July 2022
Books read:
- Woman of Light by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
- Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
- Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
- The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry
Trails walked:
- Chasm Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (July 13th)
- Estes Cone via Lily Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park (July 20th)
- Mount Audubon in the Indian Peaks Wilderness (July 27th)
Song(s) of the month – Michael Martin Murphey
- Carolina in the Pines
- Land of Enchantment
- Mansion on the Hill
- Rhythm of the Road
- Geronimo’s Cadillac
- Lost River
- Boy from the Country
Scientist Spotlight – Jane Rigby, Astrophysicist
July Summary:
The month started in New England where we spent the last week of June and the first week of July. It was our first long vacation in 4 years (since we were back there for our son’s wedding). We had a sort of family reunion based out of Bradford, New Hampshire where our daughter-in-law’s parents have a cottage on a lake. It’s so GREEN there and so many trees! I had forgotten about driving amongst all the trees in New England. Yes, it’s beautiful and green, but you are also totally hemmed in by that green and finding vistas is hard to do (unless you hike a mountain with no trees on top). I used to flippantly explain the attitudes of westerners and easterners by this difference and like all generalizations it’s not true of everyone. But it seems that, in general, westerners are more laid back and easterners are much less so. My theory was that, out west, you can see for miles, so if something dangerous was approaching, you had plenty of time to respond before moving out of its way. In the east, you can’t see more than a few feet around you due to the density of the trees and bushes, so I theorized that easterners, in general, were always on the alert in case something dangerous popped out in front of them. Silly, I know, but I’ve had lots of exposure to people from both regions in my life (my dad’s family was from Massachusetts, my mom’s was from the Rio Grande Valley in New Mexico).
We took a couple of overnight trips while we were back east, one to the coast of Maine (and Portland) and one through Vermont up to the beautiful town of Burlington, on the coast of Lake Champlain. We had lobster rolls in Maine and farm to table food in Vermont. All of it was amazing. And our time on Lake Todd in New Hampshire was really special. Canoeing and kayaking on the lake, spotting loons (and hearing their haunting call), watching July 4th fireworks over the water, barbecuing on the grill after a swim, it was all magical. Plus, it was great having not only our son, daughter-in-law (DIL), and grandson, but also our daughter and her fiancé (who joined us for a few days) and of course our daughter-in-law's family was welcoming and fun to be with. I’ve included a few photos from the trip below.
Rampant inflation continues to hurt most Americans (other countries are experiencing it also). It’s tough to have conversations about climate change in this, er, climate. People are just trying to get by economically and talking about some future existential crisis seems out of the question. But inflation is temporary and will eventually correct itself; climate change is forever. It was 104 degrees in London and Paris this month. That's not normal. I heard a new term this month related to the price of fuel: Rocket and feather. When something (like a war in Ukraine or a Saudi prince's whims) causes fuel prices to increase, they go up like a rocket. But when those events go away, you can be sure that fuel prices will not decrease like a rocket. They will decrease like a feather landing so that the oil companies can squeeze all the profit they can before finally settling on some price that's probably a bit higher than it was before the event (check out oil company profits in the past 7 months, they are setting records even for them).
 |
| Paddling a canoe towards DIL's parents' cottage |
 |
| Canoeing alongside a loon (queue Katherine Hepburn..."the looooons") |
 |
| The cottage lit up with flares (part of the lake's Independence Day celebration) |
 |
| Lobster dinner on the beach at The Bait Shed in Maine |
 |
| Beach art created by Mother Nature |
 |
| Old Orchard Beach in Maine |
 |
| Sunset on the dock |
 |
| Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay... |
 |
| Daughter showing nephew the ropes |
 |
| Escaping the heat of the day |
 |
| Happy grandparents |
 |
| Can't go to Vermont without a visit to Ben & Jerry's |
 |
| Warren Falls in Vermont |
 |
| Fireworks on the lake |
 |
| Covered bridges abound |
 |
| Exchanging July 4th greetings |
 |
| Roots and Rocks near Smuggler's Notch |
 |
| View from Mt. Mansfield near Stowe, VT |
 |
| Impressionist reflections on the lake |
Have you seen the images coming from the James Webb Telescope? They are incredible, and almost like an artist’s rendering of what space looks like. These images inspired me to spotlight an astronomer and I was initially going to write about Sally Ride, but I decided to instead write about this amazing woman who currently works at the Goddard Space Flight Center and is the Operations Project Scientist for the James Webb Telescope. Anyway, Sally Ride is part of her story.
Rigby got her undergraduate degree in physics and astronomy at Penn State and then went on to the University of Arizona where she completed graduate studies in X-ray diagnostics of active galactic nuclei (so basically studying the center of galaxies). She was then awarded a Carnegie fellowship at the Carnegie Observatories which is where Edwin Hubble helped to transform our knowledge of the cosmos.
In 2011 she gave a really interesting TED talk on space telescopes. By this time she had become proficient at using the Hubble and other space telescopes for her work. In that TED talk she introduced the project status of the James Webb telescope and the information it could provide. Check it out.
Where does Sally Ride come into her story? Nearly at the beginning. Sally Ride (first American woman in space) inspired Rigby to believe that it was possible for girls to study physics. Also, although Ride never came out as gay (until her sister wrote about it after her death), she never hid her 27-year relationship with her partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy. Jane Rigby is also gay, and when she went to Arizona for her graduate studies, being gay was still illegal in that state (that didn’t change until 2001). We may not have had this brilliant mind on the James Webb project if not for Sally Ride.
You may have heard some controversy about the naming of the telescope. It was named for James Webb, NASA director from 1961-1968. John F Kennedy tasked Webb for putting a man on the moon before the end of the decade, and he is largely credited with helping to achieve that (even though he was no longer director when the missions took place). The controversy is his involvement in what is called the Lavender Scare of the 1950s and 60s where the federal government was being purged of anyone deemed to be a homosexual (it was thought that homosexuals would be a national security risk and communist sympathizers). In the end NASA decided not to change the name. Rigby tweeted: “Said as a private citizen: a transformative telescope should have a name that stands for discovery and inclusion.” Sometime in the near future I’ll write about my feelings on renaming places and things due to the named person’s past. It’s not a simple black and white topic and there are many places where a line could be drawn.
How do you narrow down 34 albums in 50 years to a few songs? I “discovered” Michael Martin Murphey (MMM) in college, mainly because I lived in a house with a bunch of guys that all loved the same music (at that time from Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin to The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and The Marshall Tucker Band). I think I’ve probably seen MMM in concert a dozen times and each time I come away with the feeling that he absolutely loves what he does. Perhaps the most memorable show of his was in 1979, or maybe early 1980 in Madrid, New Mexico. My future wife and I went to the show and it was there that I found out that my future (and still current) wife was already engaged (mainly because her “other” finance was at the concert too). Well, that was uncomfortable, but at least she had consistent taste in men who liked good music. We powered through that night on the energy of MMM who played well into the early morning…what a show…and what a memory.
Like many Texas singer-songwriters he didn’t have many mainstream hits, and the ones he did have he probably wrote for others. The first song of his that made an album was What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?, which was recorded by, get this, The Monkees! MMM had played in a band with Michael Nesmith who was a member of this late 1960s TV band. He has reinvented himself many times over with albums of folk-rock, bluegrass, mainstream country, alternative country, old time country, and a kind of cowboy jazz. His first album, Geronimo’s Cadillac was a critical success and the title track made the Billboard Top 40. Rolling Stone Magazine’s music editor at the time called Murphey “the best new songwriter in America.” The song became an anthem for Native American rights and it’s still played at protests today. MMM is involved in protecting the rights of Native Americans and their land, along with water rights for landowners (I imagine there are some conflicts between those two activities from time to time).
Murphey seemed to find his musical purpose in reestablishing old time cowboy music when he released his album Cowboy Songs in the early 90s which contained old cowboy classics like Tumbling Tumbleweeds and The Old Chisolm Trail, along with some of his own original “cowboy” songs. He’s released several follow up albums of cowboy songs since then. He’s received numerous awards over his long career including: Induction into the Western Music Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Best New Artist in the Country Music Awards (12 years after he released his first album!), Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2021 was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, which includes many of the authors I’ve written about in this blog (Sandra Cisneros, George Saunders, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Abraham Verghese).
He's great, has been for a long time, and he holds a special place in my heart. This list contains his older songs, but he has written some pretty good songs lately with his son Ryan.
Carolina in the Pines – The mountains, hiking, making music, and true love…can’t get any better than that. The piano music helps make this a great song, and Carolina in the pines sounds like the perfect woman. I couldn’t find a live version that beat this 1975 studio version from his great Blue Sky Night Thunder album.
Land of Enchantment – Murphey has lived a large part of his life in northern New Mexico and wrote this song in 1989. The NM legislature voted it as the official State Ballad of New Mexico that same year. It’s a nice homage to my home state with images of the state, its Hispanic heritage, plus it’s also a love song. I like this version with images of New Mexico:
Like many Texas singer-songwriters he didn’t have many mainstream hits, and the ones he did have he probably wrote for others. The first song of his that made an album was What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?, which was recorded by, get this, The Monkees! MMM had played in a band with Michael Nesmith who was a member of this late 1960s TV band. He has reinvented himself many times over with albums of folk-rock, bluegrass, mainstream country, alternative country, old time country, and a kind of cowboy jazz. His first album, Geronimo’s Cadillac was a critical success and the title track made the Billboard Top 40. Rolling Stone Magazine’s music editor at the time called Murphey “the best new songwriter in America.” The song became an anthem for Native American rights and it’s still played at protests today. MMM is involved in protecting the rights of Native Americans and their land, along with water rights for landowners (I imagine there are some conflicts between those two activities from time to time).
Murphey seemed to find his musical purpose in reestablishing old time cowboy music when he released his album Cowboy Songs in the early 90s which contained old cowboy classics like Tumbling Tumbleweeds and The Old Chisolm Trail, along with some of his own original “cowboy” songs. He’s released several follow up albums of cowboy songs since then. He’s received numerous awards over his long career including: Induction into the Western Music Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, Best New Artist in the Country Music Awards (12 years after he released his first album!), Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame, and in 2021 was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters, which includes many of the authors I’ve written about in this blog (Sandra Cisneros, George Saunders, Cormac McCarthy, Larry McMurtry, and Abraham Verghese).
He's great, has been for a long time, and he holds a special place in my heart. This list contains his older songs, but he has written some pretty good songs lately with his son Ryan.
Carolina in the Pines – The mountains, hiking, making music, and true love…can’t get any better than that. The piano music helps make this a great song, and Carolina in the pines sounds like the perfect woman. I couldn’t find a live version that beat this 1975 studio version from his great Blue Sky Night Thunder album.
Land of Enchantment – Murphey has lived a large part of his life in northern New Mexico and wrote this song in 1989. The NM legislature voted it as the official State Ballad of New Mexico that same year. It’s a nice homage to my home state with images of the state, its Hispanic heritage, plus it’s also a love song. I like this version with images of New Mexico:
Mansion on the Hill – This song was written by Hank Williams and Fred Rose, but I included it here because this duet with John Denver is really special. From his beautiful Swans Against the Sun album:
Rhythm of the Road – I’ve always loved this travel song written by Murphey and this version with Willie Nelson singing is pure fun. From the Swans Against the Sun Album:
Geronimo’s Cadillac – Still used by Native Americans as a sort of anthem, Murphey wrote this as a protest song after he saw a photo of Geronimo being paraded around in a Cadillac. He was deeply involved in the civil rights of Native Americans in the 1960s and 70s when he saw that they were largely forgotten during the Civil Rights era. The song was initially banned in Texas, his home state. The original version shows MMM struggling with his voice range so I won’t subject you to that, but it has improved over time and the version on his 2018 album Austinology is great (with Steve Earle and others):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjm247NViuk
The woman of light in the novel is Luz (Spanish for light), who is a teenager being raised in the working-class Westside area of Denver during the Great Depression. She is being raised by her thirty-something aunt due to events that made living with her parents impossible. As Luz’ life is unfolding, we go back in time to The Lost Territory (northern New Mexico and southern Colorado) in the late 1800s to discover the story of her family as they dealt with the westward expansion with its subsequent land grabs and racial discrimination. In a writing style similar to that used by Arundhati Roy, she would describe a seemingly innocuous situation and then in a future chapter that situation takes on a whole new level of importance once you’ve read the backstory. The whole book is full of interesting characters. I hope to read more from this talented young author in the future.
Oh, and a couple of side notes. There are many strong female characters and hardly any strong male characters in the story. I suppose that’s just a drop in the bucket to the many novels throughout history that portray the exact opposite. Also, if you’ve never read any books or articles on critical race theory or anything else that corrects our previously white-washed history of America, the social commentary may come as a shock. So embrace it, do your research, and you’ll see that Fajardo-Anstine is just trying to correct a few things and point a few things out about what white expansionism did (and continues to do) to minorities in this country.
Here are some lines:
In the distance a cemetery of wooden crosses was scattered about the hillside, as if the Spanish had once spilled a bucket of Catholicism over the land.
We cannot know the depths of another’s sacrifice.
Maria Josie had taught Luz that showing fear drew more of it.
But even with jobs, no matter how much Luz or Maria Josie or even Diego worked, they were still poor, as if their position in life had been permanently decided generations before.
Pidre felt some unknowable stone dropped into the pool of his destiny.
Luz was red-faced, burning, and for a moment she was gratified with her temper. At the very least, it kept her warm.
Lizette was grateful that she didn’t come from a people so unbearable as to hide their own women away when they believed them full of unfavorable babies.
Before she turned to face her destiny, she leaned forward and gave each of her girls a squeeze of the hand, and from the depths of her soul, Simodecea shouted, “Run.”
“I think everything that’s ever happened or going to happen to us and the people we love is around,” said Luz, “All we have to do is reach for it.”
At the 3.3 mile point, the Longs Peak Trail continues to the right while the Chasm Lake trail heads straight ahead. This last mile to the lake is the most spectacular part of the hike. It’s like you’ve walked into a paradise. Columbine flowers, vibrant green grass, waterfalls and pools leading down the Roaring Fork Valley (different from the one in Aspen). There is a bit of a scramble up to Chasm Lake, but nothing most folks can’t do as long as you take it slow and easy. We met a couple from New York who needed some help figuring out where to scramble (“You have to climb over that big rock?!”).
And then there is the spectacular Chasm Lake. We had lunch near the shore and watched rock climbers slowly making their way up that steep cliff to the peak. I wrote this about that cliff in last year’s blog: Then you see this beautiful lake below this immense amphitheater of rock, including Longs Peak, rising high above you. There is a sheer rock wall here called The Diamond, and it’s a world-famous alpine climb. It rises 1,000 feet at over 13,000 feet elevation.
We headed back down to the trailhead, but not before checking out the privy with a view. There were several young workers improving the trail and we thanked them for their efforts. At just above the tree level they are creating a stone path because years of many hikers keeps eroding down the path, making those steps get higher and higher. I’m sure those returning from Longs Peak REALLY appreciate that stone path rather than those big steps with their tired legs. Another beautiful day in Rocky Mountain National Park!
 |
| Elevation at the trailhead |
 |
| Always up, like the streambed |
 |
| First look at Longs Peak in the center with the light clouds |
 |
| Cascading cascades |
 |
| DIL checking out the view |
 |
| Rocky Mountain columbine in the Rocky Mountains |
 |
| Like a paradise |
 |
| Beauty abounds |
 |
| Chasm lake with The Diamond cliff face below Longs Peak |
 |
| Chasm Lake reflections |
 |
| DIL making her way down the scramble below Chasm |
 |
| Ranger patrol cabin with a view |
 |
| Nature's own planter |
 |
| Clouds building early afternoon, time to go |
The backstory of both Zeitoun and Kathy are fascinating. He was born in Syria, near the sea and had fishing and boating in his blood. She was born in Baton Rouge to a strongly Christian family, which made her conversion to Islam quite an issue. As the storm is approaching, Kathy reads about its potential for destruction and decides to leave the city with the kids to stay with relatives in Baton Rouge. But Zeitoun stays in the city, just like he has stayed through all of New Orleans’ storms in the past. He wants to protect his home, his business, and all his properties.
When the storm hits, it’s of course worse than anything that had ever happened to that city. But Zeitoun had bought a canoe a few years earlier and ended up paddling around the flooded city rescuing older people, their pets, and using his contractor skills to fix up his and other homes as the water damage consumed them. However, things turn dark amid all this heroism. He and 3 other friends who were gathered at one of his rental properties planning their next rescues were arrested for looting. He was accused not only of looting but also terrorism (remember this is only 4 years after 9/11). None of these accusations were true, but he ended up in prison for over 20 days with no rights, including no phone calls, so his wife had no idea if he was alive or dead during that time (she presumed he was dead based on all the news). Eventually a missionary who was handing out bibles in the prison took his message to Kathy to let her know he was alive and where he was. She called a lawyer (not easy in the post Katrina days) and eventually after several more days he was released.
They eventually tried to put their lives back together after all of this, but they both seemed to have suffered from PTSD. Zeitoun become more impatient and more extreme in his Muslim religion (the same thing that happened to many Muslim men after being wrongfully prisoned) and Kathy suffered from memory loss and physical illness. As the story ended, they seemed to be holding it all together. However…..
When I read up on this story for my blog I discovered that in 2011 and 2012 (2 and 3 years after the book was published) Zeitoun was arrested for physically abusing his wife and for not obeying restraining orders. He was seen beating her with a tire iron in the street and was accused of plotting her murder. Eventually the murder plot charge was dismissed, but it was really disappointing to read all of this because the story depicted him as a solid guy and depicted their marriage as a loving partnership. There have been many theories about what happened. Some say that their golden relationship and personalities portrayed in the book were whitewashed by Zeitoun and Kathy who sent back 7 different edited versions of the book before it was published. Others say that PTSD changed both of them and ruined their lives. I imagine the truth lies somewhere in between.
Even with all of this aftermath, it’s still a great read in which you learn about New Orleans, Katrina, immigration, religion, family, and friends. Here are some lines:
“I only want white people working on my house.” She said it like she was choosing a kind of dressing for her salad. “White people?” Kathy laughed. “Sorry, we’re fresh out of those.”
Kathy drove away, knowing they were all mad. Living in a city like this was madness, fleeing it was madness, leaving her husband alone in a home in the path of a hurricane was madness.
Something about the canoe had intrigued him. It was well-made, undamaged, with a pair of wooden benches inside. It was about sixteen feet long, built for two people. It seemed to speak of exploration, of escape.
There were no sirens, no authorities of any kind. Just a block of homes burning and sinking into the obsidian sea that had swallowed the city.
He turned his back to the fire and slept fitfully, thinking of fires and floods and the power of God.
You need to move back here. Syria is so much safer, they said.
Zeitoun was in disbelief. It had been a dizzying series of events—arrested at gunpoint in a home he owned, brought to an impromptu military base built inside a bus station, accused of terrorism, and locked in an outdoor cage. It surpassed the most surreal accounts he’d heard of third-world law enforcement.
It was Abdulrahman, her husband. He had lost twenty pounds. He looked like a different man, a smaller man, with longer hair, almost all of it white. Tears soaked her face. He’s so small, she thought. A flash of anger overtook her. Goddamn those people. All of you people, everyone responsible for this…his eyes were the same—green, long-lashed, touched with honey—but they were tired, defeated. She had never seen this in him. He had been broken.
There is no faith like the faith of a builder of homes in coastal Louisiana.
There are great views of Longs and Meeker Peaks with Lily Lake in the foreground from the Lily Ridge trail. Instead of heading back down to the lake we found a connector trail that took us on a steep and mostly unused trail down to a narrow valley where we hung a left on the eastern portion of the Windriver trail (turning right would have taken us to the YMCA of the Rockies). I was actually on the western portion of the Windriver trail in January of this year as a snowshoe hike. The western and eastern sections of the trail are separated by The YMCA of the Rockies. On the Windriver trail we saw two small fawns sprinting fast downhill right towards us! I didn’t think they were gonna stop at first, but then I guess they remembered “stranger danger” from mom and took a sharp U-turn around 20 feet in front of us. It was very cool. Mama rounded them up and they went on their way. But then we wondered what they were running from….
Eventually the Windriver trail intersects with the Storm Pass trail for a 3-mile mildly steep walk up to the Estes Cone trail. This was a nice walk in the woods with occasional views of Twin Sisters and the gigantic landslide along their western side. It was at this point that we encountered “the beast”. A very curious hummingbird was following us and divebombing us for around a quarter mile. She was either guarding a nest or was just messin’ with us. It was actually very entertaining, but DIL did let out a scream as the beast "attacked" her while she was filming it (“no paparazzi!”). See the video below:
As the trail turned west, we started getting spectacular views of Longs and Meeker before it eventually reached the junction with the trail to the top of the cone (this junction is actually right at Storm Pass and staying on this trail would eventually lead you down to Bear Lake Road where the Storm Pass trail ends). The Estes Cone trail is a very steep 0.7 miles up, and the last 100 feet or so was a sketchy looking, but actually not so bad scramble to the top. Once on top the wind almost blew us away, but then so did the 360-degree views! We found a windbreak and ate our lunch before exploring this rocky top which tops out at just over 11,000 feet.
The walk back to Lily Lake was a nice, mostly downhill stroll. We decided to walk around the lake a bit. And what do you know, we spotted another beast! This one was in the water. We were looking for fish but found this creature with legs and dragon-like fins near its head. What the hell is this?! Back home after the hike I discovered that it was a Paedomorphic Tiger Salamander and per the National Park website they can be found at Lily Lake. So, not your typical Rocky Mountain National Park animal sighting day, but a very entertaining one at least.
 |
| Lily Lake with Longs Peak in the background |
 |
| Bench with a view |
 |
| Rock wall turn |
 |
| Typical of the Storm Pass trail to the Estes Cone junction |
 |
| Greenery changes with the elevation |
 |
| Cairned route up to Estes Cone |
 |
| Great views just before the final scramble to the top |
 |
| Nice German couple took our photo |
 |
| Last scramble to the top |
 |
| Great views up here |
 |
| Me enjoying the views |
 |
| DIL enjoying the views |
 |
| Sort of an arch |
 |
| Trees and views |
 |
| Estes Cone as seen from near Lily Lake |
Published in 2002, Stories of Your Life and Others contains eight short stories, seven of which he previously published elsewhere. The title story was adapted into the hit movie Arrival which starred Amy Adams and was nominated for best picture and for best adapted screenplay. The stories make you think while you read; about humankind, philosophy, religion, science, and the nature of everything. In a previous interview, Chiang has said, “Science fiction is very well suited to asking philosophical questions; questions about the nature of reality, what it means to be human, how do we know the things that we think we know.” I also liked his answer in the interview to the science vs religion debate: “There is a similarity between science and religion in that they’re both attempts to understand the universe, and there was a time in the past when science and religion were not seen as incompatible, when it made perfect sense to be both a scientist and a religious person. Nowadays there is much more of an attitude that the two are incompatible. I think that’s sort of a 20th century phenomenon.”
Rather than reproduce lines from these stories, I’ll give a short synopsis of each:
Tower of Babylon: Set in ancient Babylon, it tells the story of the centuries-long building of a tower to reach heaven. It takes 4 months to haul a load of bricks to the top of the tower.
Understanding: A man receives an experimental new drug to help him recover from a drowning accident in which he entered a vegetative state. The drug’s side effect gives him superhuman intelligence, similar to the Matthew McConaughey movie Limitless.
Division by Zero: A mathematician proves that the basis of all science is incorrect. The story goes back and forth from her discovery to her relationship with her husband.
Story of Your Life: About an alien visitation to Earth and was the basis for the movie, Arrival. The linguistic expert in the story seems to be experiencing the ability to see all of her past and future life after unlocking the communication method of the aliens. She is describing the future life of her daughter (currently in her womb), while the narrator describes her work with the military in communicating with the Aliens. I’ll have to watch the movie again now that I’ve read this….
Seventy-Two Letters: Set in an alternate Victorian era, where scientists use the ancient Jewish ritual of naming, to animate clay objects (golum?) which act like robots. One of these namers becomes involved in a secret Royal Society plot to save the human race after they’ve discovered that humans have only 5 generations left to survive.
The Evolution of Human Science: Metahumans have now assumed the leading role in science and technology. Ordinary human scientists have lost the ability to understand the ways these metahumans think or create.
Hell Is the Absence of God: Violent angel visitations take place regularly in which some people die and some are rewarded with miracles. One of the characters (Neil) loses his wife during a visitation and he develops a hatred for God. But he knows that the only way to reunite with his wife in heaven is to get rid of this hatred. He runs into other interesting characters, including a preacher born without legs who receives a miracle of new legs in another visitation. Neil dies during another visitation in which he seems to have learned to love God, but he still goes to hell.
Liking What You See: A Documentary: This was my favorite story even though Chiang refused an award for it because he felt it wasn’t sufficiently ready when it was published. It’s presented as a transcript of a documentary on something called calliagnosia, which is a reversible procedure that adjusts ones brain to not allow one to distinguish between a conventionally beautiful or ugly face. There are debates about the pros and cons of removing the human ability to detect who is good looking and who is not. The story follows a vote at a liberal college on whether to make it required for all students to have this procedure done. A conglomerate cosmetic organization fights against this procedure.
 |
| View of Mitchell Lake from the trail |
 |
| View of Mount Audubon |
 |
| Brainard Lake and Left Hand Reservoir way down below |
 |
| Flowery view of Longs Peak |
 |
| DIL making her way up the rocky slope |
 |
| Me, making my way up the rocky slope |
 |
| Steep mountain peaks all around |
 |
| That feeling when you are near the top |
 |
| A nice couple who just moved here from NY took our photo |
 |
| Magnificent views in every direction |
 |
| Just incredible |
 |
| Like Ruffles, the Rockies have ridges |
 |
| DIL at our lunch spot |
 |
| My view from our lunch spot |
 |
| Upper Coney Lake way down below |
 |
| Me, enjoying the views |
The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture by Wendell Berry - I first heard about Wendell Berry just this year, from an Ezra Klein interview of Nick Offerman. Offerman mentioned Berry several times hoping that more people would come to know about this interesting person who has a lot to say about making the world a better place.
Berry is from Kentucky where he was raised on a farm that had been in the family for five generations. However, his passion and skill led him to literature where he studied writing at the University of Kentucky and at Stanford. He is an elected member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers, a recipient of The National Humanities Medal, a 2013 Fellow of The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and has been inducted into the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, which includes such notables as Sam Shepherd, Sue Grafton, bell hooks, Barbara Kingsolver, and Hunter S Thompson. For around ten years after graduating from college, Berry led a life of writing and traveling, but then he decided to buy a farm near his family home in Kentucky and get back to what he believed was in his nature, farming. He continues to write prolifically, in addition to his farming.
The Unsettling of America and Berry's other nonfiction seem to address the kind of life he values; sustainable agriculture, technology as a tool not a solution, healthy rural communities, connection to place, farm animal welfare, local economics, reverence (of the land, family, and God), and the interconnectedness of life. The ideas he writes and fights against are industrial farming, ignorance, hubris, greed, violence against others and against the natural world, eroding topsoil, and environmental destruction. The book was written in 1977 and it seemed so far ahead of its time. He really had a problem with the then Secretary of Agriculture, Earl Butz. He believed that Butz, along with most agricultural colleges were too beholden to large corporations all in support of the oil industry. His viewpoint is that all their talk of "feeding the world through increased productivity and technology" was bad for the world in the long run because it ruined the soil and pushed out the small farmers.
I really enjoyed his views on life and farming. We need more people like him in the world. Here are some lines:
the class of independent small farmers who fought the war of independence has been exploited by, and recruited into, the industrial society until by now it is almost extinct.
the care of the earth is our most ancient and most worthy and, after all, our most pleasing responsibility. To cherish what remains of it, and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.
it is one of the miracles of science and hygiene that the germs that used to be in our food have been replaced by poisons.
the past has prepared the present and the present safeguards the future.
the only possible guarantee of the future is responsible behavior in the present.
No rational person can see how using up the topsoil or the fossil fuels as quickly as possible can provide greater security for the future; but if enough wealth and power can conjure up the audacity to say that it can, then sheer fantasy is given the force of truth;
There is an uncanny resemblance between our behavior toward each other and our behavior toward the earth.
And Odysseus finds him in an act emblematic of the best and most responsible kind of agriculture: an old man caring for a young tree.
A healthy farm will have trees on it—woodlands, where forest trees are native, but also fruit and nut trees, trees for shade and for windbreaks. Trees will be there for their usefulness: for food, lumber, fence posts, firewood, shade, and shelter. But they will also be there for comfort and pleasure, for the wildlife that they will harbor, and for their beauty.
The most revealing sign of the ill health of industrial agriculture—its greed, its short-term ambitions—is its inclination to see trees as obstructions and to strip the land bare of them.
there is no connection between affluence, as we understand it, and civilization. All that civilization requires is enough; it does not require extravagance. Until these distinctions are made, we cannot even begin to talk sensibly about the problem of hunger.
(agricultural) faculty members could be paid half their salary in cash and given the use of a boundary of college farmland the potential annual income from which would be equivalent to the other half. In both instances, the professor would be in a position to “take his own advice before offering it to other people.”
Until next month, happy reading and rambling!