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I live in a neighbourhood of Scarborough, Maine, called Blue Point. “Neighbourhood” is probably the wrong turn; to me, that inspires thoughts of a high street with shops that you walk to, corner stores and pocket parks and three-decker houses with three families per deck. Blue Point is a village in the old English meaning of the term – a collection of houses, with a few places of business and a church, between other villages, some of which might merit the title of town or borough, or might not. Blue Point is a village, and interestingly, it’s one of the many sites of the genocide of native Americans hundreds of years ago.

Continue reading “Dead places”

Conflict between humans and machines has become a fertile theme for futurist science fiction.  The Matrix films explore some philosophical issues about personal and political freedom, within the context of a brutal struggle between the subterranean community of human survivors and, at surface level, the tyrannical empire ruled by their electronic adversaries.   By contrast, the Blade Runner films imagine a world in which ‘replicants’, designed and made by powerful corporations, serve humans through their work – mostly collaboratively, but sometimes not – while lacking the status and rights of ‘people’.  If Matrix suggests a war for human survival once the machines have taken over, Blade Runner suggests a civil rights campaign for machines, in a world run by humans.

Continue reading “Robots at the opera”

This year, I lost my pilgrimage to the wild.  While Wuhan was still the only city under lockdown, I planned a backcountry trip in Yosemite National Park.  I wanted to be awed by the power which can crack a mountain in half and leave sheer vertical cliffs behind. 

Continue reading “Not so Fast! Wilderness Matters”

There’s an old aphorism, variously attributed to Edmund Burke or Clemenceau or Churchill or any of a dozen others, saying that if one is either a conservative or at the very least not a socialist (or communist, or liberal, or insert era-appropriate label for the elevation of the common good over individual benefit) before the age of 25 (or 20, or 30, or whatever), then one “has no heart.” The punchline, of course, is that if one is a socialist or at the very least not a conservative (or a Republican, or reactionary, or insert era-appropriate label for the elevation of capital and the individual over the common good) after the age of 40 (or 30, or 29, or whatever), then one “has no head.”

Continue reading “Finding a soul”

Yesterday was one of those annoying rainy days. Good rainy days, in my opinion, are just rainy the whole day through – maybe not pouring rain, but at least a good pestering drizzle from (ideally) before you wake up until after darkness falls. On good rainy days – and keep in mind yesterday was a Saturday – you can sleep in without feeling guilty. Even the dog doesn’t really want to go out; sure, she may need to relieve herself, but who relishes the prospect of pissing and shitting while you’re getting cold and damp in the outdoors, while your feet are sinking into a coalescing mud? No one, not even a good dog. So she’s willing to hold it in until it’s a necessity, versus her normal desire on a sunny day to get up immediately and enjoy all there is about the world, and also have a good BM while she’s at it. No, yesterday was a lousy rainy day. The dog and I got up early, had a forty minute walk and then it started a half-hearted drizzle and we made it back to the house without too much of a soaking. Then it rained for six hours – from 8am to 2pm – and then stopped. While it was raining it was a downpour, but it stopped quickly.

Continue reading “Wilderness or lack thereof”