Life and Death Squared

Me seems the world is run quite out of square From the first point of his appointed source ; And, being once amiss, grows daily worse and worse. . . .
-Spenser, Edmund
The Faerie Queen

Some one I know passed away this week and I'm going to the wake today. It is hard to be faced with other people's pain and the unfairness of the world.

I hadn't meant this to be a sorrowful posting but it just came out that way.

Continuing my series of square objects seen on my photo rounds.

Stop and Drink

"This time she found a little bottle on it, (`which certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME' beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. `No, I'll look first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not.'"

Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Little Bird, Little Bird

The white crowned sparrows are migrating through my back yard. Technically the bird in the second photo ought to be called a gray crowned sparrow--which is a variant of the species. I have no idea why the stripes are gray on some birds.
Here are the lyrics to a song the birds bring to my mind:

Little bird, little bird,
In the cinnamon tree,
Little bird, little bird,
Do you sing for me?
Do you bring me word
Of one I know?
Little bird, little bird,
I love her so,
Little bird, little bird,
I have to know. . . .

From Man of La Mancha

Well that explains it.

"The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals." From CNN.com found on March 10, 2008.

Hmmm, let me see:
Valium--see no evil, feel no evil
THC--they didn't inhale!
Prozac--for the rose colored glasses
Oxycontin--they don't feel your pain
Ritalin--too late, they never did pay attention in school
Viagra--enough said

For the real story, go to the link.
The sad thing is that doctors were always told to flush expired sample medications down the toilet. Only recently did I learn that pharmaceuticals are supposed to be otherwise disposed of. The question is where? In the trash that the homeless regularly dig through in my neighborhood? One article suggests that you mix the used medications in with something unsavory like used kitty litter. What an awesome idea. Quick, let's mix up a batch right now! Even the rats won't eat that!
Of course it isn't medication samples that are the main source of the problem. It is the other stuff we flush. All the medications we take and then excrete unmetabolized. Who woulda thunk it? I always assumed that sewage treatment took care of it. Turns out if our livers don't break it down, our sewage plants may not either. Water filters like Brita aren't effective either.
Of course there is no reason to panic. The amounts are minute and we have no evidence they are harming us. But still room for thought. Oh, and bottled water may not be any better. Besides think of all the plastic waste the bottles generate and all the trucks, boats, trains and planes moving all that tap water across our planet to give us the placebo effect that it is better liquid than what one can get for free at home.

Speaking of THC, I'll close here with a final quote from that bard and social historian of the sixties (and he sure did inhale) Tom Lehrer.

"Lots of things there that you can drink,
But stay away from the kitchen sink.
The breakfast garbage that you throw in to the Bay,
They drink at lunch in San Jose."

If you haven't already seen it, watch Lehrer sing it on You Tube. It will brighten your day.

Today's quote is from the research I did for last week's talk on depression. Nothing should be construed of my mental state from this.

“The weather of depression is unmodulated, its light a brownout.”
William Styron, Darkness Visible

Planet Earth Reading Challenge

Well, I figured I was overdue for a reading challenge and stumbled across this one which inspired me. In honor of UN International Year of Planet Earth Classical Bookworm created a challenge based on 4 spheres of earth science: the lithosphere, atmosphere, hydrosphere and biosphere. The charge is to read books from each domain or several geology books. For this challenge I have chosen the following:
Lithosphere (geology)—Krakatoa by Simon Winchester
Atmosphere—The Cloudspotter’s Guide: the Science, History, and Culture of Clouds, by Gavin Pretor-Pinney
Hydrosphere—Hell and High Water by Joseph Romm

Three books—one major disaster (a volcanic eruption), a bit of weather (maybe I’ll remember details from the meteorology class I took some 30 years ago), and an even more major disaster (global warming). Should be fun reads.
I’m already 135 pages into Krakatoa. We’re kind of volcano fans in my family. My older son started collecting volcano facts when he was around 4, visited Mauna Loa and Kilauea shortly thereafter and watched every National Geographic video ever made about volcanoes at least 30 times. And they make for exciting viewing! We made our trip to Hawaii when younger son was around 4 months old so I missed some of the fun since long hikes across unshaded lava fields isn’t recommended for infants.
While he has since moved on, no one can deny that volcanoes are cool. I personally have a dim memory of watching that classic movie Krakatoa, East of Java (it turns out it is west of Java) as a kid. Actually, all I remember is the name of the movie itself. But I’m sure I saw it.

If any of the three books gets too boring I may yet switch to a different book. And since I have not yet picked a representative of the biosphere, I may be adding to the list. Thanks to Classical Bookworm for a great idea.

I’ve also decided to institute a quote a day on my blog. I’ll try to pull things from my daily reads but in a pinch might resort to a quotation site from the internet.

Today’s quote is from the Kilauea Daily Update, the eruption report from Kilauea:
“The TEB pahoehoe flow entered the ocean about 11:30 pm March 5. Seismic tremor levels and sulfur dioxide emission rates continued elevated to several times background levels at Kilauea summit.”

Pahoehoe is one of my favorite volcano words. It is a Hawaiian word referring to smooth lava flows (as opposed to jagged, sharp flows—known as a’a’). The mnemonic I learned for remembering a’a’ is that it is the sound that one makes when stepping barefoot on a dried a’a’ flow. As Greenlanders have many words for snow, Hawaiians evolved a vocabulary of lava. For more on volcanoes, and a photo glossary of volcano words go to the USGS web site: http://www.usgs.gov/science/science.php?term=1209&type=feature or read Krakatoa.