Another take on Efficiency

Posted by on Jul 6, 2016 in All Posts | Comments Off on Another take on Efficiency Efficiency is not always a good thing.    Does this seems shocking?  If so, consider the ramifications of an efficient criminal enterprise.   Observe that a cancerous growth can be very efficient in commandeering the resources of its host body.   Ruminate on the efficient nature of many Ponzi schemes.  As the article “Insufficiency of Efficiency” reminds us, “A job not worth doing is not worth...
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Enough

Posted by on May 7, 2016 in All Posts | Comments Off on Enough Over the past winter holidays, I spent some time trying to craft a coherent musing about the overemphasis on gifts and stuff during the holy season. Ironically, my ability to focus on this task fell victim to information overload. The number of well-reasoned, well-written essays and opinions that either attack and lament or that defend and promote consumerism, gift-giving and/or greed is...
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Urine for Life!

Posted by on Dec 14, 2015 in All Posts | Comments Off on Urine for Life! This musing leads inexorably to this site.            An ongoing human challenge is clean drinking water and the prevention of human-waste-caused disease and pollution. Here’s our present solution . . .   we use gigantic amounts of energy and other resources to make a lot of water drinkable.   Then, we use most of that water for things other than drinking or cooking. Not only do we use drinking...
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Happy Birthday – a Conservation Microcosm

Posted by on Sep 22, 2015 in All Posts | Comments Off on Happy Birthday – a Conservation Microcosm A recent segment on Colorado Public Radio (http://www.cpr.org/news/story/9-year-old-girl-birthdays-are-about-saving-wild-animals ) captured my attention. It was about a little girl who, for the past 3 years, urged friends coming to her birthday parties to donate money to an animal shelter rather than bring presents. The story revived my fascination in the phenomenon of birthday parties as a...
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Boiling in Inertia

Posted by on Jun 24, 2015 in All Posts | Comments Off on Boiling in Inertia Over the past week, there has been a flood of discussion and analysis about the “Encyclical” on global warming and human life by Pope Francis (http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/popereport.pdf).   Reading these many and varied sentiments, ranging from solidarity to hostility to creativity, I was reminded of a poem recently written by a friend of mine, Larry LaVerdure.  ...
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