High Park, Toronto

Toronto's huge, protected tract of parkland called High Park is well worth the respect it is due. It has a long and storied history. And as a parkland within the greater confines of a large and growing metropolis, it represents a natural escape existing within a concrete jungle.

As a natural resource located close to the waterfront of Lake Ontario, extending upward from there, and readily accessible by anyone who lives in the city who might wish to touch with nature from time to time it is an invaluable treasure.

So, that a group of Mohawk Warriors have set up a protest camp in a section of High Park is explicable only because they oppose the ravaging after-effects of off-road cyclists using the natural resource of a huge inner-city park as a social gathering point for avid outdoor enthusiasts. Enthusiasts who do not really respect nature for what it has to offer. Theirs is not a vision of nature to be admired and to serve as inspiration.

Rather the young people who use the park as a venue for riding their machines on inclines and jumps to contest their agility and abilities as stunt riders disparages nature. For in the end the use to which they put the park is one that destroys the natural lay of the land, and it despoils the beauty to be seen there.

The BMX tracks that have been built in the park as a venue for bored inner-city youth looking for thrills corrupts the original purpose of a natural parkland.

This is not, of course, the reason that the Mohawk Warriors have set up a protest within the park. Their outrage is manifested by what they claim to be an insult to a cemetery. To the memory of ancient aboriginals who once roamed the terrain and whose bones may have been laid to rest within the park confines.

For them it is a matter of respecting an ancient burial site. That may have resonance with certain sensibilities, but it should not necessarily be the entire reason for protesting the misuse of High Park's auspices.

The trails within the park should be left for the recreational use of walkers, runners, those who enjoy the opportunity to be within a natural forested setting. To witness the beauty of nature. To take advantage of the opportunities given them to see mature trees and forest plants in various seasons.

It could be used perhaps for casual bicycling as well. But certainly not for the destructive use of altering the terrain for the purpose of giving adventurous thrills to those who have no appreciation whatever of nature's heritage to the people who live within the city.

Each The Other

The man has defied medical opinion and has vastly outlived the diagnosis of an early expiration to become one of the world's most respected authorities as a theoretical astrophysicist. His very name evokes respect for his mind, encased as it is in a frail shell of a body that has succumbed to the dire effects of a degenerative motor neuron disease - utterly brilliant in his ability to conceive theories.

He is of the ilk of Leonardo da Vinci, albeit far less a master of so many disparate qualities and enterprises in the understanding of science, engineering, human physiology and the plastic arts. Perhaps Albert Einstein's brilliant theoretical mind more reflects the kind of inheritance that Stephen Hawking's represents. In any event, he is capable of conceiving scientific, natural notions beyond the capacity of most professionals in his field.

He is a theoretical genius.

One supposes that he has something in common with another theoretical genius. Moses, for example, who 'understood' that there is but one God, not a panoply of gods to represent all that nature presents to awe humankind. Stephen Hawking may implicitly and with confidence understand time and space and the natural elements that inhabit the heavens.

But this genius who was Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge University, a position held long before him by another genius, Sir Isaac Newton, also knows of a certainty that it is Nature alone that is responsible for the existence of all that is known and everything unknown. There is no God, he tells those who have no wish to hear his pronouncement.

"I have lived with the prospect of an early death for the last 49 years. I'm not afraid of death, but I'm in no hurry to die. I have so much I want to do first. I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. there is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark."

"We should seek the greatest value of our action." Raising the affronted ire of the faithful who bridle at his arrogance at speaking of what he knows not. If it takes a great leap of faith to believe in what we cannot see in nature, but which is theorized to exist and which propels existence, why not that faith that exalts in the belief of the Almighty?

Ah, because science and theology are not twinned, though others declare that they are but a reflection of each the other.

Flood Watch

Trying to conceive of the concern and misery of people desperately attempting to fend off the ravages of floodwaters ruining their fields, their homes, vast acreages of farmland, threatening the safe security of farm animals, is not quite possible. We tend to divorce ourselves from the reality of the details, the anguish being suffered by people who see their homes and their dreams being destroyed by a force of nature that human ingenuity cannot possibly control.

Of course it is well known that it is a risky concern, building on a flood plain. Municipalities are logically supposed to deny permits to those seeking to build on flood plains for the very good reason that there is always a danger of flooding; this is why those low-lying areas in river basins are called flood plains. But there is something inordinately attractive to people about living in close proximity to running water; to lakes and rivers.

The view is irresistible, the recreational opportunities magnificently compelling. And people habitually think of the positive, the pleasures involved in building where it seems attractive to do so, rather than lingering on thoughts of the negative and potentials for dismal disaster. Nature may never, we reason, threaten the land we will build upon, and if it does, it will be manageable. Human ingenuity will provide.

But then the catastrophic occurs, and no amount of human ingenuity quite manages to challenge nature's indomitable will to do as she will with the climate, with the environment, with the puny lives and plans of mere humankind. Having said which, the richest soil is often alluvial, and planting agricultural crops on that rich soil, and having a close source of water for irrigation makes good, practical sense.

With farmland comes farmhouses, and if the farms are established there, then why not small towns as well, where the watershed can also provide potable water for the use of the nearby residents? Let's face it; human beings have always chosen to build their settlements along the banks of lakes and rivers; it made for easy availability of a water source, and for transportation.

It is a tragedy that once in a while, flooding occurs that transcends what people normally anticipate year-over-year in a tradition of manageable, nuisance flooding. When minimal risk becomes maximum liability and everyone rushes to try to manage as best they can, hoping that somehow, a miracle will occur, and the worst possible scenario will not, after all, result.

The agonizing suspense of watching and waiting and hoping and praying is a dreadful way for people to have to live.

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  Members of 2nd battalion Princess Patricia's Light Infantry help load sandbags onto helicopter slings to be transported to weak sections of the dike running along the Assiniboine River some 25km from Portage La Prairie, Man. Thursday, May 12, 2011.(THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward)

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  Brandon Sun Civic employees wait to deliver sandbags on a dike set up on John Avenue, Thursday afternoon. May 12, 2011(Colin Corneau/Brandon Sun)

Natural Disasters

If the bodies are not found and identified and their families given the peace of knowing, the festering lack of closure will take its toll. The government will forever face the quiet condemnation of the masses, that it made too little effort to act decisively when action was required.

As it is, over a month after the crippling earthquake and tsunami devastated Japan and left its population in a state of collective shock, and its industry enfeebled, it is too late.

Bodies of the drowned have been washed too far out for recovery. The dead, lying under deep layers upon layers of quake-destroyed buildings are steadily decaying and too few have been recovered, despite the tasking of 25,000 Japanese troops dispatched in recovery efforts at the worst scenes of disaster. There are 74 schoolchildren missing at an elementary school.

The official tally is 14,340 people killed in the triple disaster. With 11,889 officially missing. Not yet accounted for, but missing. It is those 11,889 whose bodies are being sought for recovery, accounting and burial. It is the government's responsibility to attempt to see that this is done. It is a government being accountable past a disaster it could not cope with.

Poking about in the twisted wreckage of what were once municipal buildings, shopping emporiums, schools, apartments and devastated homes is proving to be a monumental and dangerous task. Aircraft and ships, police, coast guard officers, all engaged in a large sweep for the possible location and discovery of bodies offshore. Fewer than 500 found, thus far.

And there's another dimension of tragedy as well, as once-productive farmland, now abandoned as a result of a government-ordered nuclear-evacuation zone. Farm animals deserted, left to slowly perish, unable to fend for themselves as domesticated and incapable of looking to their own needs. The evacuation zone encompasses 370 farms.

On those farms were four thousand cattle, thirty-thousand pigs, and six-hundred-thirty-thousand poultry. The Japanese who once proudly practised animal husbandry and farmed their acreage, are no longer there, but elsewhere, fearing for their health and mourning their lost livelihoods. Veterinarians have been dispatched to evaluate the situation, the dead animals.

The surrounding air, soil and ocean have been contaminated by radiation from the nuclear plant at Fukushima. Regional farm production has been banned. Automobile manufacturers have been unable to start up and regularize their production lines resulting in a shortage of parts and overall production shortfalls.

People are desperately concerned about the continued spread of radiation, of an increased evacuation zone. Farmers who have lost their livelihoods and sometimes family members are in utter despair. Some have committed suicide. And Japanese health authorities anticipate a rising wave of grief and anguish contributing to greater numbers of suicides.

This is a country in which pride and honour contribute to viewing suicide as a solution, the ultimate act of humble contrition. For those whose livelihoods have disappeared and who can see no future for themselves, the benefits of an insurance policy paid may assist their families if their suicides can be attributed to natural causes.

Which, in effect, they most certainly can be.

BP's Compensatory Responsibilities

Isn't that just like human nature? Tucking the conscience and ethics away in a corner - as high up as possible, so it's a real stretch to reach them and pluck them down for later use - in favour of diligently taking advantage of opportunities when they present themselves. Something like the sudden loss of law and order when disaster strikes and people begin looting, not to waste unexpected opportunities.

In this instance it is the opportunities that presented themselves in the chaos and rush of a presidential order to begin compensating townsfolk living directly in the wake of an unprecedented Gulf Coast oil spill a year ago when BP was desperately attempting to contain the Gulf of Mexico disaster in the wake of a rented oil rig being stricken and eleven men working on it drowning, with the following runaway oil gusher.

The U.S. government negotiated (furiously strong-armed) a $20-billion claims compensation and clean-up package for Gulf Coast residents from BP. And then of course there was the billions consumed in various other initiatives to try to control the oil spillage. The company is preparing to sell off assets to the value of $30-billion to help pay their bills. It is, needless to say, their responsibility.

On the good news side of the equation are stories coming out of the area that in most instances the ocean itself appears to have helped considerably in the clean-up by pushing the grease and oil away from land, and absorbing what it could. That beaches and wetlands are no longer impacted, with oil contamination nowhere to be seen. Aquatic life is returning to normal, and birds normally seen in the area are also returning. Nature coming to its own rescue.

And then there are other stories, describing the "BP rich", the new "spillionaries"; Gulf towns and their residents who have taken what some might consider to be excessive advantage of spectacular opportunities to do well by themselves. Such as cleanup companies submitting bills for payment not bothering to complicate matters by itemizing things, and by submitting documentation with their invoices. Stamped paid.

A subcontractor billing BP $15,400 monthly for rental of a generator that it usually rents out for $1,500 a month. A company charging BP over $1-million a month for land that it had formerly rented out for less than $1,700 a month. "This parish raped BP. At the end of the day, it really just frustrates me. I'm an elected official. I have guilt by association", confessed the chairman of the St.Bernard Parish Council.

People living in areas that hadn't recovered from the depredations of Hurricane Katrina, where almost every home was flooded, made compensation claims to BP for payback following the spill. Money flowed generously to people claiming their lives, their properties, their livelihoods had been deleteriously impacted by the oil spill crisis.

People who vituperatively blasted BP, a foreign enterprise that degraded the U.S. coastline and created a disaster for the environment and for thousands of people who depended on the marshes and the oceans to supply them with their livelihood, went out of their way to take BP to the cleaners. It was clear to many that businesses that had been hit by the recession, not the spill, were receiving BP compensation.

"I don't understand how BP is just giving its money out like this. Give it to the people who deserve it", said the manager at St.Bernard's off-track betting parlour, noting the increase in customers gambling claims money, increasing her business to the extent that employees had to work overtime to accommodate all the new business.

Just Who Rules Here?

Indigenous people everywhere believe they are far more in touch with nature than the cosmopolitan, urban, European-influenced types that conventionally hold them in minor contempt for their naivete. It makes sense that those who are indigenous to a country live attuned to nature, for by and large they haven't managed to transcend their dependence on nature, they are less technologically and socially advantaged, as it were.

And, seeking to find some message to convey the idea that they are more authentic in their very nature than those whose imperialist sophistication find the simplicity of thought and action of the indigenous people unworthy of notice, the idea of capitalizing on respect for nature arises. So, under an nature-enlightened president who is proudly indigenous, Bolivia has raised its naturalist credentials.

Censuring all those who seek to "dominate and exploit" nature. Not simply nature, but "Mother Earth". And to that end, Bolivia has written up a constitution for Mother Earth, introducing it into the United Nations to mirror Bolivia's own Law of the Rights of Mother Earth, courtesy of President Evo Morales.

The country has established a Ministry of Mother Earth. That ministry recognizes the rights of the planet through the interlocutory skills of an ombudsman to sympathetically hear out nature's complaints brought forward by eco-activists and those representing the state itself.
"If you want to have balance, and you think that the only (entities) who have rights are humans or companies, then how can you reach balance?"

A circuitous but well-meaning argument one supposes, posed by Bolivia's ambassador to the UN. "But if you recognize that nature too has rights and (if you provide) legal forms to protect and preserve those rights, then you can achieve balance." In other words, taking a unique but not all that different perspective from most countries' established and responsible environmental protection programs.

Bolivia under its Evo Morales has gone a little further in its commitment to preserving and encouraging natural progression, setting out the need to "save the planet", starting with recognizing the need "to end capitalism". The manifesto that is being introduced as a draft United Nations treaty asserts that "Mother Earth has the right to exist, to persist and to continue the vital cycles, structures, functions and processes that sustain all human beings."

It seems we, or rather Bolivia, doth protest too much. Mother Earth, after all, is engrossed in her business, sidelined by no one, no force unequal to her own capacity to dominate the planet and the beings upon it. She flicks aside with imperious disdain human endeavours to make an impression upon her mantle. When she feels she has been insulted, she revokes calm and invokes chaos.

The template that we all know and love suddenly shudders and shatters. From tectonic plates brushing against one another and the Earth's crust rumbling and all upon it trembling and shattering, to oceanic responses washing away all of humankind's puny constructions. Hurricane-force winds, monsoon rains, dreadful droughts, firestorms and misery she rains down upon her creature to remind them just who rules.

Tokyo

Living in Japan you understand the extent to which the Japanese are discriminating and demanding consumers. They generally eschew pesticides. Japanese growing their own fruit trees in their tiny garden plots will painstakingly wrap each pear, plum, or any other fruit while hanging from tree branches, in paper bags to keep them free from pests as they ripen.

The Japanese consumer demands freshness and quality in their food products. And now the Japanese consumer must contend with the reality that for the time being, their drinking water has been contaminated with radiation, as well as the food they are growing.

For a nation that was horribly traumatized by two of the world's only atomic bomb attacks at the conclusion of World War II, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, this represents the ultimate nightmare, the troika of tragedy that assailed them in 2011.

One of these events; the monumental earthquake, the hugely destructive tsunami, and now the dire threat of nuclear installations proving unstable and ready to explode, would have been enough to bring most nations to their knees. The stolid, courteous Japanese, accustomed by culture and heritage to orderly and subdued acceptance, await delivery from their nightmare.

There are countless children who are now orphans, and other children who, having survived their ordeal, have lost one parent, and their childhood. One wonders how they will survive to a balanced adulthood with those dreadful memories forever looming deep inside to be retrieved without their will or assent.

This is certainly, most certainly, not the Tokyo I knew and treasured, with its constant hubbub, its busy life, its localized communities revolving around mutually-obligated work site and temple, and village-atmosphere shopping areas; the fish-mongers, tea shops, kissaten, fruiterers, florists, rice shops.

Where in the centre of Tokyo, high-rise apartments sported the tongues of countless sleeping mats hung from windows to air throughout the day, until needed once again in the evenings, as Tokyo slept. Where road work crews set out to repair municipal roads at night, while few cars were on the road, so the following day's traffic could proceed unimpeded.

Where taxis were immaculately maintained by their white-gloved drivers who meticulously dusted them inside and out, to present clean surfaces to their clients. Where in dense traffic never a car horn would be heard, and motorists, stopped at red lights, turned off their ignitions until the light turned green, to automatically conserve energy.

Where consummately beautiful displays of art were underwritten and held for display in the great shopping emporiums in the Ginza, Akihabara, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Oriental Bazaar and other areas, at the Seibu, Mitsukoshi, Isetan, Odakyu, Tokyu department stores. Where stylish clothing, exquisite porcelains and lacquerware could be found.

Where, on the street, the great Japanese Kodo drummers would set up their equipment and entertain passers-by, and invite one now and again to try their hand at beating the drums. Those drums, whose deep, living sound would vibrate deep in the chests of those standing and listening, as though they were live souls whose voices the drummers freed.

Still there, but muted, threatened. With the population quietly awaiting events to unfold. To inform them whether their lives will return to normalcy, or become further compromised.

Where Has The Future Gone?

The Tokyo I knew when I lived there and thrived with the thrill of living in such a dynamic, exotic, historical and culturally intriguing city of huge spread and quaint custom is in dramatic suspension. Suddenly and horribly, the city that hosted millions of residents whose disposition to one another was quietly orderly and proudly confident has lost its self-confidence and is awash with insecurity.

The city where everything was available for the discriminating purchaser, where the food was always fresh and wonderfully appealing to meet the discriminating demands of a population that appreciated the importance of living well and healthfully now finds itself in need of the most basic consumables; potable water and food. The shelves of food shops are yawning empty, and people have frightening concerns about where they will find the necessities of life to sustain them.

Winston Churchill, during the Second World War and Britain's heroic battle with Nazi Germany, spoke to his people to give them confidence in themselves and their future. Japan's prime minister has been doing the very same thing, recalling them to their tradition of forbearance and determination, patience and endurance. The Japanese people have responded with trust in their government and in the future, for they are resilient and hopeful.

But hope and trust fade measurably when opportunities for survival seem to diminish, when aid becomes difficult to offer, when shelter from the winter elements, the cold, the unavailability of food and water, medical attention and rescue from dire circumstances become complicated by forces beyond the control of mere humanity. And the dread potential of a nuclear meltdown looming on the near horizon.

This is not the well-operated, confident city that I knew and lived so comfortably within. This is a dread place of fear and insecurity, where the future looks dim and shaded in dark bruised colours of desperation. And a wonder how all of this could possibly have occurred to a people that have already suffered more than its share of misery.

Buddhist Heritage

The incomprehensible tragedy that Nature has brought to Japan is beyond belief. People who are superstitious often succumb to a belief that 'bad things' happen in the order of three succeeding events, one following on the other, each event transcending the other in orders of magnitude. It's hard to see which of the three disasters newly visited on Japan, might be considered the most horrible.

The unprecedented earthquake in terms of sheer terrifying scale which wrenched an always-alert population to the understanding that this very particular quake was far different from its countless predecessors would have been confidence-eroding and difficult enough to comprehend. Followed instantly by a matching-in-degree tsunami (who knew such disturbed oceanic waves travel at the speed of a jet plane?!) seemed to trump the tremblor.

Earthquake-coded buildings seemed to weather most of the effects of the earth's terrifying movement. But the resulting tsunami - of which neither it nor the earthquake gave prior warning - wrought incalculable damage, as an immense, unstoppable watery cliff bore down, and as thousands of Japanese perished and their property dissolved under the sheer force of nature's immense totalitarian power.

And then, the nuclear power stations, those fearful installations that humankind in their arrogance feels it can tame until Nature takes the upper hand just to demonstrate what she is capable of. The outcome of the failure of the generators, the overheating of the nuclear cores, the explosions, the exposure of the fuel rods, the escaping radiation, and the exodus of desperate people.

This country of consummate courtesy, with its reverence for nature, balancing its fearful respect for nature's forces, as a societally organic coping mechanism has and will continue to aid the people to overcome this seemingly insurmountable set of disasters. The Japanese are a stoic, proud, determined people honouring their past with admirable fortitude and endurance.

Japan has endured in the past and continues to do so now. It experiences about ten percent of the world's seismic activity. The Japanese never forget how vulnerable they are in their oceanic perch. They are never permitted to forget it, since quakes of various magnitudes are felt continually. Once such a quake is experienced it is never forgotten. You wait. Certain yet uncertain that the shaking will soon stop.

It does, eventually. The number of seconds it takes before it does stretch out interminably in time. Seconds become much longer, larger elements of time. But it finishes and everything returns to normal. And normal is the expectation that it will happen again, and again and again. Elsewhere, that trite little phrase "what does not kill will strengthen" has meaning in Japan. That frail people have rigid spines.

"In the past we have overcome all kinds of hardships. Each of you should accept the responsibility to overcome this crisis and try to create a new Japan."

On The Richter Scale

A small country, but a dynamic and powerful one, with the world's third-most-important economy. Still struggling to emerge from a decade of financial weakness, and beginning to see the light of day on its economy. A country comprised of three islands; a large central one, a northern and a southern island. Geographically close to countries that resent it mightily because of past indiscretions as a once-martial nation.

Still respectful of its monarchy though no longer regarding it as divine, and now a staunch democracy, Japan has gone through many changes over the last century. It has faced many challenges during that period of change and surmounted them all. The Japanese are a resilient, compliant people, tending to obey authority. How else could so many people live in harmony on those tight little islands?

Compliant but not complacent. The security that most people once held dear in employment for life, and loyalty to the employer and a small-town-life attitude even while living in a huge metropolis, faded, imposing great pain as the economy waned. A nation of powerful corporations and small shopkeepers representing a huge proportion of the country's wealth.

A country now heavily in debt. And suddenly all those problems on reflection seem to have been far more preferable than what the country looks like one day on from the one before. On Tuesday there was a relatively modest tremblor, on Wednesday another, and then on Thursday a viciously brutal earthquake that has transformed Japan's major island.

The Japanese are accustomed to earthquakes, they occur continually throughout the course of a year. This is an earthquake-prone area, sitting within the notorious 'ring of fire'. Every household has a prepared earthquake kit, to grab as they exit their homes. Of course, tremblors do not occur only when people are at home.

They happen when they're at work, when they're out shopping, out and about engaged in recreational events, or touring, or attending a temple, or gardening. An earthquake that engages you when you're sitting within the confines of your home is vastly different than one that occurs when you're on the 20th floor of an office tower, or when you're out of doors.

Wherever it occurs it engenders in you a feeling of disbelief, of helplessness, of awe and fear. But this was not the ordinary garden-variety kind of trembling of the earth that people have long been accustomed to. This one was 8.9 on the Richter scale, and fearsome in its tremendous earth-shaking, destructive power.

And ... and the tsunamis that followed, and the inundation and the washing away of homes, vehicles, boats, trains, the mudslides that followed, the collapses, the ruination of human habitation, the perishing of too many helpless human beings.

Abandoned

The very country whose activities succoured terrorism and whose name has become a byword for Terror Central, has been rewarded by the Frankenstein they created turning upon them.

A succession of Pakistani governments regardless of the names of the political parties, have been involved in rigorously recruiting, training, arming and directing terrorists toward Kashmir, India and Afghanistan. Massive amounts of foreign aid grants from the United States have largely gone toward re-equipping the terror groups and the Pakistani National Army and the ISI with the latest in arms technologies.

The plight of Pakistan's millions of indigents ignored in favour of establishing Pakistan against its rival India, as a nuclear-armed state. The country's treasury lavished in its nuclear-tipped rockets, and the defence required to ensure the safety of those nuclear installations. The government of Pakistan has allowed its North West Frontier Province to operate without government intervention, permitting the ISI free reign to interact with tribal chiefs, the Afghan Taliban and sheltered al-Qaeda.

The predictable has occurred, with the country's own Taliban being formed to directly challenge the authority of Pakistan's government, its armed forces and its police. Pakistani Taliban are bold enough and determined enough to strike in the heart of the country; its capital has not been shielded from suicide attacks, nor have government offices, its police stations, and its army recruiting offices. Pakistan successfully bred the militias that would challenge its sovereignty.

And while the Pakistani National Army has been pursuing the rogue-elephant Pakistani Taliban to defeat them, to protect the country's nuclear installations and nuclear arms, and just incidentally the civilians fleeing war in their hundreds of thousands, it has remained disinterested and disinclined to respond to the entreaties of NATO and the United States to disenfranchise the Afghan Taliban, and refuse them haven within the borders of Pakistan. Those chickens have come home to roost.

Nature has intervened to complicate Pakistan's existential problems even more excruciatingly, imposing upon the poor of the country a direct challenge to their survival through the effects of flooding from torrential rains. And the country's national army's attention has been deflected from battling the Taliban to attempting rescue operations. The international community has been loathe to extend humanitarian aid to a country whose actions have imperilled the global community.

In war and in calamitous natural disasters it is the ordinary people, the poor who are challenged for their survival. And even during the holy month of Ramadan, the Taliban militants have not been loathe to mounting new attacks on civilians, destroying lives, and bombing the stations of the military and the police themselves attempting to bring aid to the millions of flood-stricken refugees.

The country is reaping what it has sown.

And its enemies, the Taliban native to Pakistan crow: "The TTP will leave no stone unturned to speed up attacks and defeat the enemies of Islam. the Pakistan government is committing a great sin by siding with the U.S. against the Taliban, who are the true defenders of Islam."

Scene of Disaster, Not Fiesta

One can hardly conceive of people suspended in a state between mourning and hope for the future lending themselves to celebration, but in a sense that too might be representative of hope for the future, rather than to descend into a state of mournful abeyance of life. So family members who have spent the past month awaiting word of their loved ones trapped 700 metres underground, could perhaps be forgiven, given the state of their mental anguish, to want to express briefly some kind of joy in life.

The 200th anniversary of Chilean independence, near on the horizon, and ordinarily a holiday of great exuberant expression, has been irremediably marred for the thirty-three Chilean miners trapped in their subterranean chamber, and by extension, for their families awaiting their release from their current state of virtual suspended animation. Not all family members, however feel exhilarated by the thought of celebrating while their husbands/brothers/fathers/uncles/cousins are trapped below.

"I thought we agreed not to do such a thing" the wife of the oldest of the 33 trapped miners has reportedly reminded the others. "Let's save the party for when the men are with us", represents her words of elderly wisdom. And the country's mining minister, Laurence Golborne, is in complete concordance with that sensible position, with his reprimand to the would-be cheerleaders, that Camp Hope is "not a fiesta or a holiday camp.

"It's the site of a massive rescue operation and we would do well to remember that." In fact, it would seem rather ghoulish to onlookers of which there are scant numbers permitted other than the media, and even more perplexing to the rescue teams working feverishly to drill no fewer than three options, each of which has the potential of saving the trapped miners. Plan A has begun as has Plan B, as alternates, but then another, Plan C will soon begin drilling.

And it is Plan C, if it succeeds, that might see rescue operations concluded far sooner than the December 31 potential. Each of the planned drilling sites can be successful in reaching and extracting the men, but Plan B is a shorter, more direct route and Plan C shorter even yet, representing a depth of 597 metres, and potentially cutting rescue time by at least a month. And time is certainly of the essence.

The sooner those trapped men are rescued, the better the prospects for their mental health outcomes. There will be ample time to celebrate, once the rescue plans have resulted in the triumph of completion, and each one of the miners has been released from his personal hell in a mind-destroying prison of earth and stone.

In the meantime, to ensure that calm prevails, the medical team overseeing the health of the men have logically concluded that there should be no alcohol provided to the trapped men. Some of whom are already suffering from depression, and for whom alcohol could complicate their condition. The trapped miners themselves thought it might be a relief to celebrate their country's independence day with Chilean red wine and empanadas.

There might be a swift and short-lived release from the demoralizing condition many are beginning to suffer as they continue to come to grips with the reality of their ongoing imprisonment. Their anguish at being trapped for over a month compounded with the realization that they must continue living as they are now, for three times as long. One month's misery extending into three months of ongoing agony, despite the determination to endure the unendurable.

Most of the trapped miners are new to the mine. Older, experienced workers had left the mine. Those who took their place, some of them migrants from Bolivia, were desperate for employment, for a job that would pay up to twice what they had been minimally earning before coming to the San Jose copper and gold mine whose owners had ignored government safety rules and regulations.

The pain of a catastrophic forced incarceration will remain long after rescue has been effected. The trapped miners must mine deep within themselves to discover their interior resources of hope, the will to survive their ordeal. And when they do, despite the lingering trauma, the joy of life re-discovered will sustain them.

Creation...

"It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going. Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist". Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking

Creation. Existence. The Universe.

That is an immense topic. Mind-blowing, in the popular vernacular. Who made us? How was the Universe created? What occurred in some dim, dark recess of an unknowable time that resulted in the creation of everything that exists?

From the vaulting immensity of the black and distant atmosphere we can only imagine, in which galaxies spin and within them endless stars and planets, and where comets and shooting stars flaunt their brief icy star-dusted glories then go on their endless forays into the vast beyond, down to the minutiae of the mundane; our puny existence.

How, when, and above all why? Well, why not. Matter is everywhere, and it coalesces and becomes something. And boundless energy, and gravity, gases and minerals. And then there is the whisper of dark matter, energy suspected to exist but not yet quite discovered to exist. Proof of its existence, like that of a Spiritual Adviser to Mother Nature exists as an educated hypothesis.

And who more capable of hypothesizing than the world's currently-foremost brilliant theorist, physicist Stephen Hawking. Whose boundless mind encompassing the kind of speculative genius seen rarely, few quite understand.

But now we have it on authority, none other than he having come to the definitive conclusion that God is but a frantic figment of fearful humans' feverish imagination. In our need did we create Him.

Cowering before the monumental forces of Nature unleashed in great shifting quakes of the Earth, in powerful winds bringing typhoons and lashing rainstorms drowning our feeble structures and our food sources, hurricanes that shred everything into splinters and take hapless lives.

There must be a kindly Spirit looking over us. To save us from savage, relentless Nature.

But no. Nature is what we have, and it is Nature alone that conspires to make us miserable, for we are as nothing to Her, but a fragment of existence among her immense and complex creations.

The Grand Design, written with American physicist, Leonard Mlodinow, concludes that a Creator other than Nature is completely redundant to the purpose and the practise and the origins of the Universe. Who are we mere mortals to argue?

But we will, of course; that is, those among us and they are legion, who will not lose grasp of their faith. For that is their nature.

Simply put: faith rewards the faithful. Belief in the Almighty brings solace and hope, and trust in the future.

But our magnificent, immense Solar System is an infinitesimally tiny portion of a vast Universe, more insignificant than a grain of sand on a wide, open beach. And we, within it are ourselves even less significant as part of Nature's creation.

True, Nature did excel in our creation and that of the other living organisms that exist upon the Earth, for we are complex and amazingly adept at manipulating our environment. So much so that from time to time Nature exerts her power to remind us precisely who reigns supreme, and it is not we.

Nor is it, alas, a Supreme Being.

Who might ever have suspected that God would become a footnote to the history of the infinite?

Heavenly Host

The stunning all-sky image taken by Planck is dominated by the brightness from our own Milky Way galaxy

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1292104/Our-Universe-revealed-Dramatic-sky-photo-gives-new-clues-happened-Big-Bang.html#ixzz0yayX7OZI
For some, shock and profound unease that
the brilliant mind in the diseased body of
an extraordinary intellect has presented the
ultimate scientific assessment, based on
advanced physics and planetary discoveries
synthesized with a generous helping of reality;
that Nature does very well for herself, in
harnessing gravity to creation, obviating
as redundant the fanciful clinging to the
belief in a Divine Presence manipulating the
Cosmos to create Being, and you and me.

You may cling ferociously to the blessing
of faith, giving meaning to your life and hope
for your future. As for me, and others who have
never submitted to faith in a higher order of
sublime existence, an omnipotent, omniscient,
controlling Illuminated Presence of ultimate
wisdom, we are not at all perturbed, nor yet
do we preen with the satisfaction of those
whose disbelief in divinity is rationally validated.

Of course, faith is not rational. It is an ingrained
phenomenon of the mind embracing the soul's
need for reassurance. To cling to the belief that
"we are not alone". That a Heavenly Father,
concerned for His flock controls events, and
to Him prayers of devotion and entreaty must
be humbly addressed without question. Nothing, no
assurances to the contrary, will disturb the deeply
placid belief in the Almighty that believers
clasp so deeply and passionately to themselves.

No one being, of human descent, is completely
knowledgeable, neither the Pope, nor science's
foremost theoretical physicist; both are fallible,
each possessed of their own very particular brand
of hubris. One born of faith, the other of the gift
of genius. Each inheriting from predecessors
thought, instinct, reaction. In the presence of God
and the absence of God alike, we exist, capable
and yet fearful of what we do not know.

Nothing will alter that. Although believers and
non-believers alike are capable of enjoying views
through a cleverly arresting series giving us leave
to admire Nature's great gifts to all living creatures,
even when the presentation comes in the guise of a
thankful paean to the worshipful God Almighty.

www.andiesisle.com/creation/magnificent.html

Stricken Pakistan

The people of Pakistan are in dire straits in a number of provinces. Monsoons brought torrential rains that overwhelmed the capacity of the rivers, causing dreadful flooding in a country whose complex irrigation system was not designed fully adequately to avert just such disasters, and the required remediation work, although recognized, was never carried out. Funding set aside for that very purpose, after repeated flooding, was always used for other projects. This flood appears to be by far the most serious, with dread consequences, that the country has yet experienced.

When previous disasters struck the country the international community always responded with generosity. The Pakistan Ambassador to Canada is singularly unimpressed with the amount that Canada has allotted for flood relief to the tune of a seemingly-meagre $10-million, this time around. The response from the Government of Canada is clear and concise; there was never any kind of accounting for previous more generous responses; food was never delivered to where it was needed; it rotted before it could be used.

This time the government of Canada will decide more carefully where it will send relief aid; not directly to the government of Pakistan, unalterably corrupt, but to reliable non-governmental agencies to ensure that aid will not be wasted, and will reach those in dire need. The United Nations has appealed to the international community for almost a half-billion dollars in aid, citing the massive flooding as surpassing in destruction and need the natural disasters that have afflicted other countries in recent times.

This represents a humanitarian crisis of immense proportions. But then, whenever disaster strikes it always represents as an humanitarian crisis of 'huge proportions', and there always ensues a heartfelt cry of needy support from the UN, entreating its member countries to give, please, and generously. There is a sense within the NGOs, however, all appealing to their usual constituents in the West to give their charitable donations on behalf of the suffering people of Pakistan, that this time response is weak.

Not entirely surprising. In the past when funding has come from the international community through individual donors responding to pleas from involved NGOs, there have been later reports of inadequate responses, inefficiency, wasted efforts and supplies, and a skimming of donations by government agencies, along with international aid being found for sale in the marketplaces and bazaars, never having reached those desperately in need of it.

There is a realization that a country that invests itself in fully supporting terrorist groups, in fomenting violence and upheaval in neighbouring countries, a country responsible for training violent jihadists to be sent out to other countries to wreak havoc and mass murder rather than providing for the needs of its own indigent people, has failed to qualify for international aid.

There may also be an enquiry in the minds of many why a country like Saudi Arabia which generously funds madrassas that purposefully teach Wahhabist jihad, studiously refrains from funding emergency aid. Charity appears to have its distinct limits; religious imperialism trumps humanitarian aid. The suffering poor will find their place in heaven.

Added to that the impression that by funding the work of rescue, of feeding and medicating refugees in their desperate straits, the government is not held fully accountable, and will never be accountable as long as the international community keeps stepping up to the plate. In Pakistan this is admittedly dangerous. By withholding international help, particularly by the West, it allows the indigenous terror groups themselves to speedily offer charity to their own, to ingratiate themselves and in the process secure future recruits for Islamist jihad.

The failed state of Pakistan, ever violently resentful of its neighbour India, involved in one dreadful plot after another to impose violence and mass murder on India, in challenging it for ownership of the geography of Kashmir, and nuclear superiority, represents as the crucible of terrorist training camps. Pakistan's national army and its Secret Intelligence Service (ISS) remain the de facto government. Its current president is merely holding the seat warm for his and the son of Benazir Bhutto.

But will he ever ascend to the executive throne of the country, or will it inevitably revert back to military rule? This is a failed country with no sense of responsibility to its indigent population left to fend for themselves in every facet of life, experiencing loss and displacement whenever disaster strikes, and vicious exploitation when the Pakistani Taliban strike. The Taliban turned out, for the government of Pakistan and its ISS providers, to be a modern-day Frankenstein.

Pakistan, yet another nuclear pariah in an ever-increasingly troubled world of conflict and misery.

Killer Weeds

Remember purple loose strife, that accursed (albeit quite beautiful) 'weed', not native to Ontario but an introduced species that had no natural enemies, no bugs or beetles that might destroy it, and whose presence multiplied along provincial waterways, threatening to usurp the beloved presence of the province's native species? The Ministry of Natural Resources encouraged people to report its presence, to take steps themselves to eradicate the damn weed wherever they saw it. It presented a threat to the existence of native species.

And then, well, nothing much. Purple loose strife behaved itself like a well-mannered guest. It thrived along waterways and ditches, and presented as a lovely wild plant to be admired on the landscape in later summer. Take the place of native plants? It did no such thing, and it admirably proved that there was room aplenty for it and other plant species in the wide, open spaces of the province. Not at all like the kudzu that had been introduced into the southern United States from its native Japan, and which ended up strangling all other plants, even trees.

Where would we be without our intermittent bouts of hysteria over things we don't quite understand. And which the news media love to plump up into stories guaranteed to up the ante of popular distress? Day after day in the newspapers, on radio, on television, and likely on the Internet as well, stories about the huge, toxic plant that threatens to bring disaster to the Province and its vulnerable population. And the dire need to eradicate it as promptly as possible, but with extreme care lest it bring disaster down upon us.

THE GIANT HOGWEED prepares to strike! Some plants can attain a height two and a half times taller than a mere mortal, now that's impressive. So what does that make this then, a fascinating botanical specimen or a noxious weed? Public opinion, fanned, aided and abetted by the media have opted for the weed designation, a mean, nasty, threatening weed. The invasion of the giant hogweed. It is to despair. What can save us from this threat?

Common sense? We deal with deadly nightshade, poison ivy and its various cousins, stinging nettle, castor-bean plants (deadly ricin produced from this beauty) all of which are far, far more are deadly. Take a walk in the woods and there are red- and white-baneberry, beautiful woodland plants, and deadly, deadly. You'll also find wild strawberry, raspberry and blackberry plants, along with thimbleberries. We eat those, we don't eat the baneberries.

At one time when people sensibly knew something about the plants that grew around them, and even planted many of them for their medicinal values, people had a basic knowledge of a country pharmacopoeia of useful plants. The most commonly-useful drug used today comes from willow bark, and a baby Aspirin a day helps people who are at risk of heart problems. Extracts from Echinacea which we grow in our gardens, are useful in fighting cold symptoms.

The tips of yew trees are used to produce a drug that fights ovarian cancer: Tamoxifen, produced by huge pharmaceutical companies. Ontario's own yews (ground hemlock) have been identified as useful for the same cancer-fighting purpose; the new tips excised and used for life-saving purposes. Lungwort and ginseng, ginkgo and St.John's wort; herbs like basil, rosemary, oregano have all been used as folk remedies for various ailments.

Nasty plants, however, abound too. And those we avoid, when we can. Stinging nettle can be a nasty encounter, but not only in the woods. When we fill our many garden pots in the spring with black dirt enriched with compost we buy in bags from our neighbourhood nursery, the soil has also been enriched with stinging nettle seed. Which germinates and gifts us throughout the growing season, with nasty nettles. Growing among the wonderful floral annuals.

To be removed with a gloved hand, lest one's digits pay the price long afterward. Common sense. We have trees in our gardens whose pods are deadly; caragena, the lovely yellow-flowering pea. Autumn crocus, monkshood, deliciously fragrant lily-of-the-valley, the stately, gorgeous Delphinium, the lovely-belled Foxgloves, candy-coloured lantana, all poisonous garden plants.

The hysteria that has accompanied news and descriptions of the hogweed plant is absurd. There are people who have grown the plant as an interesting garden specimen for decades, and who have never suffered any inconvenience as a result. No health problems. It is like the lovely flowering maple, a showy plant with large, delicate paper-pastel flowers. Some people are severely allergic to the plant and on touching it will develop blisters.

The giant hogweed which originated in the Caucasus and Central Asia was brought to Europe and North America as an ornamental garden species, a giant among plants. We once had a sea buckthorn in our garden and finally rid ourselves of it, for its thorns and its creeping roots popping up far from the original appeared a garden threat to us, but we did not fear it. Plants have their uses, practical and as representatives of nature's variety.

We should respect them as we should respect the natural world around us, by learning something about the living things that share this planet with us, and which can do so much to complement our lives.

Hemlock, anyone?

Just ... Musing

This really is a scientific-research, theoretical-potential break-through for Canada. Having a theoretical physicist of the elevated status of Stephen Hawking taking up a new research position in Waterloo, at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. That is impressive, big-time scientific-academic stuff. Breathtaking, in fact, in its potential. That a subject of such immense significance would be studied right here in Canada, by the world's leading cosmologist.

"Why popular fancy should seize me, a scientist dealing in abstract things and happy if left alone, is one of those manifestations of mass psychology that are beyond me. I think it is terrible that this should be so and I suffer more than anybody can imagine." Albert Einstein

The public awe and adulation directed toward Stephen Hawking for the mysterious working of a mind able to conceive of abstract imaginings beyond the understanding of all but a handful of the world's geniuses immersed in the close studies of science as it relates to molecular studies, astrophysical, physics, and engineering does not, however, appear to deter Mr. Hawking; he copes well indeed.

Aside from his amazing brain, he is also a study in emotional ingratitude, in having left his first wife (and children) who supported him faithfully during the long early years of his physical decline, suffering from motor neuron syndrome that has locked his body into a motionless prison, leaving his mind free to surmise and analyze and theorize.

The wife of the man who designed his voice box, (enabling him to communicate his theories as a quantum mechanic engaged in cosmology, putting forth brave new theories based on an intense and deep knowledge) and who as a professional nurse cared for him, then became his second wife also betrayed her husband. Emotional betrayals do not mark the moral convictions of a man of high principle.

His personal failings aside, his professional qualifications and triumphs in intellectual discoveries ensured he was well regarded in the world of astronomy, particle physics and quantum mechanics. Those in awe of his monumental brain power attribute to him monumental abilities. His theories and conclusions have been built on a succession of earlier intellectual-theoretical findings, from Galileo and Newton to Einstein.

Human knowledge of the physical world around us and our place within it owes everything to the groundwork and intellectual break-throughs pioneered by scientific minds that predated Stephen Hawking. Just as humankind's incredible leaps forward in technological advancement began with the discovery of the taming of fire and the uses of flints and ores, the world's scientists leap forward on the discoveries of their predecessors.

Professor Hawking must have impressed upon himself, for some reason best known to himself, that the RIM-funded Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics presents a unique opportunity to progress in his search for new theories that would help to explain the vast, often nameless mysteries of the universe. Leaving Cambridge's prestigious and grand hallowed halls of academe as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, for Waterloo, Ontario, might appear as a descent to some.

But Professor Hawking seems to feel that the funding he was unable to access at Cambridge is now available to him here in Canada, in modest, but beautiful Waterloo, Ontario. Thanks to a billionaire whose own brilliant forays into the fields of computer technology and communications earned him the vast riches that now enable him to further the international fortunes of pure scientific enquiry.

From exploding stars, to collapsars, to black holes that swallow everything through the sheer magnetism of their powerful attractive qualities, but which leak radiation that will eventually cause them to disappear - and then what in the universe happens to all the matter that those hungry black holes have swallowed? we, the public, cannot even begin to guess at the discoveries that may emerge, well beyond our basic brain-power to grasp.

One thing many people may, however, grasp: how much in the realm of science fiction of a rather tarnished variety it seems for a brilliant scientist like Professor Hawking to argue his position that mankind should refrain from its obsession with contacting aliens. Believing, it would appear, that any such aliens might prove to be hostile and dangerous; indeed, inimical to our prolonged existence

."I assert that the cosmic religious experience is the strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research ... the only deeply religious people of our largely materialistic age are the earnest men of research." Albert Einstein

Well-Met!

Reasonable people can, after all, accommodate one another. And groups at odds with the plans of corporations who believe they can reap the benefits of withdrawing for profit natural resources without compensating for those activities - can find reasonable compromises with the good will to work together for the common weal. It can, and does happen. Often, concluding long struggles where ill feeling has resulted in controversial condemnations of activities on either side.

So it's good news that Canopy, an environmental NGO, part of an environmental coalition including also Greenpeace, have between them managed to persuade the Forest Products
Association of Canada, representing giants of the Canadian forestry industry, to call a truce and observe the necessity of preserving vast tracts of Canada's life-giving and -enhancing boreal forests from unheeding exploitation.

The agreement by the forestry industry to freeze logging on parts of the northern forest in exchange for the withdrawing of the very effective black-eye marketing campaigns denouncing forestry practises on the part of environmental groups, is a big victory, for both the corporations and the NGOs. And Canada wins, and so does its population, assured a future of ongoing boreal forest stability.

Co-operation between adversaries when each side has much to gain always speaks to the wisdom of accommodation, the rejection of uncompromising loggerheads between otherwise reasonable entities. Canada's vast green, growing, organically important boreal forests are vital to global atmospheric balance and the health of the environment. They represent a heritage, a natural treasure to be preserved.

There are many areas where continuity of forest growth have been disrupted through logging that has left fragmented areas which can continue to be logged sustainably, without incursions into pristine areas of old-growth forests in the boreal wilderness that require protection.

An industry specialist summed it up very well when he stated: "The environmental groups get what they want for now and the industry looks like good citizens." It's a good start, and there are other areas of environmental spoilation through exploitation of important natural resources that will also have to accommodate themselves to the necessity of better resource management.

In parts of Alberta people live with the effects of oil pollution, and where other ecosystems are threatened by oil extraction. From the West Coast of Canada to the East Coast of the country oil drilling rigs are ubiquitous. "We're addicted to oil, so the beat will go on", noted a Newfoundland-based environmentalist. "Oil companies will make absolutely sure we don't check ourselves into hydrocarbon rehab anytime soon."

Over half the petroleum product used in the United States, Canada's largest trading partner and customer for oil-based resources comes from foreign sources. Including Canada, which stands out as America's largest supplier of fossil fuel products. And environmental damage from exploration and drilling is often the result, an inconvenient one that the oil companies are now beginning to seriously address.

Director of external relations for the Pembina Institute, Dan Woynillowicz, points out that U.S. oil requirements is what is dynamically driving Alberta oilsands expansion development. And a lot of people living directly where those rigs are in operation are pretty emphatic about the diminishing quality of their lives as a result of their proximity to these areas.

Sour gas has been one of those human-health (and farm animal-health) problems, water contamination another, impacting deleteriously on the environment and peoples' health.

According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers this is all manageable. "We will mitigate our impact on the land while maintaining regional ecosystems and biodiversity", is what the website of the group claims, reassuringly. Needless to say, this is not done on their own recognizance, it's done when environmental groups and concerned citizens complain and put the companies' feet to the fire of public opinion influencing government decision-making.

We're all of us far better off when the efforts of interested parties - which should be all of us, since we're discussing the country's natural resources - insist on accountability and respect for what we all rightfully hold dear, applying the needed pressure to focus corporate decision-making on being good citizens.

What Other Options?

There's a tough one. What to do with the sometimes-irritating, sometimes-dangerous incursion of wildlife into geographies once their very own, now overtaken by tract housing. Most people find it amusing and even wonderful when they see small woodland creatures venturing from the presumed comfort of their natural surroundings, to seek comfort elsewhere. Where food may be easier to come by, at bird feeders and where pet food is placed outside and easily accessed.

But then, when clever raccoons continue to come by at night to raid backyard composters, and when equally clever crows rip apart plastic garbage bags set out for waste collection, people become irritated. They become alarmed, however, at the thought, the sight of, and the realization that increasingly some forest creatures are venturing into urban areas and present a real danger by their presence.

Coyotes have become a real headache right across the country; prevalent in the countryside, but now increasingly so in the suburbs, and even directly in urban areas. It is not just their presence, but far more a problem is their growing ease with the presence of humans. Once fear of humans has left their consciousness, they view life on the edge of human existence as an opportunity to advantage themselves.

People begin to realize just how advantaged coyotes can make themselves. Farmers could inform them how vulnerable their poultry, and sheep can be at the presence of coyotes. And now, urban dwellers tell their own stories of pets suddenly vanishing. Cats never returning home, and small dogs suddenly absent, even from well-fenced backyards where they're let out at night to relieve themselves.

If the story ended there it would be troublesome enough, but it does not. The lack of aversion to human presence is on the rise, and with it a greater display of audacity on the part of coyotes. There are many people who could readily confuse a coyote for a large dog. Except that some of these people have been confronted by snarling coyotes, sufficiently confident to track them to their front doors.

Very young children have been seen by coyotes as potentially superlative meals. And these young children have been attacked. From British Columbia at one end of the country to Nova Scotia at the other end, coyotes slinking through public parks, startling people, presenting as moderate threats to domesticated animals, and more stark threats, to people, have become a growing confrontational problem.

As for that moaning mea culpa on the part of animal lovers that human beings have been steadily displacing the wild animal populations off their traditional land, that is true to a degree. It is not true to the degree that coyotes now choose to share urbanized land with humans, for they do this entirely to advantage themselves, to be around where the pickings may be easier than living in the wild and having to stalk more alert creatures; their usual prey.

There is a distinct problem associated with human and wildlife contact. Obviously so, in the presence of bears, far less so when confronted with a squirrel. Bears do not normally, if they are in good health, seek out the presence of human beings, but they will most certainly seek out their dumps to avail themselves of anything remotely edible. They do not normally stalk human beings to feast on people.

Now we know that coyotes may do just that very thing. Six months ago a 19-year-old woman, a nature-enthusiast, out for a solitary walk on a popular trail in Nova Scotia, was attacked by a group of coyotes and killed by them. Nova Scotia is now introducing a $20 bounty on dead coyotes in an attempt to decrease their presence, in the hopes of decreasing the presence of potential human predators.

This is a sad and perhaps predictable end to a tragic story. Of course it's no help that wildlife biologists and previous such experiments point out that taking this tack produces no useful results.

Re-Settlement Potentials

The world has been in disarray for almost a week, since the volcanic explosion of Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland. This, because of the eruption of a middling-sized volcano, sending a middling-sized explosion of ash, rock and glass particulates into the air all around Europe and beyond. Discommoding countless travelers, and sending travel agencies, hotels, airlines into deep dudgeon and faltering bottom lines.

How does this sound; there are at least 1,500 volcanoes - active ones - all over this world. Between ten and twenty are in the process of erupting each and every day. And then, there are also thousands more of these lava-spewing mountains with open lids under the vast areas of the Earth's seas; occasionally giving birth to spanking new little islands. The molten core of Earth is forever bubbling away, heated and agitated.

This globe has experienced, in times primeval, astonishingly-destructive volcanic events of a magnitude unimagined other than by geologists, vulcanologists, and other earth scientists who marvel at the vast and impressive violence, and hope never to experience it, for it will be short-lived; for them. Volcanic eruptions in prehistory are known to have been monumentally destructive.

Tens of thousands of years ago and more, eruptions occurred of a magnitude unimaginable to puny human constructs. Blowing up magma and lava in an impressive fireworks display hugely overtaking the puny efforts of Eyjafjallajokull. Yellowstone's eruption, if it happened in the present era, according to experts, would effectively destroy the entire Continent of North America.

In more modern times; 1783, 1815, 1883, there were major eruptions in Iceland, Indonesia, and the best documented one, Krakatoa which destroyed the island, and was heard and felt over a huge geography, casting the sun from our heavens for a very long time. The 1783 Iceland Laki eruption resulted in a haze of toxic gases that spread across Europe into the Middle East.

Its effects were said to have caused the Haze Famine in Ireland, and Europe experienced an unusually hot summer, while the next winter was far colder than the 250-year norm right across the northern hemisphere, and that blue haze persisted for an additional three cold winters before finally disintegrating into the greater atmosphere.

Canada has 18 active volcanoes, out of its total of roughly one hundred, and they're mostly located along our Pacific coast. It's where our most impressive tectonic plates are, too; double indemnity; earthquakes, volcanoes; take your pick. Prefer neither, live in Quebec or Ontario, oops, earthquake-potential there too, but not volcanoes, whew!

Often enough volcanoes erupt that were not even recognized as volcanoes, but thought to be mountains. Think man-made carbon dioxide is a hazard to our environment? Nature is capable of dwarfing handily anything humankind conspires to. Nature is tricky, unpredictable, unconcerned with the fall-out of her little chemical experiments.

Given all of this, one can only wonder at this obvious case of mis-colonization. Why ever would we generally more thoughtfully careful humans have considered Earth an ideal destination? What on Earth might have inspired us to intrepidly, foolishly, settle on this Planet? We are enticed by the thought of excitement, adventure, uncertainty?

Still waiting to hear from above, tuning our antennae toward extraterrestrials who, we may assume, may have chosen more wisely...?