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First things first: my thoughts on Bourbon Street. Now, all of you know that I am nothing close to a social conservative on many issues, yet I am on the issue of this street, and what it represents to me. Bourbon Street is founded on, and supported by, girls flashing the crowd during Mardis Gras. That's literally all I knew about it, and I was thinking that I would find more there yesterday. Nope, it was filled with stores selling Mardis Gras crap, bars advertisiing margaritas and hurricanes, and strip clubs. Man, what a shit hole. I hate the movement within popular media to mainstream the culture of strip clubs, pornography and sexed-up 15 year-old girls. I hate to think about the girl(s) I may someday father growing up in a society that they feel judges them based on how much of their breasts and ass they are willing to put on display daily.
Okay, now with that out of the way, New Orleans is a beautiful, prosperous, decaying vibrant city. It feels alive in ways that northern cities just do not. Narrow streets are bridged by giant trees, people are out walking their pets or jogging through what look like run-down neighborhoods, and behind high garden walls lined with upended broken bottles are rich garden verandas. What a place! It just shows what human society is like when freed from the tyranny of the annual death known as winter. But, then again there is no real spring here either, perhaps a Faustian bargain...
The conference goes well, but once again I find myself most interested in the planetary science sessions. With that said, there is a palpable sense of the importance of work within the Ocean Science and Ecological sciences areas of this conference. Climate change is not debated here; it is displayed on graphs and maps. The scientists here know that when the Public and Government come around that they will be the center of things like nuclear scientists were in the 50s. Like the Cold War too, we will be facing a dire situation of millions to billions of lives destroyed by environmental damage, and it will be the ecologists, hydrologists, ocean scientists and atmospheric scientists with me here today who will help preserve our forests, water, oceans, fisheries and air. What relevance does Astronomy or Aerospace have when compared to that? Gah!
Okay, now with that out of the way, New Orleans is a beautiful, prosperous, decaying vibrant city. It feels alive in ways that northern cities just do not. Narrow streets are bridged by giant trees, people are out walking their pets or jogging through what look like run-down neighborhoods, and behind high garden walls lined with upended broken bottles are rich garden verandas. What a place! It just shows what human society is like when freed from the tyranny of the annual death known as winter. But, then again there is no real spring here either, perhaps a Faustian bargain...
The conference goes well, but once again I find myself most interested in the planetary science sessions. With that said, there is a palpable sense of the importance of work within the Ocean Science and Ecological sciences areas of this conference. Climate change is not debated here; it is displayed on graphs and maps. The scientists here know that when the Public and Government come around that they will be the center of things like nuclear scientists were in the 50s. Like the Cold War too, we will be facing a dire situation of millions to billions of lives destroyed by environmental damage, and it will be the ecologists, hydrologists, ocean scientists and atmospheric scientists with me here today who will help preserve our forests, water, oceans, fisheries and air. What relevance does Astronomy or Aerospace have when compared to that? Gah!
contemplative