bones what being is. Because we are. ‘To be’ is to exist in a place, to grow, to break off, to feel how this ties us to past and future.
We know who’s responsible for orange sky
We need to hold them accountable. It’s Exx-smog and Shell-smoke. The big orange cats must be held accountable, and there’s more than one. Each of us has a role to play.
Designing a town people can get around? Repeat this exercise.
Anna Zivarts reminds us how we can take an hour to try harder. Sometimes we lack empathy for each other’s transportation needs and preferences. We have no idea because we haven’t stopped to try.