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15
May
2021
Thursday May 13, 2021
The hummingbirds are back. Probably two pair of them, although I’m not quick enough to identify individual features.
They seem to play, like otters, for the sheer joy of living. They perform aerobatics overhead that would make a stunt pilot green with envy. They soar vertically, flip over, dive at dizzying speeds, zoom past at low altitude, do barrel rolls, meet in mid-air, come to an instant stop…
I also notice they have different feeding habits. One visitor perches on the feeder while sipping nectar. Another hovers constantly while dipping his (or her) beak into the plastic blossom. For each bird, always the same blossom, always the same perch.
And I wonder which bird is headed down an evolutionary dead end.
Categories: Soft Edges
Tags: vulnerable, Evolution, hummingbirds
9
Sunday May 9, 2021
Today is Mother’s Day.
I had a mother. That’s possibly the only statement that every human on the planet can affirm without qualification. Also any mammal.
` I’m tempted to say that every living thing had a mother, but I’m not convinced that laying eggs in a riverbed or casting spores to the wind qualifies as mothering. The new life may require female DNA, but in my mental dictionary, mothering Involves more than abandoning one’s offspring to chance.
When we scattered our son’s ashes in the ocean off Vancouver Island, his mother began, “From the moment I first felt you moving in my womb…”
With almost a sense of shock, I realized that being a mother starts nine months earlier than being a father.
Categories: Sharp Edges
Tags: Mothers, ego
8
Thursday May 6, 2021
The Kelowna Art Gallery is hosting a show about nuclear exposure, until July 18.
The gallery’s promotional leaflet says, “BOMBHEAD is a thematic exhibition organized by guest curator John O’Brian that explores the emergence and impact of the nuclear age… encompassing the pre- and post-war period from the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 to the triple meltdown at Fukushima Daachi in 2011.”
It’s not just about nuclear war, although the visual images do include mushroom clouds and flattened cities.
It’s also about the invisible threat of nuclear radiation.
I felt that the exhibit failed.
BOMBHEAD is a visual arts display. But how does an artist portray something invisible?
What you can’t see CAN hurt you.
Tags: Art, BOMBHEAD, nuclear threat
2
Sunday May 2, 2021
As a child, I had a smallpox vaccination every year. As an adult, I travelled with a yellow vaccination booklet that documented my vaccinations against smallpox. Also against diphtheria, tetanus, cholera, Yellow Fever, typhoid, typhus, measles, and mumps.
No immigration officer has asked for that booklet in more than 20 years.
Because vaccinations work. They prevent me from catching a disease, and from passing it on.
I don’t care what scruples you have about the ethics of Big Pharma. I don’t care what rumours you have absorbed about Bill Gates or the Illuminati plotting to take over the world. I don’t care if you found an obscure Bible verse that specifically prohibits vaccinations.
Although I can’t help wondering how a writer 2,000 years ago would know about vaccinations, to condemn them.
But I doubt if you have anything that rational against vaccinations.
Tags: UNICEF, vaccination, Immunization, smallpox, polio, Rotary