Does the earth love us? (11/26/2020)

 Do you think the earth loves you back?

An interesting question indeed.  I am reading Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and I one of her essays she mentions that she asked her students exactly that question.  Her students were dumbfounded.  But when she made it more hypothetical it became easier for her students to address the question.   "What do you suppose would happen if people believe this crazy notion that the earth loved them back?"  It seemed a discussion broke out, and one student proclaimed that you could never harm something that loved you!

So here we are.  Am I or is Robin anthropomorphising?  I really do not know.  I think there is an important point to be made here. Why would we want to screw up our environment and treat our earth, the only one we have, like crap and expect it to love us and treat us nicely?  But that is what we are doing.  No wonder it is throwing global warming at us and natural disasters like a record hurricane season.  Hopefully, you don't do this at home with your loved ones, or with your friends.  So why gamble and abuse that piece of real estate you, your children, and your grand children depend on?  It will definitely keep returning the favor!  Well, if I was the earth, I am not sure if I could love my human inhabitants, unless I am the benevolent earth.

In the past I have written a lot about what some of the religious thoughts about men's dominion over the natural world.  How early on many religious folks and philosophers considered that a supreme being created the earth.  They were convinced that everything on the earth was for us humans, who were created in his image, to exploit and use, and that we would be provided for.  I mentioned characters like Malthus who rang the alarm bell and told us that eventually this may come back to bite us in the but because we would exceed the earth's carrying capacity for humans.

I also wrote about my fear over Trump's view and what he would do.  I knew he hated nature and the natural environment.  Golf courses for him baby, highly modified and treated with fertilizers and pesticides; not exactly loving nature.  Moreover, I am sure his hands never touched dirt except to pick up a golf ball.  Well despite his loss in the recent election, he is still at it trying to wreck havoc to the environment and the earth, inflicting damage that will be difficult to undo.

Concluding, I (still) strongly believe that we were put on the earth to take care of nature and of mother earth so it would take care of us, not to exploit and abuse it.  If we do that, I am sure it will return the favor!

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

The woods behind our home.  I am so happy I live here, that they are under conservation easement, and that I can enjoy them every day.  We need more green space in our collective life, to protect our air, our water, our sanity and our soul.

Strange days indeed (11/17/2020)

Strange days indeed. That is all I can say. The current occupant of the White House, the orange haired guy, lost the election the Joseph R. Biden, but he does not want to concede and it looks like he is using a very blunt ax to go nuts with the government. He is firing folks, giving away the Arctic Natural Wildlife Refuge and doing other foolish things. It seems he does not care about the Corona Virus, which he claimed would magically disappear after the election, and now he spends more time on the golf course. Strange days indeed.

A large portion of this country laughed, cried, and celebrated. It was the Saturday after the election which was partially caused by the corona virus. Folks were afraid to show up at the polls and voted absentee, by mail, or early. However, they voted in huge numbers. More than ever, strange days indeed.

I do not want to make this a long post, but I want to add my 5 cents to history and my blog. Record what I saw, and what I experienced. I did vote on November 3rd. The main reason was that the State gave us a day off to vote. So, I decided I needed to do it that day. The day was also meant to volunteer during the election, which I did as well. First at my polling place and then later in the day with my wife at a different location. Maybe I was able to help two African American ladies with voting during the entire time that I was helping at the poll. One lost her I.D., for the other it was her first time voting.  My wife encountered one person who was not sure who to vote for. That still amazes me, he must have just emerged from his cave. Strange days indeed.

My wife Donna, at the poll.  She was knitting and actually attracting a lot of onlookers and comments while doing so.

Oh well, I will leave it there, and sign off. I am eagerly awaiting the time that Biden can officially start the transition to his administration and of course for that phone call from the chief of staff with a job offer to join the Biden administration. I am sure that day will never come, but if there was a job for me, I would not refuse; I am very excited about what is to come.  But, it would definitely be a strange day indeed, if that would happen. 

I love this country (10/15/2020)

I really do love this country.  Otherwise I would have never changed my citizenship.  This is why that over the past four years I have been relatively vocal about our political leaders or those people that claim to be our leaders.  I have also continued raising the alarm about our environment locally, nationally, but also globally, because we simply do not live in a bubble.  I really prefer to write about my life, my travels around the state (pre-COVID), and the nature around me; however, it is important to lend a voice to this important cause.  

I much rather write about my walks in the woods and exploration than raising the alarm.  I love to describe what see, like these two gorgeous little guys.

It feels that our current so called leaders want us to live in isolation and as you know from my posts, I have not only lived in many regions in this country, but also in many countries on this blue marble floating in space.  The U.S.A. was respected world-wide in the old days.  From what I hear, that is no longer the case.  It always amazed me when I entered a hut in Uganda, in the late 1970s and saw a picture either of president Kennedy or sometimes even of president Carter on a wall, often together with the obligatory picture of Idi Amin.  If you did not have Amin on your wall, you were a dead person for sure, or at least potentially dead.  I would not be surprised if Obama showed up in the past 12 years or so.

The problem is that this term "Make America Great Again" does not hark back to the time that the U.S.A. was respected abroad, because we were respected under Obama and the last president Bush.  This MAGA slogan is isolationist and for the largest part a racist slogan.  That bothers me.  However, for example, when I try to set people straight about the black lives matter movement and tell conservative acquaintances about its deep roots, I am being made fun off by those MAGA few and told I that I miss the boat and need an education.  In fact it is they who need one, but at one point I feel like giving up and withdrawing into my peer group, my safety net.  What is the use trying to educate them and potentially alienating them.  I am not sure that I have the story completely straight and can defend myself through thick and thin without loosing my temper.

Am I hiding and avoiding confrontation?  I am afraid so; at times I do have the guts, at other times I just avoid it.  Should I always stand up for what I believe, defend it and try to work for what I believe is a more perfect country?  I am often at a loss and not sure if I make the right decision.  Should I react with my brain of my heart? 

I learned that liberal vs. conservative or democrate vs. republican is becoming almost more ideologic or religious and that the divide is becoming so sharp that they can almost be called battle lines.  This is scary, I have seen tribal wars in Africa and in Yemen.  In Yemen they ended up becoming a war between religious sects.  In Nepal, I saw what happens when a cast system (or a class system) puts its stamp on society.  A bloody civil was followed there as well.  I am in fact fearful of what will happen after the election.  

All I can say is that it is important to vote and the closer the outcome of the election is the likelier it will be that there will be trouble in this country that I chose to move to, live in and love.  I would really hate to see that happen.

Time for an update (10/11/2020)

Not sure why I have not written in my blog for such a long time. It is not because I am depressed; however, I think I lack the motivation and external stimulation. “What” you may say, most of us are over-stimulated by all the events happening in the news. Let’s look at them all:

• We are looking at hurricane Delta, which is aiming for New Orleans or somewhere around there.
• Trump has COVID-19 and is acting like a baboon. Moreover, it seems that he has become a super spreader and is proud of it.
• Talking about baboons, if you had the stomach as I did to watch the first presidential debate, you know what I mean.  On the other hand you may wish to buy a fly swatter.
• It looks like the entire western U.S.A. is on fire.
• And, let us not forget Jerry Falwell, one of the subjects of a post of mine earlier this year, was fired from Liberty University, in Lynchburg. Best of all, because he enjoyed watching his wife having sex with other (younger) men.

These are just few of the wonderful things going on around us and I am sure there is so much more I can mention, or you can come up with. Maybe I should mention that we have an election coming up. While I am a news junky, when push comes to shove, and it is the end of the day, I just want to veg out and watch a YouTube bonsai show, or play a Sudoku game. I simply forget to update you all about my life. Oh well, my excuses for not keeping you apprised of my life’s events. I telework, and sit behind my computer somewhat around 7 hours every day. The other morning while walking Jasper the dog, one of my neighbors was complaining when I commented what a beautiful day it was. “Who cares, I have to go sit behind my computer for 8 hours,” Ed said. I reminded him that he could always take a break and briefly step away as I do. I water my bonsai, and we eat lunch out on the deck.  Still, I feel depressed at times.  But then, I am not depressed all the time; overall, I am doing ok.  My world has just become very small.  I have been to Richmond twice, and my other trips consist of going to the grocery store and picking up my father-in-law for dinner.  We have our daily walks around the block, and of late we have started going to a dog park in Williamsburg which we sometimes end with a visit to one of the microbreweries.  We choose the on closest to the dog park, that has outdoor seating and is the least known or popular, but has a pretty darn good IPA.

Our regular brewery stop in Williamsburg (the Brass Cannon Brewery).  They make some decent beer and a killer IPA.

So what work things have I been doing since the last time I wrote?  I have developed and presented a few webinars where I talk about soil and vegetation restoration and one about vermin in our stormwater structures.  I have also converted some of my regular classes to web-based classes.  They keep me in touch with the outside world.  On a personal we have kayaked twice, I have hand split a huge oak that had fallen in the neighbor's yard, and redid our deck (almost).  As you should have seen I even did a sermon at church.  So no, I did not sit still.  I just have enough of this, and I can imagine that many do and want to break out, don't care if they get sick and want to believe that jerk in the White House who claims is is less severe than the flu.  But don't get fooled folks, it is a killer.  I'll write ssome more about me and my thoughts soon.

I love to change the world (7/27/2020)

When I was young, much younger, I was an idealist with a goal to change the world. Don’t we all at some point have these aspirations. But then we grow up. I listened to tunes from Ten Years After where they sang in their song “I Love to Change the World:”

Tax the rich 
Feed the poor
Till there are no 
Rich no more 

And,

Population 

Keeps on breeding 

Nation bleeding 

Still more feeding, economy 

But then there was this refrain to the song:

I'd love to change the world 

But I don't know what to do 

So I'll leave it up to you 

For many of us it was a difficult thing to do, to change the world. We were flower children, peace, love, but what else?

I protested against the CIA’s involvement in Chile. My wife and I spent almost two years working at a leprosy center in Africa, after an obligatory period in the Dutch Army (I was too chicken to be a conscious objector, although I did my best to be as difficult as possible while serving). Did that change the world? Not in the tiniest bit, but in addition to almost losing our life, it made us feel we might have done something.

Then, after two more international development jobs, it was time to settle in for middleclass life, or as we sometime say in my native language little house, small tree and a small animal (or huisje, boompje, beestje). So here I am 40 to 50 years later, after living a middleclass lifestyle, nothing has changed, or maybe somethings have changed for the worst. I would still love to change the world; although I still am not sure how to do it. Here I sit back in my armchair and I am secretly encouraged to see that a different, younger generation seems to be taking it upon themselves trying to do something about it. Things like gay rights, gender equality, and now black lives matter.

I am far from disappointed with my almost 70 years of existence. Working for the government I have to change the world in a more subtle way, and I do that with my teaching. I have tried to do that a little bit in the blog posts that I have written in the past. While they were intended to be more educational about nature and the environment, a lot of my posts have become more political. Necessarily so, with such a horrible person in the Whitehouse.

I am hoping to have at least another 20 or so productive years to go. Twenty years where I have the freedom not to sit back, but to work on changing the world. Right now, I am wondering which of the causes to pick up. There are so many pressing ones. My first inclination as a biologist is to work fork for the environment. Without a clean environment there will be no future for the next generations. Moreover, environmental justice is a very important issue which touches the environment, children, poverty and racial minorities. Moreover, research by Richard Louv and others has shown that criminal behavior including gang affiliation can be reduced by exposure to the natural environment.