Thursday, May 28, 2015

How the painter Böcklin made music.

 Rachmaninov explained, that he was fascinated by a painting by Böcklin, “Toteninsel”, when he composed his symphonic poem, Op.29, “Isle of the Dead”.
 

Friday, May 22, 2015

Where's the snakes, monkeys, birds, tigers?

Cleared for palm oil farms, a monoculture that will support maybe, maybe a few species of birds and snakes,  gone are the thousands of animals, endless varieties of plants and bugs. They don't just move, they die, compress available territory and the population must decline.  Read the labels on food, never, never buy anything with palm oil in it.  Find out if your favorite restaurant uses palm oil, give them plenty of static about it if they do.  Consider finding another cafe.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

200 white guys arrested in Waco- got that picture?

Ya just gotta be amazed at the pictures and videos, 200 white guys wandering around talking on cell phones, talking in groups, sitting on motorcycles.  A few feet in front of them,  lay 9 dead people, and a wide open crime scene, in the bikes for the next few hours they have the chance to drop drugs on the ground, throw away ammo, anything to get rid of stuff and more than enough milling about to claim anything found must have been put there by someone else. 9 people lay dead 15 feet from these guys.  Got that picture?
Now lets think about the blacks and latinos we see maced, jumped on, beaten, tazered and left on the ground handcuffed, tossed in to vans,  for what - running - eye contact - stealing candy at the quick-trip?  It's an amazing time we live in.


Friday, May 8, 2015

Daddy, what did you do in the climate wars?

What's it been, 2 weeks?  Another pipe, a refinery, a train?  This time another train full of bitumen from  tar sands or shale.  This in the Dakotas, and it caused a small town to be evacuated for a day.  This train load had also been treated to make it less explosive.  How's that working for us?
Note that I used the term bitumen not oil.  Some of this stuff is bitumen.  It's that blonde skinny girl on the oil and gas happy talk adds on TV that wants to call it oil.  Oil because that sounds better to the public, and in fact oil has less carbon in it than bitumen, and carbon when burned makes CO2 which acidifies the oceans and insulates the earth driving up temperatures.  There are all kinds of fossil fuels, oil, gas, bitumen, coal, probably others I don't know about.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

Climate scientist convinced global warming is real based on evidence.

You've seen this chart before I bet, but do you know the rest of the story.  These almost 14k articles finding proof of global warming are not in  news stand rags, they are in academic journals.  The key term is peer-reviewed.  This means the writer submits the article, it's reviewed by 3 credentialed experts with knowledge in the field it's focused on, plus the editor. They have to be able to re-create or verify the claim, the conclusion, the reference material, and check to see it's original work and text.  It's not uncommon for them to ask for minor corrections or more info.  If it's more than minor, it's rejected.  The process can take many months.  So, you can take that 14k number and multiply it by another 4 people who proved it's true.
Except for these 24 articles, all the information denying global warming comes from news stand magazines, trade magazines, and articles prepared for and given to news outlets, or books by some blabbermouth, are virtually never written by climate scientist, and are not peer reviewed.
So take this seriously when you hear:
97% of climate scientist are convinced that global warming is real based on the evidence.
If it was your mom, and all the docs in the hospital said we're 97% sure if we don't lower the fever she will die, are you going to let it run it's course on advice of the flower delivery boy?