Tag Archives: Nature

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nature doesn’t love us

This morning contained a nice, quiet, blue-gray dawn sky as my dogs did their thing. I enjoyed it. But then on my journey to evil cubicle, I heard on the news we’ve got the birth of our first hurricane of the season. And so nature’s decided to remind everybody just exactly who’s running things.

These planetary death machines generate the energy equivalent of a hydrogen bomb about every six minutes. The planet laughs at our own feeble attempts to destroy ourselves. Wherever a hurricane wants to go, it’ll go, and if it so desires it’ll lay waste to everything in its path. All we can do is run and rebuild.

Nature doesn’t love us. It might be beautiful, give us joy, or show us our purpose in life. But try having a chat with a grizzly bear and you’ll get reminded that the love is not necessarily reciprocated. Or try running from an earthquake. The planet is amused by this as you stumble about, unable to find your footing, as if wasted on tequila.

Why do we put up with this? Maybe we should fight back? Go hit a tree with a bat? Or discharge a firearm in the direction of an oncoming hurricane? To quote everyday-working-man Charles Montgomery Burns:

 

master burns

“Oh, so Mother Nature needs a favor. Well, maybe she should have thought of that when she was besetting us with droughts and floods and poison monkeys. Nature started the fight for survival, and now she wants to quit because she’s losing. Well, I say hard cheese.”

 

I once heard on a documentary that weather, as in hurricanes, is nothing more than the planet’s attempt to equalize conditions throughout the globe. When you stop and think about this, in a dark-cynical way common to my unhinged-freak mind, if nature was really interested in equalizing the planet’s conditions? If it could, it might equalize us out of existence.

But it can’t, so at least we’ve got that going for us. Hey speaking of erasing humans from existence, do any other childhood losers similar to me remember the genocide ending to Final Fantasy VII? Do you remember that? That after spending countless hours of your young life and all along you didn’t know that “victory” entailed liquidating the human race? It was like waking up and realizing you were wearing an SS Stormtrooper uniform.

It has come to my attention while reading of a possible remake of the game that there are actually people who claim the ending of said game did not involve mass extinction of the race. This is lunacy. The game’s message was quite clear. They meant exactly what they said. The Gaia concept is all over the game. It’s also explicitly referred to in the movie which Hironobu Sakaguchi wrote and directed himself.

 

genocide

attention haters; kindly point out to me, the location of the humans in this scene?

 

I’m no doctor or scientist, but when you really think about what the Gaia folks are saying, it essentially devalues the human race (you) to nothing more than an expendable biological organism that is part of the greater whole. So why shouldn’t the planet be able to kill you?

I guarantee you there’s at least one doctor or scientist on this planet who so believes in this concept that they’re, right this very second, trying to find a way to kill us all, 12 Monkeys style. It is for this reason I don’t post my Guests’ contact info anywhere.

This stuff is all rather creepy. The idea that our greatest threat might not be hydrogen bombs, or hurricanes, or climate change, or nature in general; but rather, criminally insane but smart people who subscribe to the concept that the greatest threat to us, to the planet, is us.

Sooner or later they’re going to (hopefully) arrest a person who’s trying to do this before he/she succeeds. And we’ll all be shocked at how close they came. When they catch this dude, we need to be sure to reinstitute medieval style public executions.

Because, seriously, whatever. This is our home. God / Nature / Ham Sandwich put us on this planet to live long and prosper. And so we need to do exactly that.

And when the hurricanes or earthquakes come we have to endure them like we always have. But rather than firing a handgun at a tornado, perhaps we should also try and give some love back to nature. Even though nature doesn’t love us. Call it tough love, I guess? After all, I still got to see that beautiful dawn this morning. So thanks Nature.

 

danny

BRING IT ON!!!

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behold the irrationality and sadness of the Internet

In some circles, Walter Palmer is the most despised man on the planet today.  What a horrible guy, to shoot a lion for money.  He must have cut a deal with Satan.  And he’s just a dentist from Minnesota, so it’ll be very easy for the Internets mob to destroy him.

But I have just one questions for the haters:

 

Do you know who Robert Mugabe is and what he’s done to Zimbabwe?

 

If the answer is no?

Please, shut your mouth.

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by far, so very far, not the worst thing to happen to Zimbabwe today

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nobody ever suspects the butterfly

I saw this dude twice today, if it was in fact the same dude.  When I saw him this morning I stared at him for about five minutes.  Then when he came back this afternoon I took a picture.  But it’s a bad picture on a phone (dude was just too fast), so you’ll have to play Where’s Waldo to find him.  For those of you too young to know, Where’s Waldo was an old smartphone app that’s lost it’s popularity.

butterfly

I have no idea what type of butterfly this is.  I don’t particularly care.  I was fascinated by the complexity of God / Nature that made this little thing to eat while also expending limitless energy to fly around flowers.  This thing weighs less than a penny, but can fly all day and eat and be good to go.  We don’t appreciate it, but little things like this are freaking miracles.

My family’s been through hell and I’m hesitant to talk about it even to my own brain.  But my brother, for intermittent laugh purposes, brought up this Simpsons joke.  I have no idea why.  I didn’t care.  I laughed.  It was enough.  This clip sucks [thanks Fox copyright assholes] but you get the idea:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJdCrHyut6s

Then today I saw the butterfly and remembered my brother’s reference from a few days back.  I laughed.  And then I watched the beautiful butterfly.

My other brother (I have two, blessed by God) kept flipping to Gladiator the other day while the family was together.  For those who have seen it, Oliver Reed / Proximo has one of the greatest lines of all time:

“…we mortals are but shadows and dust…”

Yeah, we are.

Nobody ever suspects the butterfly.  That it could remind you of what you are.  But in a good way.  The butterfly is a freaking miracle.  And so are we.  But we can also do poetry, write songs, and drink beer.  So we’re better off than the butterfly.

But next time you see the butterfly?  Stop what you’re doing.  And watch for a few minutes.  You’ll be glad you did.

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Triumphator lily

lily1

My Mom’s, just outside the front door.  They only last for a few days.  In the short term, they attract a lot of ants and bees.  Which is always delightful because my dog(s) are of the mind they can eat bees without any negative consequences.  [foolish canine act not pictured]

lily2

I don’t have my camera with me so this was shot on my Samsung S3 Mini, a piece of technology that many of you would classify as a paperweight, but which still manages to baffle me on a regular basis.

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She’s had this same, simple vase for decades.

lily4

This vase is new and so I asked where it came from.  She says, [shrugs] “Somebody sent us flowers and I kept the vase because I figured the color would match the lilies.”  Indeed.  And she says, “By tomorrow morning the whole room will smell of them.”  Sweet.

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the birds are not aware that life is a big meat grinder

When I was a kid, I was really into bird watching.  Don’t ask me why.  What?  Oh, what’s that?  Oh, well, you see, bird watching is not an app.  It’s where you look at birds, determine which one you’re looking at, and then observe their behavior to learn about nature.  Nobody does this anymore because it takes more than twelve seconds of time in front of a smartphone.

Anyways, one of the only things that’ll literally stop me in my tracks is a beautiful bird in a tree.  It’s one of the few times in life I truly, truly, without apprehension, feel alive.  Don’t ask me why.  It just does.  I like to stand and/or sit there for a long time like a creepy lunatic looking at a brick wall.  Only I’m looking at the birds in a tree.

I guess it’s because the birds are not aware that life is a big meat grinder.  They just do their thing.  It’s kind of like when my oldest dog (she’s now 14) was sitting in front of my Dad and she was absently looking him in the eyes and wagging her tail rapidly.  For no reason at all.  She was just happy.  And my Dad said something along the lines of:  “Oh, if only humans could be like the dogs and unaware, and just let go”.

Now, first off, my Dad’s not some freak philosopher.  He’s just working man average dude that wore the same sneakers for like two decades.  Which is one of the reasons I so remember this offhand comment from him.  Usually we talk about football or the weather.  So I guess it’s that my dogs lives inside a mindset unaware that life is a big meat grinder.  I think it’s the same thing that draws me to birds.

The birds give me hope that, in fact, life is not a big meat grinder.  Same with my dogs.  And my Dad.

Anyways, so if you want to know what my freak unhinged deranged brain considers “Pure Beauty”?  Well, head on over to Tokyobling’s Blog and see what he’s just posted about birds and trees.  It’s pure deliciousness.  I have a connection to Japan I’ve not really discussed on this blog, yet.  But Japan or not, this guy gets it.  It’s just too good.

https://tokyobling.wordpress.com/2015/04/02/the-mejiro-and-the-sakura/

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miserable people with nothing better to do continue assault on human joy

When I was a kid, I so looked forward to the circus that I crossed off the days on a calendar.  The only other time in my life I can remember doing this was marking the days until my first job ended (even all these years later that boss remains the worst I’ve ever had).  So it’s safe to say I enjoyed the circus.

Well, that was fun.  No more.  Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus has caved to PETA and other do-gooders and is taking away the elephants.  So kids will no longer experience that joy.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-31740032

By the way, PETA runs some of the most prolific animal kill shelters on the planet.  So I’m rather at a loss to understand why it’s humane for PETA to kill dogs and cats, but Ringling Brothers using elephants is beyond the pale.  I guess, like most do-gooders, the rules that PETA applies to others, do not apply to them.

I’m also pretty sure a circus elephant probably lives like four times as long while performing as they do in the wild.  So is it correct to state that PETA wants elephants to die younger?  I think it is!  Thanks PETA, when Dumbo’s bleaching in the sun I hope he curses you to the elephant god (Ganesha) before the poor animal departs for Valhalla to begin a second life as an armored mounted war elephant.

This is of course, just the beginning.  You don’t think folks like PETA are just going to stop, do you?  There’s another kid somewhere in America that’s happy, that has to stop.  Happiness is a bad thing for PETA, it takes away their raison d’etre.

I’m calling it right now.  By 2090, all zoos will be illegal.  But by 2089, human joy will have extinguished.  So it won’t matter.

peta

Soon, PETA promises to make all human existence just as miserable as their pathetic wasted lives