TICK TOCK THE CLIMATE CLOCK PART NINE – HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY, MOTHER EARTH!

Today is a good day to celebrate Mother Earth, the mother of us all and the only mother we’ll ever have. We need to take as good care of her as she takes of us. Here is the beauty she’s created in our small corner of Tuscany.

Wild sage, dog roses, Scotch broom, hawthorn, and wild flowers grow along the side of a gravel road.

Climbing roses, succulents, irises, ivy, poppies, and wisteria find purchase on old stone walls.

Fruit trees promise their future gifts—cherry, plum, peach, fig, and elderberry.

Bees buzz the Spanish lavender and rosemary, while daisies and phlox volunteer to delight.

Thank you, Mother Earth, for the beauty you bestow on us every day! (And, yes, that's the San Francisco rose, blooming her little heart out. https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7011464208703681736#editor/target=post;postID=9147209140711376114;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=45;src=postname)

Keep it real! And love your mother.

Marilyn

Comments

I FEEL THE EARTH MOVE UNDER MY FEET

I feel the earth move under my feet I feel the sky tumbling down, tumbling down I just lose control Down to my very soul. Carole King, 1971 This is a very personal post--about a very personal apocalypse, one quite different from the Biblical one imaged above. Carole King's words come to mind because they describe how I feel about this upside down, ass-backwards moment in time. While there are good things happening in the world, their scale when compared to the bad things that are happening seems to me pitifully dwarfed. When you look at this short list of events and trends, can you tell me what's right with this picture? Do these items upset your even keel and threaten to drown you in pessimism? Consider... Russia and Israel are killin...

THE BROLIGARCHS V. DEMOCRACY

Although not elected by the American people, the world’s wealthiest person, a South African businessman, is running the United States government with the blessing of its chief executive and without meaningful opposition from the legislature or definitive censure by the judiciary. What is going on? Has business trumped politics, and if so, doesn’t that raise an interesting question: Is capitalism compatible with democracy? In pondering this, my research led me to an American billionaire; a German emeritus professor of political science at the Berlin Social Sciences Center; and a Dutch former member of the European Parliament, now a Fellow at the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, all of whom had quite a lot to say. First, Peter Thiel, the billionaire. Peter Thiel’s Wiki bio says he co-founded PayPal with Elon Musk; he was the initial outside investor in Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook; and he co-founded Palantir, the big-d...

NEW GAME, NEW RULES

Let me set the stage. I am a U.S. citizen and a permanent resident of Germany. In other words, I am an immigrant. That status didn’t happen overnight and it didn’t come easily. When we moved to Italy, it took me five years to convert my visa to a Permesso di Soggiorno. When we subsequently moved to Germany, I had to surrender my Italian residency permit, and it took me another five years to obtain my Daueraufenthaltstitel . In each country, I jumped through the hoops, produced the necessary documents, fulfilled the language requirements, attended the obligatory immigration appointments, paid my fees, didn’t attempt to work until I could do so legally, and counted the days. In short, I respected the process and the law. It has always been crystal clear to me that I live here at the discretion of the German government. If I screw up, they can “ask” me to leave. Therefore, I don’t have much sympathy for people who ju...

A C. T U. A L. L Y

Search This Blog