Gruesome Gray and Black Mass

Beset by eternal optimism? See if John Gray can make any inroads on your state of mind as he explores the human condition. If you are too busy saving the world to read John Gray, taste the summary provided by the excellent review of 'Straw Dogs' and 'Black Mass' on Entertainment News.

Suitably morbid? Recover with Arjay's calming view of evening across the Java sea.....

Plastic in Paradise (2)

Arjay recently found these mangrove roots meandering across a beach in Borneo, protecting the shoreline from turbulent tides and gathering the glittering detritus of mankind.

For a gritty reality check on just how much we are rubbishing our marine environment (and damaging our own health) see "Garbage Island" :

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505

Not pretty.

More Mugabe Madness

"(UK Prime Minister) Brown is a little tiny dot on this World" (Robert Mugabe, April 12th 2008).

Yes (ex Zimbabwe Executive President) Mugabe - but the dot is a Full Stop.

For a beloved country crying, it is the Full Stop underlying a global exclamation mark.

Curse of the cotton buds

Ah, the appeal of foaming brine. A lovely swim, secure in the knowledge that the salt content disinfects all the sanitary detritus and sewage?

The annual UK beach clean up organised by the Marine Conservation Society shows that cotton buds (minus the cotton - where has that ended up?) are an increasing proportion of the detritus washing up on our increasingly rubbished beaches. A mounting mix of "pick-a-sticks" for us to play with.

http://www.adoptabeach.org.uk/pages/press_releases.php

"Bin them", they say "so they are properly disposed of". Of course, but this increases landfill. Maybe, just maybe, we could do without them at all?

Cultural clashes, cool waters

Isn't it striking how the Free Tibet protests surrounding the Olympic torch as it sears a path to Beijing reflect the cultures in which they are occuring, not the cultural origin of the issue?

Who did not chuckle at the sight of bumbling bobbies on bicycles trying to cope with surging crowds as the olympic flame singed a path through London? (Well, maybe not the serious, cloned, chinese security cordon). Lets not dwell on the leather-jacketed heavies scrambling for structure as the torch scorched its way through Paris. Lets consider instead, how elegantly Californians have used both aesthetic and athletic abilities to produce a visually stunning protest strung up on the golden gate bridge. Ahhh .... cool water soothing a troubled image bank.

Reflect for a moment though on the strength of tribal territories. How much of the controversy in the world comes down to cultural conflict? And how much does culture cling to a certain area of land and decisions about how to manage it? Trade and economic development have driven an international agenda (and technological expansion), but how fragile is this? As constraints on food supply and other resources starts to bite, what units of operation and cohesion will we default to..... and how rapidly? A prediction - our Future Earth will be composed of "tribal" territories and inter-tribal conflict will increase. Discuss.

A Host of Frozen Daffodils.....

William Wordsworth's "... host of golden daffodils" were "fluttering and dancing" in the warmth of a Lake District Spring in 19th Century England.

These hopeful modern day derivatives were caught out this morning by April snow across southern England. Seasons out of sync with bio-cycles, both for the daffodils and those wishing to pick them.

Plastic in Paradise

Yet another load of non-degradable plastic makes its precarious way into the beautiful, diverse and disappearing forests of Indonesian Borneo.

At the end of this particular road, Arjay saw people finding the plastic paraphernalia very useful for their daily subsistence. Traffic in the other direction was of tapped, raw rubber and sweaty, rotting oil palm fruits ... both of which are converted into indispensable (?) trappings of life in more populous cities across land and sea.

But this is not entirely bad news. Both rubber and oil palm plantations in this area are small-scale local community lots used as cash crops in the local economies and the distant forest you see there is currently protected from the big commercial outfits. Why might this remain? Just look - along the many miles of this road runs a bright blue pipe, taking fresh mountain water to the people of the regional capital. How about that for a demonstrable ecosystem service?