The Invasive Water Hyacinth Blooming on Lake Houston — Images by kenne
These beautiful blossoms photographed near the water’s edge on Lake Houston belong to the water hyacinth, one of the most productive plants on earth and is considered the world’s worst aquatic plant. By forming a dense floating mat on the water surface, they interfere with navigation, recreation, irrigation, and power generation impeding water flow, creating good breeding conditions for mosquitoes.. These thick mats create low oxygen conditions beneath the water surface excluding native submersed and floating-leaved plants. Water hyacinths can become a severe environmental and economic problem for gulf coast states and in many other areas of the world with a sub-tropical or tropical climate, rapidly spreading throughout inland and coastal freshwater bays, lakes, and marshes.
Walt Kelly’s message, “We have met the enemy and he is us,” which he effectively communicated through Pogo, is a firm but gentle approach at telling the truth. Yet, we are still living in an economic, environmental and moral “garbage dump” now over forty years after Porky and Pogo first looked over their trash filled swamp. Where are the all-wise Pogos’ of the world when we need them?
View of Tucson from the Box Camp Trail on Mt. Lemmon (Click here to see more hiking the Box Camp Trail photos.) — Images by kenne
The ground we walk on,
the plants and creatures,
the clouds above
constantly dissolving
into new formations –
each gift of nature
possessing its own
radiant energy,
bound together by
cosmic harmony.
The Monday Morning Milers (MMM) are a mix-age group with a variety of hiking skills, ages spanning over 50 years. On this morning, Jim, Kristin, Tom and myself took a more challenging route from the other MMM hikers. They stayed on the canyon path out to a lower vista, we set out to climb the high ridge above the canyon. Here Tom is trying to decide whether the way Kristin and Jim are going is the best way when there’s not good trail. Since there’s not much of a trail, we set out bushwhacking our way to the top of the ridge above Rose Canyon. Most of this area was in the Aspen Fire ten years ago and is now covered with bushes with lots of thorns.
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Most of the MMM hikers took the trail that runs between Rose Canyon and the Catalina Highway up from Windy Point. Jim, Kristin, Tom and I bushwhacked up the higher ridge above the canyon, which is where most of the images in the above slideshow were taken. Our return to Rose Canyon Lake was more difficult than the climb up. The four of us spread out trying to find the best path back. In doing so, I headed more down into the canyon, separating me from the others. Rather than heading back toward them, I kept going down into the canyon with the objective up climbing up to the trail the others took to the vista. Once reaching the trail, I was on track back to the lake where Kristin, Tom and Jim were waiting. (You can click on any of the images to stop the slideshow, then click to advance.) — Images by kenne
Insolation Controls in the Age of Anthropocene
(Understanding Global Warming)
Anthropocene newly coined term a human condition questioned by the extreme right argued as alignment of insolations maxima and minima questioning the new condition of our condition
The rock group Muse has used an image of the human brain from the Human Connectome Project for their latest album. The Human Connectome Project is compiling neural data, which is graphically navigated creating the opportunity to achieve never before realized conclusions about the living human brain.” Click here to see a gallery of brain images.
One of the tunes from the new album, The 2nd Law, is “Unsustainable” — an economy based on endless growth is unsustainable.
The following is from the blog posting, “The Scandal of Political Realism,” on the blog Larval Subjects:
The political realist always says “listen to those in the know”– usually oligarchs or servants of oligarchs –”they are naturally superior, they have your best interests at heart!” Speaking against the masters becomes pure folly. The voice of those that protest, that refuse the “wisdom” of the masters, is immediately coded as animal noise without reason that only “emotes”. We can think here of the difference between how the medical establishment treated hysterics before and after Freud. Prior to Freud, the hysteric was to be dismissed, to be denied voice, to be relegated to the irrational. After Freud the hysteric is to be listened to as articulating a wrong and a breach in the order of identifications. Political realism strives to silence the hysteric, claiming that their voice is no voice at all, that that voice comes from no place of knowledge or wisdom. Read more . . .
But first, I will end by paraphrasing Larval Subjects comment in the discussion on the posting —
Having been part of many such discussions, I know they don’t lead anywhere, since the arguments have been made on both sides. Even so, I find it difficult to accept the political realism premise that situations offer only one course of action.
This gunfight has been staged by the Tea Party! Remember Herbert Hoover! We are reliving his philosophy! It’s the 80/20 principle of economics and Americans have lost big time. We are at the tipping point!
(These two items first appeared on BarryRitholtz’s The Big Picture.)
View of Tucson from the Box Camp Trail on Mt. Lemmon (
National Geographic “Age of Man” March 2011
All bubbles will burst
Fear as to when
Creating a bubble for now.
Yesterday has gone
Greed wears the
mask of reality.
Tomorrow arrived
A day too early for most —
It is better now.
A new adventure
Following the pendulum —
Soon gone for now.
Returning in time
With new values
replacing the old.
In a new harmony
Swinging to-and-fro —
A fix for now.
kenne
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