The Botany of Desire

Based on Michael Pollan's book by the same name, The Botany of Desire explores a perspective on cultivated plants that has often gone neglected: plants use us to obtain their own desires. We may think ourselves the masters but we are no more the master of roses than the insects that pollinate them.

This PBS broadcast describes four species that have abused our fondness of them: apples, tulips, cannabis and potatoes.

Pollan spoke true when he said that we talk metaphorically when we say that plants have desires. The reason we continue to communicate this way is due to a lack of vocabulary to describe how we relate to other organisms. We have for so long thought ourselves the only creatures that matter on earth.

See more about the video and Pollan's book here:

http://www.pbs.org/thebotanyofdesire/

Cosmos: an orderly harmonious systematic universe.

"Some part of our being knows [the cosmos] is where we came from. We long to return. And we can, because the cosmos is also within us; we are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself."

-Carl Sagan

"We wish to pursue the truth no matter were it leads, but to find the truth we need imagination and skepticism both. We will not be afraid to speculate, but we will be careful to distinguish speculation from fact."

-Carl Sagan

This statement is a monument to the robustness and elegance of Sagan's methods and work.

Joker One

Before Charlie left on deployment, he gave me a book written by Donovan Campbell, a lieutenant in the Marine Corps, about his experiences during time spent as a combat platoon leader in Ramadi during more than half of 2004. I have difficulty describing the content of the book as I reflect on it. Emotionally provocative, educational, disturbing, and indispensable might be helpful descriptors. I also found that Lieutenant Campbell's perspective of the situation in Ramadi deviated interestingly from what was reported in the media back in the states. Many other lessons I learned in proxy from the experiences of Golf Company, First Platoon. I recommend Joker One, by Donovan Campbell to anyone sixteen years of age or older, especially to those trying to understand the war.

Magic Street

I recently finished a book called Magic Street, by Orson Scott Card. It was the first work of fiction I had read in a while, and it showed again that Card is a master of story, character, and originality. Orchestrating a journey through his own twisted version of Alice's Wonderland or the kingdom of Narnia, Card plays his readers like a puppeteer. Can you guess his next move? Remember, writing is equal amounts of psychology and hard work; reading is mostly about psychology.

"Fixed fortifications are a monument to the stupidity of man."
-George S. Patton

"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning."
-George S. Patton

"When I want my men to remember something important, to really make it stick, I give it to them double dirty. It may not sound nice to some bunch of little old ladies at an afternoon tea party, but it helps my soldiers to remember. You can't run an army without profanity; and it has to be eloquent profanity. An army without profanity couldn't fight its way out of a piss-soaked paper bag."
-George S. Patton

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;"
-Alexander Pope

The word vestal has an interesting history. Look up Vesta and vestal in your favorite dictionary.

"Painting is not done to decorate apartments; it is an instrument of war against brutality and darkness."
-Pablo Picasso