Author: stangrigsby

Love Your BookShop Day

“What I say is, a town isn’t a town without a bookstore. It may call itself a town, but unless it’s got a bookstore, it knows it’s not foolin’ a soul.”― Neil Gaiman, American Gods

In Australia, Love Your Bookshop day is celebrated every year on August 14. It is a holiday that was founded by the Australian Booksellers Association. The aim is to appreciate bookshops around the country and highlight all the things that make local bookshops beneficial.

I think any country benefits from that notion. In Iola, Kansas, USA, we have a BookShop, 4M’s and a silent Q. In Star Wars, Yoda says, “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” But somewhere I heard, “BookShops lead to reading, reading leads to imagination, imagination leads to innovation.” I’m not sure that is the counter to Yoda’s concern, but I think it is a step in the right direction. Yoda further says, “Named must be your fear before banish it you can.” How better to understand and name your fear than to be well read? Oh, good conversation helps.

“You don’t have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.” ― Ray Bradbury

philosophy

National Prosecco Day

Yes, there is one. Actually, I am finding there is a day for almost everything. And when the world runs out of causes, we celebrate celebrities birthdays.

The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do. —Galileo Galilei

environment

World Elephant Day

“It was the mark of a barbarian to destroy something one could not understand.” ― Arthur C. Clarke, 2001: A Space Odyssey

It is estimated that the count of elephants worldwide has slashed by 62% over the past decade, and the figure indicates the animals face an imminent extinction by the end of the next 10 years.

Between the years 2014 and 2017, as many as 100,000 African elephants were illegally hunted primarily for their ivory that goes into making traditional medicines and ornate pieces of jewelry. Poaching or illegal hunting of elephants in favor of the notorious wide-ranging ivory trade puts the environment at the risk of losing its ecological balance. Therefore, it became an immediate necessity to protect the animals at all costs.

Caring for the environment and promoting sustainability is far more than recycling or climate change. The environment is a very complex system for which the only simple answers are those at the individual level. Complex systems don’t react well to big changes. For the environment, an answer is education and awareness at the world level, action at the local; my opinion.

“Elephants are so wise and so funny and so endangered and so intelligent. I just think there is a lot to learn from them.” – Gloria Steinem

Porch Ponders

World View

“Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine.”– Sir Arthur Eddington(1882-1944)

I found this as I was rummaging through my thoughts. Thoughts is the name of the nodes in the mind mapping software TheBrain. I think it was written after watching and marveling at the web of a spider on our porch.

Is my world view any better than that of the spider weaving its web? Is the universe so far more complicated than we can know that we should just content ourselves with weaving webs? Of course the difference, I think, is that the spider doesn’t ask this question. Or, perhaps it does and we don’t know it? Perhaps spiders, or mice, really are the intelligent species on earth; or perhaps the cockroach? How would I know; I only listen to other humans.

I think nature’s imagination is so much greater than man’s, she’s never going to let us relax. —Richard Feynman

Porch Ponders

Growing Old

I think one grows old because we don’t have anything else to do. I think much of growing old is because we think about how old we are. I think we really should quit observing birthdays at age 70; unless, we just reset the counter to about 12. Conversations seem to center around grandkids and visits to doctors. Sometimes there will be ‘conversations’ about a favorite TV show.

At age 70 everyone has a wealth of experience that must be passed on to the young. To me now, young is anyone my daughters’ age or younger. Often we hear, “I wish I were 21 and knew what I know now.” So, why not? By 70 one often has resources to do the things we wish we had done when we were 21; travel, read, and so on.

If we don’t have those resources, we still have knowledge(wisdom) to pass to the young so they will arrive at 70 in better shape; physically and fiscally than we did.

Conversation adds more to that. Here in reality we live only one life in our world on our timeline. However, we can add at least one more life to someone by relating ours to them(oh yes, and theirs to us).

“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.”

― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons

education my thoughts

Reading is Fundamental

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” ― Dr. Seuss, I Can Read With My Eyes Shut

August 9th is National Book Lovers day. What are you reading? You can see from my Books page I am reading at least two books. I have a biography, Einstein; a science book, The Quark and the Jaguar; and a Star Wars book. In addition, I will often browse books from some section of my library. Much of my library is now on Kindle or Nook, but there are enough printed books in my library to keep me entertained for at least this lifetime.

The title of this post is also the name of an organization dedicated to encouraging reading. “Reading is Fundamental is committed to a literate America by inspiring a passion for reading among all children …”. With access the internet, one can find a variety of books free from such organizations as the Project Gutenberg. Our Rotary Club is sponsoring a “Dolly Parton Imagination Library” project for our county.

Good Reads is a sort of social media hangout for readers. Friends can see which books you have read, which ones you are reading and which ones you want to read.

“I find television very educating. Every time somebody turns on the set, I go into the other room and read a book.” ― Groucho Marx

my thoughts

It made me smile

Just a little interlude. This should take you to a LinkedIn post. The post is good. The video is fun. I hope you enjoy.

Sometimes something shows up on the internet that is fun. I didn’t read the comments. I just wanted to enjoy the positive view.

my thoughts

Genius

Every kid starts out as a natural-born scientist, and then we beat it out of them. A few trickle through the system with their wonder and enthusiasm for science intact” – Carl Sagan

environment

The Environment

If you can’t be in awe of Mother Nature, there’s something wrong with you. —Alex Trebek

The broad topic of the environment covers everything from recycling to climate change. While these subjects are important to understand, I think the most important effort is to raise the awareness of folks to the world in which we live. How can one say they care about saving the environment, if they are unaware and have little understanding of this environment? My observation of the news and social media is that many speak of concerns without understanding them.

The question then is how to introduce people to the joy of really observing their environment? As contradictory as it sounds, the internet provides many opportunities for that. A great start is birds. A great place to start with that is The Cornell Lab of Ornithology. There are many other ways to become more aware of the wonders of nature. Citizen Science activities provide many ways to explore this. I think the most important part of this is getting out of doors and exploring.

I am a Rotarian and Rotary International has declared protecting the environment its 7th area of focus. Other areas are: promoting peace, fighting disease, providing clean water, saving mothers and children, supporting education, and growing local economies. A friend and I are proposing we bring that to a local level through our Rotary District and local clubs. Rotary International has an action group, ESRAG, which has been involved in this for quite some time. A healthy interaction with the environment is not only good for the environment; it’s good for us.

Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you. —Frank Lloyd Wright

education

Citizen Science

Citizen science (CS; also known as community science, crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, or volunteer monitoring) is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur (or nonprofessional) scientists.^[1] Citizen science is sometimes described as “public participation in scientific research”, participatory monitoring, and participatory action research whose outcomes are often advancements in scientific research by improving the scientific community’s capacity, as well as increasing the public’s understanding of science.^[2]^[3]^[4]