TheBanyanTree: Strawberry Moon

[Sachet]

You bring to mind such an intriguing concept, Dale. I had never 
contemplated it in just that way.

Thinking of ways to convey intricate details tend to make the things in 
our lives more interesting and to add a finer sense of in-depth 
appreciation for all of the marvels within the reach of our fingertips.

I'll be looking at things a bit differently today. Thanks!

...Sachet

Dale M. Parish wrote:
> 
> Harlan Ellison, a different kind of author, once wrote a science fiction 
> work called _I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream_-- a kind of a horrow 
> piece.  Right now, I feel I must write, but I have nothing to say.  
> Somewhat parallel.
> 
> Last week on vacation, when I found out that the car charger I bought so 
> I would be able to charge and use the laptop did not work, I experienced 
> a hundred things about which I was going to write when I got home.  Now, 
> none of them come to surface, yet they're all down there pushing up.  
> It's an irritating feeling.  Does that mean one has a frigid muse?
> 
> It was the first time I've ever been in the northwest-- landed in 
> Portland OR and passed through Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and 
> Utah before flying back to Houston.  Beautiful country.  Colorado is the 
> furtherest I'd ever been in that direction before, 20 years ago with the 
> kids.  This time, we were studying Plate Tectonics-- "Tectonic Fury" is 
> the title that the JASON Project gave to next year's curiculum.  Cindy 
> is one of the "train-the-trainer" teachers-- she was selected a couple 
> of years ago by National Geographic to be one of three teacher 
> "argonauts" as they are called, and was given a three student team and 
> assigned a mission-- energy conservation in space.  National Geographic  
> sent them to Johnson Space Center to work with NASA's Space Architect.  
> Isn't that a cool title?  I'll bet not many people on this planet can 
> claim that title.
> 
> But I digress.  I think "Tectonic Fury" is in one sense, an oxymoron-- 
> moving 5-15 cm a year isn't a furious pace for a plate, even when you're 
> big as half a planet.  But the fury we saw in the evidence at Mount 
> Saint Helens would, I guess, justify the moniker.  And Yellowstone-- 
> every 600,000 years or so, that whole cauldera blows.  BIG TIME.  
> Looking at the scale of the magma displacement and ash estimates for a 
> number of erruptions, Mount Saint Helens was at the bottom of the 
> scale-- Krakatoa was only second, and several of the Yellowstone 
> cauldera erruptions dwarfed over all of them.  Which doesn't make one 
> comfortable when you learn that the average has been 600,000 years, and 
> it's been 650,000 since the last one, indicating that Yellowstone is 
> getting overdue to take out the middle of the country.  Which might be a 
> good thing for global warming--- if that amount of ash is ejected into 
> the upper atmosphere, it should have a significant cooling effect, but 
> probably not soon enough to keep the remaining glaciers from melting and 
> inundating the coastal plains around the oceans.  Where probably 40-50% 
> of the planet's population lives.
> 
> A Kiowa friend wanted me to be sure to visit the Dragon's Mouth Geyser 
> while in Yellowstone, where they say that the Great Spirit gave the 
> earth to the Kiowa.  It's ironic to me-- I have in my head an Indian 
> squaw and and Indian man-- need I call him a 'brave'? -- pre-1491--with 
> whom I have frequent conversations, trying to explain our technology to 
> them.  I know I lack the vocabulary to try to explain a microwave oven 
> to a woman from the stone age-- it's just 'magic.'  But I've tried in my 
> mind explaining to her some simple things-- magnifying glasses, 
> strike-anywhere matches, running water systems, eye glasses, airplane 
> flight, and know that I'd strike out.  Explain to the male things like 
> firearms, electric flashlights, canned food, a compass.  Larry McMurtry 
> first opened to me some of those concepts in his books, in which he 
> portrayed realistic sounding misconceptions by the Indians of simple 
> things.  One that sticks in my mind was a pair of eye-glasses given to 
> an old Indian chief, who marveled at the white man's machine that made 
> old eyes younger.  How would such a person separate or interpret cause 
> and effect?  Not much chance to find out any more.
> 
> More often, I try to explain things to Thomas Jefferson.  I think I 
> could put across most of the underlying science, but with what 
> vocabulary?  How impatient would he become at my grasping for words with 
> which he would be familiar?
> 
> Quen sabe?
> 
> Hugs,
> Dale
> 
> -- 
> Dale M. Parish
> 628 Parish Rd
> Orange TX 77632       
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