musings . . .

I’ve been learning to appreciate birds more and more. Here are two pictures outside my house of birds in their lovely environment.

It’s Constitution Day!  And all of Philadelphia’s libraries may be closing as soon as October 2nd.  I can just see Benjamin Franklin rolling over in his grave.  It’s a sad day when one of the institutions that helped form our society (and remains a necessary service) can be neglected in this way.

On the flipside, I think Mr. Franklin would love the citizen involvement with science that new software for Android phones (and soon iPhones) creates.  It seems anyone can access a database of information about a project and upload their own information about that project, complete with GPS coordinates and everything.

Nature is fascinating, and I like to look at the fantastic pictures offered by photographers.  One newly-photographed animal is the golden cat.  Apparently it’s quite elusive and we have little opportunity to study it.  Too bad – it’s such a beautiful specimen!  A less beautiful, but equally fascinating, find is this snake with a foot.  Yup – a snake.  With a single foot.  Kinda creepy?  Sure.  Fascinating and awe-inspiring?  You bet!  And here, just for fun, are some very cool pictures of all kinds of animals.

With the Planck telescope, we are beginning to be able to look back in time, thanks to the nature of light.  Since my understanding of physics is limited at best, I suggest you read the article for further information.  My lame attempts to summarize would probably be completely wrong.  But I understand planets… at least on a basic level!  And a newly discovered planet, Corot-7b,  seems to have a solid, rocky surface.  This isn’t to say it could support life or anything – just that it’s a rare find when most planets outside our solar system are gaseous.

And back to health care.  It’s a big topic, and worthy of much discussion.  This article takes us on a trip through government spending and asks questions about priorities.  I’ve always wondered why we spend inordinate amounts of money on military prowess, space exploration, etc. when we can’t even get our homeless off the streets and our sick taken care of.  Perhaps we should, as a society, reevaluate our values and priorities.  Because without healthy people and proper roofs over our heads, all the military and space spending won’t do a bit of good.

Instead of constantly posting links to articles, videos, and general nonsense I find on the web to Facebook, I thought I would start creating blog posts with links to all the things I find interesting.  Since my Facebook account already pulls in my blog posts and puts them on my Notes page, I will still be sharing on that site.  I’ll just be expanding the sharing to the entire web with this.

Here goes!

Read Economics is Not a Natural Science by Douglas Rushkoff for an interesting take on economics, the history of economies, and why we might just need to rethink everything.  I can say I learned a lot.

A Brave New (Non-Private) World explores some  media that addresses our society and its evolution regarding privacy issues.

I don’t care what the circumstances are, no one in America should have to cook and WASH with bottled water because the tap water is so polluted.  See this NYT article for more information.

I loved watching the shows on tv (The Science Channel?) about synaesthesia.  A BBC article reports on current research and new findings.

For people looking to acquire local food, one new option is VeggieTrader.  Though most of its current listings are focused on the west coast, I could find several locations within 100 miles of my house.  While that may not sound too local, it’s much better than the distance most of our food travels before reaching our plates.  But to improve the number of offerings everywhere, we should all join and list whatever we can!

For a resource that’s a little closer to home for my fellow Milwaukeeans, see this page at the Urban Ecology Center’s website.  And there’s always Growing Power.

And while we’re on the topic of food, please read Dan Barber’s article in The Nation about the importance of cooking and diversifying our diets.

I think that does it for today.  Thoughts, ideas, and comments are always welcome.  If you’re viewing this anywhere other than through my blog, you should visit the original post here: http://www.jen.jllocke.com/blog/2009/09/15/round-up/ to see all the links correctly.