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Wednesday, August 31, 2005 |
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SERMONETTE It's awful to be so out of touch, always a beat behind the rest in knowing Things That All Must Know. Waking in the morning singing of animals and hunting for poems, only later in the day learning of thousands of us dead and dying. Three days they had to make a way out ahead of the monster storm. Perhaps without knowing they sensed something within that said, "Stay. This is why you chose this time to be alive," and maybe they were poor, and couldn't find a way out. (Think if we'd sent those 500 buses for them then.) By thousands they waited to demonstrate tragedy to us. To manufacture grief and horror. To show us what we must save our resources for. They need us at the scene. Our wheels and our fuels, our foods and strong hands. They need us in our homes, to make safe havens. They need us in our minds and hearts, to buoy the collective will. Humans need each other--not to hate, not to capture and torture and kill, not to plague nation after nation in our restlessness and greed. We're needed for grieving and for saving and for feeding. We're needed to offer the blanket, the ice, the pure water, the bread. We were blessed with resources for giving and loving. And we have wasted them in rage. We learn too about the results of deprivation. Looters and robbers teach, as well. Human beings with hearts and minds so poorly nourished acquire no spiritual infrastructure to hold themselves up in extremity. Here is where our war money must go, long before the disasters come. I can feel impotent, or I can do more. I can touch my community in giving ways now, with what little I can offer--my self, only--and relieve the hunger of one kind and another, and so perhaps contribute a mite more strength to the whole.
I hope we turn to our communities now and find ways to fulfill our purpose as humans among other humans. Tell me what you will do. I'll move along my own narrative as time lays it down. |
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David Appell writes in Technology Review Blogs regarding "those new fuel economy standards proposed by the Bush Administration": Turns out there's a much more nefarious regulation buried within them--they would also bar states from implementing their own emissions and mileage standards. That appears aimed directly at states like California, Maine, and several others that have adopted stringent anti-pollution vehicle guidelines (pioneered in California). Click here for the rest. 8:46:30 PM  comment []
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HHMI PRESS RELEASES
Comparisons of the human genome and the newly completed draft of the chimpanzee genome have unearthed major differences between the patterns of large duplicated segments of DNA in the two species. These segmental duplications -- which straddle large stretches of DNA -- appear to have had a significant impact in altering the genomic landscape of apes and humans. "The authors say that popular understanding of the genetic differences between chimpanzees and humans should be recast in light of the new findings." Research published in the September 01, 2005, issue of Nature. Click here for the rest of the story. Human Y Chromosome Preserves Itself Better Than the Chimp Y "By using human and chimpanzee Y chromosomes as a genetic fossil record to examine our past, scientists have seen a surprising difference in the way the male-making chromosomes from the two species cope with the inexorable pressures of evolution. "After comparing the Y chromosome sequences of the human and chimpanzee, HHMI researchers have seen evidence that the human chromosome has found a way to stabilize itself and survive in the roughly 6 million years since humans and chimpanzees have been following different evolutionary paths. "In contrast, the chimpanzee Y chromosome is not faring quite as well. Studying the same family of single-copy genes shows that the chimp's Y has been accumulating mutations that are gradually making some of its genes useless." Research published in the September 01, 2005, issue of Nature.
Click here for the rest of the story. |
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration today posted online more than 350 aerial images of the U.S. Gulf Coast areas that were decimated by Hurricane Katrina. Direct to Image Collection here; background here.
The Greater New Orleans Community Data Center is providing Maps and Census Data here. "New Orleans has 73 official neighborhoods. For all these neighborhoods,this site contains easy to use Census 2000 data--this includes households without cars, poverty, age of housing stock and other demographics relevant to the impact of Hurricane Katrina. This site also publishes historical snapshots of each of these neighborhoods." |
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The cold snap has brought the cats home like so many little ships to port after a long summer voyage. They hunted and hunted through all the warm nights, and every morning I totted up the bodies. Ground squirrels by dozens; house mice, deer mice, voles; three Norway rats--clear out here! I felt hard guilt-pangs over the tailless bluebelly, the disemboweled baby snakes. And oh! how could they!--as if they could kill jewels, kill gold--two kangaroo rats, lifeless eyes big as dimes, white puffs bristling like sparklers at the tips of their slender tails. They taste winter at the back of autumn's smoke and so I become reacquainted with these compulsive murderers. Clara (Piff)--feather-furred toe-dancer with silent meow. Ruth--eldest, smallest, sweetest, proud grandmother and softener of heart chakra. Ted--dog-large, heavy step-thumper, with deafening purr and kitten mew. Leo--great and lean, thigmotactic brother-bather, who walks like an Egyptian. And Greta, of course, apart from all, regal and sly, who guesses her worth and so wins half a house to herself. They remember now the dark attic with its dusty books and boxed-up toys, the unused guest room with the soft dusty quilts on the old bed. Bright hot morning sills. My croons and tickles and hugs, the curve behind my sleeping knee, the welcoming plain of my reading belly. Cream poured in a clean dish in a safe place after a season of blood.
Karen M's comment this morning was the first email I read, and it sent me hunting through my old used volume of Anne Sexton's complete poems before the tea water even reached a boil. We need a poem where a woman is her mother. Maybe it's "Housewife," with the lines,
I'm sleepy in these chilly mornings. And look--it's nearly 10. I've been up for hours and only this to show for it. I expect a guest at 2 this afternoon. Out comes the Murphy's Oil Soap, the fresh vacuum-cleaner bag. Attach the extension to the cobwebber. We'll do a quick sweep of the hill for dead rodents and dog poop.
She'll never guess. Just don't let her get here early! |
