Confessions of a Human Nerve Ending

Reconstituting Public Opinion around the Exigence of Global Warming Despite the cold east wind, the dark orange maple leaves cling tenaciously to the trees on the streetscape.    The yellow mulberry leaves, however, dropped last week and have now been blown out my yard, across the street.   Things don’t seem that different; this feels like November in Albuquerque.   Fall is almost over and its last remaining days have finally killed the plants in my garden.    Winter moves in as I chop firewood, change air filters on furnaces, dig out gloves and warmer clothes.   This is November, not all that different from every November. Yes, we have seasons and sometimes it feels as if life will continue apace as it always has.   Yet, just last week the World Meteorological Society stated that “… 2013 is currently on course to be among the top ten warmest years since modern records began in 1850” (WMO).    That is a not an illusion; things ...

                    A while back, I was reading an old friend’s Facebook (FB) post about how both political sides are corrupt and another old friend commented, “I'm going to disagree with you on that point. True people on the Right listen to the other side without putting the other side down and point to facts...The difficulty I have is that the left likes to use emotion and opinion for the disagreement and when you confront them on where they got their information it's MSN.”                 I responded, “…your take is exactly what I experience in reverse, and when you ask them where they got their facts they'll point to Fox, which I don't think is reliable sourcing.    Of course, social media has made it easier to get caught up in bubbles and tribalism and leads to only really hearing opinions that support our pre-existing opinions.   I think...

FADE IN:    EXT.   MUSEUM-DAY A glass and brick building with sculptures made of bronze and metal arranged around a grassy lawn encircled by a sidewalk.    A middle aged white guy with a baseball cap walks into the shot, up to large glass doors and steps into the building. DISSOLVE TO: A small sign with a graphic of a the iconic "Hollywood" and below it "Southwest" announces the exhibit behind the double doors. Middle aged white guy is now standing in front of a movie poster for Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's 2016 Whiskey Tango Foxtrot , starring Tina Fey.   He writes in a small notebook, "I was watching Whiskey Tango Foxtrot , a movie based on reporter Kim Barker's time in Afghanistan, when I was jolted out of the moment with a landscape I knew.   So as the credits rolled I kept reading until it confirmed that landscape that was standing in for Afghanistan was actually New Mexico."   DISSOLVE TO: A wing in the exhibit. ...

When in the course of human civilization, we come to abandoning old habits for the greater good; we take the challenge boldly; we march forward as if our destiny awaits; we stand before the masses and proclaim, “I will do it.  I will sacrifice for the greater good.”  It is from this understanding that I ask us, once again, to bravely venture forth, to suffer the relative indignity, to give up what has been characterized as poor manners for the sake of all; I ask us when ordering a bottle or can of beer to forgo the accompanying glass.  Alas the accompanying glass, even chilled, is not needed as the humble bottle, the lined aluminum can is a perfectly suitable holder of beverage.  Indeed it held the beverage from brewery to truck, from truck to warehouse, from warehouse to truck, from truck to store or restaurant and now occupies the most proud and esteemed location upon the table next to the coffee mug and above the knife and spoon. Surely pouring a beer into ...