Life Interrupted
While my Morning Muse is busy breaking camp
I will probably be posting “snippets” like this for a couple of months to come, since my morning Fred Time is now dominated less by discretionary reading and more by attending to lists of lists, timelines and getting things done other than generating keystrokes.
So I will pull out a few items here from recent reading, by way of “cards” created from those articles by ReadWise (subscribed to with readers’ contributions! Thanks!) with a few preliminary words of commentary and a single quote from the article of interest rather than the more complete post on each I would have undertaken if not overcome by events.
WILL the ASH rise from the ASHES of Forest History?
As I told in a January post from 2021, the beautiful, jewel-like EAB (Emerald Ash Borer) continues to destroy yet another important eastern forest tree species. And like the American Chestnut, an attempt is being made for the long-term return of the dozen or more ash species to the forest of your great grandchildren’s children. The hope lies in the “lingering ash” that are resistant.
Consciousness as Integration of Information
And again, I return to a well-visited topic in my morning reading about the phenomenon of consciousness. It is a difficult topic to speak casually about, since how one thinks about this topic has ramifications into one’s notions about science, cosmology and religion. I resonate with a “top-down” view which holds that consciousness (with a capital C?) is a fundamental property of the universe and came necessarily before both the material and the biological realm.
Parasites: An Important and Susceptible Link in the Web of Life
Few people know that my first consideration for grad school in 1970 was parasitology. What amazingly interesting (if sickening, literally) life cycles some of the flukes and flies, nematodes and protozoa have found over the millennia. Now, those complex life cycles are threatened by the lost of one or more of the links in their chain of life by conditions altered by a warming climate. This may sound like a good thing, but careful what links to remove from the chain.
ALZ: Learning to Live Fully with What We Cannot Avoid
The author is journalist who learned from his mother that life with Alzheimers Disease could still be worth living. Then he was diagnosed with the condition. And as he describes, he choses to face life with hope and courage. Given the prevalence of this awful state of mental health in the world today, we need to offer hope to the suffers and care to the caregivers, so both can have lives worth living. And note that music persists while conversation may not. Keep the music in your lives, folks.
Few readers follow any links I post, so those few of you who care to dive deeper search can find the articles by listed titles.
Your regularly scheduled blather will continue intermittently, and then with renewed enthusiasm and fresh content, come the Fall and from Columbia, MO.
I reckon I’m one of the weirdos who follows links, and it usually results in my having more tabs open at the end of the day than I’ve had time to peruse. The cards are nice, however. Sending love and much appreciation, dear Fred.