Things that Give me a Headache

I just got the following three headlines from the Out for Democracy mailing list:

Largo official plans sex change-- this was surprising, but I thought "that's really cool that someone feels comfortable enough in a public position to do this."

The next headline was a Letter from the city official with some really nice stuff in it:

Many transsexuals who make the decision to transition to their proper gender are often forced to quietly leave their job in order to avoid embarrassment and discrimination. However, it is not my nature to run from difficult challenges. I take tremendous pride in being your city manager and a part of our Largo family.

Working with so many dedicated employees over these many years is the most rewarding professional experience of my life. I have devoted my passion serving this community and building lifelong friendships and I am unwilling to just walk away and hide.

The next notice I got, however? Not so nice. It read: "Largo starts process of firing manager who wants sex change."

At least the mayor has some integrity, saying that Stanton has "...done a great job for us... done what we asked... taken the heat over and over and over again..." But the most of the rest of the council wants to throw Stanton under a bus.

This is just pathetic.

A sad day for bloggers

John Odum, from Green Mountain Daily has decided to give up blogging. The Second Vermont Republic didn't care for the fact that he brought some accusations about them to light and decided (instead of responding by refuting the accusations) to go after him on a personal level. They issued a press release not only mentioning where he worked, but referencing his boss by name and implying that the organization (a non-profit agency) might be supplementing the work he does for the blog.

This is beyond acceptable. I have no problem with a heated, even occasionally derogatory and personal, debate, but to instead to go after someone's employer is absolutely reprehensible.

Friday Bird Blogging: Rough-Legged Hawk

I've tried to get pictures of rough-legged hawks before, but none of them came out particularly well. I was in this specific location to look for them but didn't expect to see one close up. I spotted this one driving up the road, turned around and pulled up across the street from it, opened my window and just took as many pictures as I could before it flew off. The conditions were poor (dull, grey day) but I'm happy with what I got here.

Birders do a really nice job of taking care of one another-- I never would have known to look here except for other birders reporting rough-leggeds in the area. As usual, clicking on the picture will give you a larger version with more info.

I know blogging is a business for some people, but...

I was on huffington post and spotted a post with the advertisment shown:

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Now... I don't know about anyone else, but to me this particular ad strikes me as a bit repulsive and I don't know why any pro-feminist blog would be willing to accept this sort of advertisement. I've always had a problem with media images of girls which blur the idea of what their age is.

Maybe I'm missing something; maybe if I'd clicked on the ad (which I never do with inline ads), it would have led me to something unexpected, like a page about child exploitation. Maybe I'm misjudging this. Can anyone help me out here?

George Takei on Tim Hardaway

I'm just going to post this without further comment:

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CNN needs a little proofreading

From a recent CNN transcript (emphasis mine):

John Amaechi never made the record books during his four-season NBC career, but he's making history now as the first former professional basketball player to openly say he's guy.

Guy Pierce? Guy Noir? Just a wild and crazy guy?

At least, given their prime time headliner they didn't accidentally transcribe the word as "faggot."

Concerned Women for America: Keep the Bigotry Subtle

You can't make stuff like this up. Per a press release from Concerned Women for America:

CWA Calls Former NBA Star’s Comments Harmful 2/16/2007

Washington, D.C. — A former NBA star has made disturbing and harmful comments about his feelings toward people trapped in the homosexual lifestyle... Tim Hardaway said that he “hates gay people” and that he distances himself from them because he is “homophobic.” Concerned Women for America (CWA) is disappointed that a man who is respected by many sports fans would make such inflammatory remarks.

“Hardaway’s comments are both unfortunate and inappropriate,” said Matt Barber, CWA’s Policy Director for Cultural Issues. “They provide political fodder for those who wish to paint all opposition to the homosexual lifestyle as being rooted in ‘hate...’

“It’s perfectly natural for people to be repelled by disordered sexual behaviors that are both unnatural, and immoral... Hardaway’s comments only serve to foment misperceptions of widespread homosexual ‘victimhood’ which the homosexual lobby has craftily manufactured.”

Right. Hardaway's comments are bad because they demonstrate that there are people who hate gays, and that contradicts the CWA.

One thing bigots hate is having their bigotry made clear.

Friday Bird Blogging: Red-Shouldered Hawk

This red-shouldered hawk appeared in our yard in November of '05 for a week or two, but the blue-jays flushed it out and it disappeared. Much to our surprise, it showed up again in '06 and has been here off and on ever since.

For the longest time, I was certain that this was a red-tailed hawk. This is partially because I'd been trying for ages to get pictures of a red-shouldered hawk and couldn't imagine I had such easy and immediate access to one and partially because, being a juvenile, it's a tricky identification for a newer birder.

Personally, by the way, I put this particular picture down as one of the best I've ever taken.

Surely the end times are at hand.

Newsflash: Daily Kos and the Free Republic actually agree on something: the SAFETY (Stopping Adults Facilitating the Exploitation of Today's Youth Act) Act sucks.

A bill introduced to the US House of Representatives would require ISPs to record all users' surfing activity, IM conversations and email traffic indefinitely.

The bill, dubbed the Safety Act by sponsor Lamar Smith, a republican congressman from Texas, would impose fines and a prison term of one year on ISPs which failed to keep full records.

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2174524/republican-bill-calls-email

In addition to the complete loss of online privacy, I forsee a lot of ISPs going out of business. All that extra storage is going to cost.

Friday Saturday Bird Blogging: The European Starling

The European Starling, from a distance, looks like a black version of an American Robin. It is, however, a pervasive and invasive species in the United States, having started with a mere flock of 100 birds imported from Europe by a group which intentionally introduced it to America because they wanted every bird mentioned in the works of Shakespeare to be present on the American continent.



Despite their dark coloring, their plumage is actually fascinating: a mixture of black and much lighter spots with a fairly captivating pattern. They are fairly voracious and can descend in large flocks and clean out a suet cage in less than a day, if so inclined. This picture is of a pair of starlings sitting in one of our backyard trees as part of a larger flock.

Friday Bird Blogging: Horned Lark

Throughout fall and Winter, flocks of these small birds show up at Parker River Wildlife Refuge, often thwarting my attempts to photograph them. Every once in awhile, however, I get it right. Tiny bird, jumping all around. But a few of the 50+ pictures I took of them worked. This is the best of the bunch.

Goodbye, Molly

Molly Ivins, dead at 62:

We are the people who run this country. We are the deciders. And every single day, every single one of us needs to step outside and take some action to help stop this war. Raise hell.

You were loud, brilliant and inspiring. The world's just a little quieter and a little more empty without you.

Woman Arrested After Reporting Rape Is Denied Emergency Contraception

Welcome to the Republic of Gilead:

TAMPA - A 21-year-old woman told police Saturday that a man grabbed her off Howard Avenue and raped her behind a building during the Gasparilla festivities.

But officers investigating the case arrested her after learning she had an outstanding warrant from her teenage years for failure to pay restitution.

She spent the next two nights in jail.

[snip]

Adding to the mother's ire is her claim that a jail nurse prevented her daughter from taking a second dose of emergency contraception prescribed by a nurse at a clinic as part of a rape examination. The jail nurse, said the mother and the victim's attorney, denied the medication for religious reasons.

http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGB8IXMVJXE.html

Gee, I wonder why so many women don't report rape?

I also question the implication that money this woman owes from her teen years is more important than a crime committed against her.

Friday Bird Blogging: Dark-Eyed Junco

The dark-eyed junco is a northern bird which is much more common in Vermont once winter settles in. I may see them here and there throughout the Summer, but once we're into full on winter, their numbers increase dramatically.

This picture was taken right near our feeders this morning, shortly after I'd restocked them. I've been trying to get good junco pictures for quite some time now, and it's a sign of just how badly they need food on a day this bitterly cold that they were letting me get close enough to get this kind of shot.

Friday Bird Blogging: Ruby-Throated Hummingbird

From time to time, I like to take pictures of birds in sequence and arrange them into an animated sequence. This picture of a ruby-throated hummingbird is one of my favorite such projects.

How We Fail

I wrote this three years ago, when Barney Frank spoke out against the flood of protest marriages in San Francisco. I still think Barney's awesome, but he was wrong at the time about this, and here's why:

How We Fail

February 18th, 2004-- I like Barney Frank. I really do. He's funny, he's articulate, and he was out long before most of the rest of us were. However, that doesn't mean he's not going to piss me off from time to time. Here's a brief passage from the San Francisco Gate, regarding recent events in San Francisco:

Instead, Frank said, San Francisco's move promotes the notion that unpopular laws can be broken or ignored.

"When you're in a real struggle, San Francisco making a symbolic point becomes a diversion," he said.

The above is why Democrats repeatedly fail and sometimes fail spectacularly. It's not that people don't believe in the ideals of the Demcratic party. It's that we don't believe in the will of Democratic politicians to actually adhere to those ideals. As soon as I heard that statement, I thought "gee, would he be opposed to the wrong people eating at a 'whites only' lunch counter, too?'"

I'm not interested in discussing this any further. I'm not interested in being told how I have to be patient and take my 2nd class citizenship for just a little while longer. I could say more, but I think others have said it better. So instead, I'm going to finish this by posting the words of someone who knows what it means to sacrifice one's self to a cause far better than I do:

Letter From Birmingham City Jail

Martin Luther King, Jr.
April 16, 1963

My Dear Fellow Clergymen,

While confined here in the Birmingham City Jail, I came across your recent statement calling our present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom, if ever, do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas...But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I would like to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.

I think I should give the reason for my being in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the argument of "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every Southern state with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some 85 affiliate organizations all across the South...Several months ago our local affiliate here in Birmingham invited us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented.

In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: 1) collection of the facts to determine whether injustices are alive; 2) negotiation; 3) self-purification; and 4) direct action. We have gone through all of these steps in Birmingham...Birmingham is probably the most thoroughly segregated city in the United States. Its ugly record of police brutality is known in every section of the country. Its unjust treatment of Negroes in the courts is a notorious reality. There have been more unsolved bombings of Negro homes and churches in Birmingham than in any city in this nation. These are the hard, brutal, and unbelievable facts. On the basis of these conditions Negro leaders sought to negotiate with the city fathers. But the political leaders consistently refused to engage in good faith negotiation.

Then came the opportunity last September to talk with some of the leaders of the economic community. In these negotiating sessions certain promises were made by the merchants ˜ such as the promise to remove the humiliating racial signs from the stores. On the basis of these promises Reverend Shuttlesworth and the leaders of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights agreed to call a moratorium on any type of demonstrations. As the weeks and months unfolded we realized that we were the victims of a broken promise. The signs remained. As in so many experiences in the past, we were confronted with blasted hopes, and the dark shadow of a deep disappointment settled upon us. So we had no alternative except that of preparing for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and national community. We were not unmindful of the difficulties involved. So we decided to go through the process of self-purification. We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions, "are you able to accept the blows without retaliating?" "Are you able to endure the ordeals of jail?"

You may well ask, "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches, etc.? Isn‚t negotiation a better path?" You are exactly right in your call for negotiation. Indeed, this is the purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and establish such creative tension that a community that has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.

My friends, I must say to you that we have not made a single gain in civil rights without legal and nonviolent pressure. History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and give up their unjust posture; but as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals.

We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly I have never yet engaged in a direct action movement that was "well timed," according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never." It has been a tranquilizing Thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights. The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward the goal of political independence, and we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward the gaining of a cup of coffee at a lunch counter.

I guess it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say wait. But when you have seen vicious mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate-filled policemen curse, kick, brutalize, and even kill your black brothers and sisters with impunity; when you see the vast majority of your 20 million Negro brothers smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society; when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six-year-old daughter why she can‚t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see the tears welling up in her little eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky, and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness toward white people; when you have to concoct an answer for a five-year-old son who is asking in agonizing pathos: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored people so mean?" when you take a cross country drive and find it necessary to sleep night after night in the uncomfortable corners of your automobile because no motel will accept you; when you are humiliated day in and day out by nagging signs reading "white" men and "colored" when your first name becomes "nigger" and your middle name becomes "boy" (however old you are) and your last name becomes "John," and when your wife and mother are never given the respected title of "Mrs." when you are harried by day and haunted by night by the fact that you are a Negro, living constantly at tip-toe stance, never quite knowing what to expect next, and plagued with inner fears and outer resentments; when you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of "nobodiness"˜then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait. There comes a time when the cup of endurance runs over, and men are no longer willing to be plunged into an abyss of injustice where they experience the bleakness of corroding despair. I hope, sirs, you can understand our legitimate and unavoidable impatience.

I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro‚s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens‚ "Councilor" or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can‚t agree with your methods of direst action" who paternistically feels that he can set the timetable for another man‚s freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

You spoke of our activity in Birmingham as extreme. At first I was rather disappointed that fellow clergymen would see my nonviolent efforts as those of an extremist. I started thinking about the fact that I stand in the middle of two opposing forces in the Negro community. One is a force of complacency made up of Negroes who, as a result of long years of oppression, have been so completely drained of self-respect and a sense of "somebodiness" that they have adjusted to segregation, and a few Negroes in the middle class who, because of a degree of academic and economic security, and at points they profit from segregation, have unconsciously become insensitive to the problems of the masses. The other force is one of bitterness and hatred and comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up over the nation, the largest and best known being Elijah Muhammad‚s Muslim movement. This movement is nourished by the contemporary frustration over the continued existence of racial discrimination. It is made up of people who have lost faith in America, who have absolutely repudiated Christianity, and who have concluded that the white man in an incurable "devil."

The Negro has many pent-up resentments and latent frustrations. He has to get them out. So let him march sometime; let him have his prayer pilgrimages to the city hall; understand why he must have sit-ins and freedom rides. If his repressed emotions do not come out in these nonviolent ways, they will come out in ominous expressions of violence. This is not a threat; it is a fact of history. So I have not said to my people, "Get rid of your discontent." But I have tried to say that this normal and healthy discontent can be channeled through the creative outlet of nonviolent direct action.

In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership in the community would see the justice of our cause and, with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances could get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother. In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, "Those are social issues with which the Gospel has no real concern," and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.

I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of you, not as an integrationist or a civil rights leader, but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,

M. L. King, Jr.

Friday Bird Blogging: Turkey Vulture

The turkey vulture can easily be mistaken for a juvenile eagle in flight-- the bright pink head is not nearly as visible, and the wings are broad and black, but if you are in Vermont or New Hampshire and see a group of very large black birds in flight that's larger than a pair, you've likely seen a group of turkey vultures (I've seen people mistake these for a variety of raptors).

Even though these birds are scavengers, I find them fascinating to watch. They'll fly in circles, hunting for long periods, before descending on an area to feed. I rarely see them as solitary birds.

Friday Bird Blogging: Great Blue Heron

I've been taking pictures of Great Blue Herons for some time now, and have over sixty posted on my web site.

There's something beautiful about these birds, despite their odd-looking exterior and awkward shape. Seeing them in flight can be breathtaking and watching them hunt for food is like an exercise in Zen meditation-- long periods of wait followed by moments of inspiration and activity.

My experience with herons has changed over time-- before I became familiar with them, I thought of them as something extraordinary and magnificent. Today, I think of them as commonplace, but still magnificent. There's a lot more variation between them than you might think of at first. This particular picture is one of my favorites-- just incredibly rich and vibrant colors in it, and the light capturing the scene of it just perfectly.

Absolutely Disgusted

Doesn't this seem like a tremendous waste of resources?

There were a lot of actual people who needed help at this point. I get why people would be concerned about their embroyos, but this is ridiculous. From CNN:

Baby from embryo rescued after Katrina due this month
POSTED: 4:39 p.m. EST, January 3, 2007

NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana (AP) -- The baby album for Rebekah Markham's soon-to-be-born child could include something extra special: photos of officers using flat-bottomed boats to rescue her frozen embryo from a sweltering hospital in the chaotic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

When this happened, there were some major problems still going on in New Orleans involving human being. But wealthy white people get special resources allocated for them to get a second child.

End of the Year Wrap-Up

So this has been quite the year.

Some time ago, I wrote about Melissa, our bad-tempered calico, who's got a cancerous tumor which has invaded her lymph nodes. At the time I wrote it, I didn't think she'd still be around by this point but, surprisingly, she's not only around, but she's still her usual self-- eating not as much as she used to and sleeping a lot, but still interested in food, and still interested in waking us up at 3am to get pet.

So, it continues, and we're exactly where we were a few months ago-- she may live another day, another week, another month or two, and the only thing to do is to enjoy the time we have left. So I'm doing my best to do this without breaking into tears from time to time, which of course I do every time I talk or write about this, but eventually I get past it and I figure everything is okay for now, which is pretty much the best any of us can hope for.

So it goes on, this day-to-day living with this ongoing illness. It's strange that I feel so much more strongly about this with respect to animals than I do about humans. I've known humans who were slowly dying, and I've had friends who have died suddenly and without explanation and I don't really cry for them the way I do about pets. I think there's something about being human that I know -understands- this. We all know we're going to die eventually and we all cope with that in our own way, I don't know whether or not animals understand this, and I just wish that I could know what they actually want. I've been through this with three different pets in my adult life where I have had to personally pay someone to kill them and while, intellectually, I know it's the right thing, emotionally, I still have trouble with it.

And so it continues. One more cat that's dying slowly but living comfortably for the moment, and I guess that whether or not I'm okay with that, there's nothing left to do but make sure she remains comfortable and happy and gets food she likes and has Sebastian (insane manic kittenish cat who, as I write this, wonders why he hasn't been fed yet (though that could apply to any moment, including the ten minutes it takes him to figure out that he -has- been fed) to keep her company when we're not around.

In the meantime, our winter resident red-tailed red-shouldered (I had this one misidentified for over a year--oops) hawk is a constant source of yard drama. Shown above is picture I took yesterday, as either I or the blue jays were pissing it off. You can find a larger version at:

http://juliesmagiclightshow.com/index.php?pic=1102&qty=12&trz=6

I got to watch it fly from tree to tree as it screeched its -very- loud sound. (There's a blue-jay picture there, too).

I haven't been doing as much photography as of late (less time for birding, plus not as much variety in the winter-- it's always a slower season), so I've been experimenting with black and white renderings of older photographs-- I've posted some of those as well-- the thumbnails are shown below the picture.

The other day, I got a microphone attachment for my iPod which I'm thinking will be fun to use. It turns my iPod into a very small stereo field recorder. I tried using it to record a piece of music the other day and I came up with this very cool rendering of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. It's available for download at:

http://juliewaters.com/mp3s.php

I like the way it sounds-- it's not what I would call top professional quality, but it works well for what it is, and will allow me to record concerts and jam sessions without having to bring my gigantic mixer along. I may also use it as a field recorder when out birding-- I've been thinking for awhile of mixing bird sounds into some of my own music so I may do some experiments with that down the line. I'd love to get the sound of the red-tail screeching and use it as a baseline for a piece of music. This may be a whole new area for me to explore.

I'm still thinking that even if I do record a whole album, I'm more likely to do it through digital distribution with a very small run of physical CDs, but I'm getting some nice ideas for pieces to perform. I'm thinking specifically of doing a run of pieces inspired by classical guitar music I used to play, like the Jesu piece I just referenced. I've been working on a Bethoven theme, and would love to do a version of Debussey's "Claire De Lune" which features banjo as its primary instrument, though it may be awhile.

In short, I'm in no rush to do anything new right now, but I'm thinking about it and exploring ideas, etc. Now that I have the iPod microphone, podcasts may become more frequent as well. We'll see where it all goes.

I'm going to mention two more things before I wrap up-- first, I just want to say how amazed I am by what we managed to accomplish in November with respect to rejecting the completely insane rightwing agenda that's controlled our legislature for the last few years and I can only say "more, more, more." Honestly, this group makes me miss the days when Republicans were primarily about screwing the poor and waging war. Goldwater, by today's standards, looks almost leftwing compared to this group of religious zealots.

In Vermont, we actually got even -more- Republicans booted out and a recent statewide recount switched our auditor results from the Republican to the Democrat. I met Randy Brock (the Republican who just lost) and I don't think I've ever met anyone else whose entire demeanor better suggested "middle management at a used car dealership." There's something about him I found inherently untrustworthy, so I'm glad to see him go for that, and a variety of other more specifically political reasons: his office blew me off on an audit request until someone asked about it in one of the political debates and suddenly he was all interested in it, but still delayed any report until after the election. I don't know how much of that was just slowness of process and how much was evasion of the issue, but either way, an audit request in early September shouldn't take until mid-December to resolve when it's an extremely simple piece of information I'm looking for. So yeah, one less Republican in control of an important state office pleases me.

The last thing I'll mention is that this "winter" we're having is scaring me, in a serious way. It's been unseasonably warm here, which happens sometimes, but the behavior of the animals is just really different and suggests, to me, not just local unusual weather, but something more global. Migration patterns seem to have shifted considerably this year-- a lot of birds still around that are constantly surprising me and, scariest of all, bears not -hibernating-.

So one of my goals for this year is to figure out new ways to affect my energy usage and waste and keep it lower than it's been. Having bought a Prius is good. Composting all our food waste is good. If I could carpool with people, I would, but I don't see it working given the sort of driving I do (commuting 200+ miles on various days from week to week don't make for good carpool companions). But I can, at least, try to work something out with my students, or other people teaching that night, this Spring-- see if I can can arrange a carpool with three of them for the consistent ride to teach, and encourage them to do the same. Anyway, this whole thing wants me to figure out how to change how I use energy-- investigate solar panels to supplement the power-- I can't imagine a windmill working on our small amount of land, but the solar panels make perfect sense, and there are plenty of other options.

It's just got me thinking-- I don't see how we'll fix this without finding creative ways to approach things.

That's it-- much longer than I expected. Be well, everybody and have a good new year.