A new odd insect today. The name that springs to mind is leaf bug, but I'm sure that's entirely descriptive. Any idea what it is? I still get stick insects - the little cat went crazy over one last night as the insect ambled its way along the patio screen door - but this type of bug is new. I find its red fringe especially stylish. It was standing in the kitchen in a bit of water (perhaps the little cat had something to do with this, as the little cat went crazy when she saw me with the bug), now it's in a terrarium with a small African Violet. Maybe I'll try to keep a stick insect as well.

My grunion greeter appreciation certificate. I'm quite taken with it. Check out the fine print.

Went grunion greeting last night. I posted several pictures on a separate webpage - http://www.twilight-storm.com/Grunion.html - but here is one of my favorites:

Flower-eating cat.

Global warming has been receiving an incredible amount of press coverage here the last year. That's encouraging, I suppose. It gets much more in some countries like the Netherlands that are already directly feeling the negative impacts... Like most things in business and in politics, problems tend to get ignored until they become an immediate crisis. Which always struck me as ironic given how often businessfolk and politicians talk about being "proactive" (confession: "proactive is" enemy #1 on my Vocabulary Enemies List).

It's a tough call. Serious reform would probably force the global economy to scale back, at least for a time, but environmental degradation will gradually devastate the global economy, too. Which one is preferable: do WE pay, or do we just hope _really hard_ for a technological miracle that prevents our grandchildren from paying with interest? "Consume with abandon→ miracle happens here→ great-grandchildren will know what a tree is."

One problem with current society is our over-reliance on technology to solve problems without being willing to make any personal sacrifices to achieve a goal. We see it everywhere: shock and awe bombing campaigns, plastic surgery, pill popping, increased fuel efficiency that offsets driving ever larger cars, etc. To go off on a tangent for a moment, this is a problem with all living creatures, not just humanity. Humanity simply has more more means at our disposal...there is a tendency to use up every available resource unless checked by some external force...extrapolating loosely from population biology, we'll keep going until we reach the limits of our ecosystem...technology just keeps expanding the limits and carrying capacity. Eventually, we'll hit a wall, and the population will contract at that point (mass starvation, pandemic, ecological disasters, things like that - we examples on smaller scales in both human populations and natural ecosystems). That's what populations do (not just humans). Let's hope global culture can evolve to a point where legitimate self-sacrifice and self-control is rewarded. Otherwise, I start to wonder if we will keep repeating the following pattern over and over: decline, collapse, primitive existence for a while, the environment will recover, society will rebuild, population will expand beyond carrying capacity, decline, collapse, repeat ad nauseum. (I'm thinking _Canticle for Leibowitz_)

Yeah, it bothers me, but I've come to terms with it (see: Gen X escapism, reasons for). I'm not a social idealist in that I do not expect the majority of people to sacrifice without _some_ reward....I'd just tweak the underlying system of rewards and penalties to achieve social good. Hopefully, we'll all learn to scale back our consumption-oriented lifestyles a bit and find some workable alternate forms of energy.

Which brings me to a neat idea for a story, well, neat if one likes dark post-apocalyptic stories of environmental disaster. Have you heard about that mega seed bank in the Arctic? It's planned for a place that'll still be above sea level and still cold even if the ice caps completely melted...I can see writing a dark, post-apocalyptic story about the struggles of a few people to track down the legendary place where many, many seeds are kept in order to feed the starving remnants of some distant subsistent society that has only distant memories of the past advanced culture (i.e., the coming Dark Ages, with the sort of knowledge the average person in that period had of Rome or Greece). That'd be cool, if somewhat heavy handed. Upside is that I'd been seen as a visionary when society collapses, not that I'd really care, being be too busy gathering my forces to make sure I come out on top of the new feudal system. After all, the best way to be seen as a visionary is to implement one's vision.

Saw a neat lecture on Afghan archaeology last night, had all sorts of neat tidbits and some pics. Turns out that there are ruins of several Buddhist monasteries in Bamiyan, right near where those big Buddhas used to be. The lecturer, Dr. Tarzai (three Ph.D.s from the University of Strasbourg; he gave his lecture in French, and his adult daughter translated), has been working in the area for some time. There was some discussion about the Greek influence in the region, which I found that very interesting. E.g., there are “Buddhist” statues that are clearly Herakles or Alexander, but holding some Buddhist implement. Some of the pilasters had Corinthian leaves, etc. Some heads clearly resembled that sort of standardized Roman consul head form, which Tarzai also noted, although I didn’t get a chance to ask whether that was due to later cultural influence from Rome or something both cultures got from the Greeks. He observed that Kandahar and Jalalabad (sister city to San Diego, if you’re curious), among other cities, were named Alexandria for a time, and apparently a local alternate name for Kandahar retains some obvious root of “Alexander.” There was also a great deal of influence from the East, e.g., India.

It's absolutely fascinating to see how the artwork incorporates elements from so many cultures. It’s also incredibly tragic, though, because so many of the sites have been destroyed or looted. For instance, Hadda was an open-air museum/excavation of sorts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hadda has some details and pics, including some demonstrating very strong Hellenistic influences)…during the Soviet era, the communists lost control of the site for *two* days and, during that time, the site was stripped of most of its valuable statuary, gems, etc. Even large features like giant stupas have been obliterated and recycled for building material. I gather similar things have happened at most other sites. To add insult to injury, although Tarzai has cataloged and published his finds, many identifiable antiquities he's cataloged were subsequently looted and have ended up in museums and collections everywhere from NY (the Met has at least one piece for which Tarzai claims to have proof that it legally belongs to the Kabul Museum), Japan, Saigon, France, Pakistan (sounds like most of the antiquities flow through there, unsurprisingly).

The saddest bit, I thought, was that the museum in Kabul was destroyed, and so they had to excavate the remains of the museum itself then reassemble the broken bits of pottery and statuary they were able to salvage. I gather, the best stuff already gone. Imagine the horrors of seeing all that work lost.

I guess the last season at Bamiyan was pretty much a loss because, after arriving, they discovered the entire site had been mined. Heavily mined – we saw a picture of the site with all the cleared mine flags, and there must have been dozens or hundreds in a fairly small area. It took a while before the UN could hire companies to remove the mines; the odd thing is, apparently no one knows how the mines got there, because the site is reasonably secure, and there weren’t any mines in 2004-2005.

Starts to make Indiana Jones seem staid and dull, no? One good sign, however, is that it sounds like the archaeological community is very supportive of archaeological efforts in Afghanistan, and the Japanese, French, etc. have all been leading expeditions there as well. Here's to hope for the future.

Finally managed to get a shot of the highlight of the baby cat's day, a hummingbird. Mally comes running when she hears the whirr of hummingbird wings. Occasionally, I'll her crouched in front of the patio door, waiting hopefully for a hummingbird to come. Sometimes I see her there at midnight, eagerly awaiting the next flyby (one never knows, after all).