We have met the enemy and he is us.

Okay, back in the olden days when I was young, the Republicans felt they were being victimized by paying taxes that went to welfare for the jobless. It's a fairly defensible position, if one assumes (as Republicans do) that people don't work because they're lazy. Now that the welfare system has been somewhat dismantled, they're attacking the greed of... people who work for a living. Evil Labor!

How long will it be before the Republicans start gnawing off their own hands and feet?

Another quote to live by

A family member who is a fellow birding enthusiast sent me a book called The Verb 'To Bird'. At first, I found it a rather silly book, full of bad jokes and too many digressions; its author, one Peter Cashwell, I had pegged as a silly man.

But I soon started to get into the book and enjoy it, and in one chapter, Mr. Cashwell makes an important point of the usefulness of tossing aside preconceived notions, and allowing the process of observation to take over when trying to solve a problem. He quotes Huang Po, a Chinese Zen master, as follows:

"The foolish reject what they see, not what they think; the wise reject what they think, not what they see."

I think those few words sum up what I so often try to hammer home in this blog. The quote could serve as the foundation of my world view.

Discovery and human endeavor

I still get a lump in my throat when I see a Space Shuttle landing. Of course, there is a component of relief in knowing that the mission is complete and the astronauts are safe, but there's more than that for me. I am just amazed at what some very smart, hard-working, and capable human beings can accomplish. It's breathtaking when you really think about it.

I spend a lot of my time fretting about human imperfection, so it's nice when something we do makes me feel so good.