While waiting for birds to show this morning, I noticed a web on a dead plant, and shot it to check the light. After a while, I got to wondering, what was that? So, I did the time-honoured ape thing, and poked, very gently, with a stick. Baby spiders! They are incredibly tiny, much smaller than they look in the photos. All photos are 1500 x 996, click for full size.
© C. Ford. All rights reserved.
“I Am His Hands. He Is My Eyes.” The Friendship That Built a Forest. Get your tissues out for this one, folks.
This image released by Electronic Arts shows the new diverse characters that will be available on “The Sims 4” the latest edition of “The Sims” video game. (Electronic Arts via AP)
You can now create transgender Sims in popular video game.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — The creators of “The Sims” are opening up gender customization options for the first time in the long-running history of the popular life simulation video game.
“The Sims” publisher Electronic Arts and developer Maxis said a free update available Thursday for “The Sims 4” will remove gender boundaries and allow players to create virtual townsfolk — or Sims, as they’re known — with any type of physique, walk style or voice they choose.
LGBTQ Nation has the full story.
I’m not very good at paying attention to time. I have an alarm clock, but no other clocks in the house. I do have watches, but none of them work, and I don’t like to wear them. I don’t much like the idea of having a clock hanging overhead, either, but have come across a clock which may change my mind…
The Colour O’Clock by Duncan Shotton. Fabulous! I also quite like his plate-plate collection:
He has a number of delightful things, go have a look: http://dshott.co.uk/
In 1977, sculptor David Nash cleared an area of land near his home in Wales where he trained a circle of 22 ash trees to grow in a vortex-like shape for an artwork titled Ash Dome. Almost 40 years later, the trees still grow today. The artist has long worked with wood and natural elements in his art practice, often incorporating live trees or even animals into pieces. The exact site of Ash Dome in the Snowdonia region of northwest Wales is a closely guarded secret, and film crews or photographers who are permitted to see it are reportedly taken on a circuitous route to guard its location. Nash shares in an interview with the International Sculpture Center:
When I first planted the ring of trees for Ash Dome, the Cold War was still a threat. There was serious economic gloom, very high unemployment in our country, and nuclear war was a real possibility. We were killing the planet, which we still are because of greed. In Britain, our governments were changing quickly, so we had very short-term political and economic policies. To make a gesture by planting something for the 21st century, which was what Ash Dome was about, was a long-term commitment, an act of faith. I did not know what I was letting myself in for.
Swale, a collaborative floating food project, is dedicated to rethinking and challenging New York City’s connection to our environment. Built on an 80-foot by 30-foot floating platform, Swale contains an edible forest garden. Functioning as both a sculpture and a tool, Swale provides free healthy food at the intersection of public art and service. With Swale, we want to reinforce water as a commons, and work towards fresh food as a commons too.
Swale is an artwork. Art is integral to imagining new worlds. By continuing to create and explore new ways of living, we hope that Swale will strengthen our ways of collaborating, of cooperating, and of supporting one another. At its heart, Swale is a call to action. It asks us to reconsider our food systems, to confirm our belief in food as a human right, and to pave pathways to create public food in public space.
This is a great way to get fresh, healthy food to known food deserts. Have a look around Swale’s space, and donate if you can.
!['North Rim Grand Canyon Cape Royal' [Shutterstock]](https://i0.wp.com/freethoughtblogs.com/affinity/files/2016/05/North-Rim-Grand-Canyon-Cape-Royal-Shutterstock-800x430.jpg?ssl=1)
‘North Rim Grand Canyon Cape Royal’ [Shutterstock]
The National Park Service is opening the door to corporate sponsorship by expanding the definition of philanthropy.
Corporate sponsors won’t be able to place advertising or marketing slogans at the 411 national parks, but they will be allowed to prominently display their logos and gain naming rights for some features in return for their gifts, reported the Washington Post.
Proposed new rules — which are set to go into effect later this year — will allow corporations to design and build park buildings and operate them over the long term, and some donors will be granted naming rights to park programs, positions and endowments.
[…]
The new rules for park managers include a shift away from protecting environmental resources toward fundraising.
“Does that become a major part of the job?” said John Garder, budget and appropriations director for the National Parks Conservation Association. “Can the park service say, ‘This person’s doing an awesome job protecting bison, but they’re not raising enough money?’”
Full Story Here. Every day, I get the feeling that a huge sign has been put out, ‘AmericaLand Park! A fine example of how to fuck up a country.’
Courtesy Yellowstone National Park
Scarface, a famous, beloved and much-photographed grizzly bear living in Yellowstone National Park, was shot dead by a hunter in a killing that is being investigated by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Another wild animal with a fan base among humans has met a violent end, when Grizzly Bear No. 211—known to his human friends as Scarface—was shot dead near Gardiner, Montana. Scarface was the best known of about 750 grizzlies who call Yellowstone National Park home but who, like the Yellowstone bison, sometimes stray across the invisible lines marking the park on a map.
[…]
This was the context of Scarface becoming a rock star among the grizzly population in Yellowstone National Park. Male grizzlies fight among themselves during mating season and Scarface had sustained injuries over the years that made him easy to pick out of a bear lineup, particularly his damaged right ear. In the ongoing research into the habits of the grizzlies in Yellowstone, Scarface had been captured, collared, and released 17 times.
Scarface did survive to a ripe old age for his species, 25. In his prime, he weighed 600 pounds. He was down to 338 pounds and biologists expected this last winter to be his last. They meant a death from old age, not from gunshots. Social media were full of outrage from biologists and wildlife photographers, for whom Scarface had become a symbol of the species struggling for survival against climate change and the invasion of bear habitat by humans.
[…]
Shooting a grizzly is unlawful except in self-defense, but Scarface had a long history with people that made him an unlikely candidate to attack a photographer or a hunter. Because of the Endangered Species Act violation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has opened an investigation into the circumstances of the shooting. Several photographers, decrying the shooting, declared that Scarface was the most photographed bear in Yellowstone.
First up, Thunder Valley CDC, working to build a community at Pine Ridge rez, one that fulfills the concept of community and tiospaye, which means extended family. This is a very important project, and one dear to my heart. If you can be tiospaye by helping out, there aren’t words enough for appreciation.
Thunder Valley CDC – explore, read, and if you can help, pilamayaye.
Indigenous Environmental Network. IEN is an alliance of Indigenous Peoples whose mission is to protect the sacredness of Earth Mother from contamination & exploitation, maintaining and respecting Indigenous teachings and natural laws. Have a look around, and get involved if you can.
Have a look around, read, get involved if you can.
It’s all about tiospaye – we are all extended family, and it’s past time we act like it.
If you find yourself in the market for something truly special, consider elephant art. I’m in love with Aleena’s Garden Dance, and have been saving pennies, but I wouldn’t hold even the thought of a grudge if someone snapped it up. It all goes to help the artists, and to enable other artists to be rescued.
Garden Dance, © Aleena (May).
Aleena was born on May 6, 2004. Her father is Phra-may and her mother is Poomphaung, another Novica-featured elephant artist. Aleena’s nickname is May and she weighs 3,329 pounds. The young pachyderm is very friendly. She is practicing to play in the elephant orchestra, however she is already a skilled painter. To read more about Aleena, click the link and scroll down.
Music Lover, © Nammoey.
Born in 2009, Nammoey is a young female who survived elephant traffickers thanks to the forest officers who work to enforce the Wildlife Preservation and Protection Law. They found her near the Salween River in Sobmoey, Mae Hong Son, and placed her in the care of the Thai Elephant Conservation Center-TECC. To read more about Nammoey, click the link and scroll down.
Autumn Flower, © Bai-Tong.
Bai-tong enjoys painting so much that she sometimes takes a firm grip on the paintbrush and refuses to return it to the trainer. She is much loved by the TECC staff and every tourist who has seen her. To read more about Bai-Tong, click the link and scroll down.
Makȟá. Earth. Makočé. Land. Kinship. Family. The interdependence and connectedness of all things. That there was a need to name a day Earth Day makes me hauntingly sad. Every day, life goes on, and people walk over thicknesses of concrete, asphalt, spend days inside more concrete, lock themselves in steel when they are outside. It can be easy to forget how much you are a part of the earth. It can be easy to want more, always more. More to make your life easier, convenient, what you think is better. Poverty can grind people down so much they see nothing but blackness and pain. And in it all, we are both the driving force and blind eyes that allow those who are powerful to destroy the earth which gives us life. To destroy all life which is not that of humans, and if some humans get caught up in that destruction, so what? This is a day of terrible sadness, all the more so because it’s just one of “those days” to most people. It doesn’t mean anything, just as the earth doesn’t mean anything.
Duane Yazzie, photo by Robert Esposito.
“The life of the earth is waning,” warns Duane Yazzie, president of the Shiprock Chapter of the Navajo Nation.
Yes, it is. One piece at a time.
I was saying the other day that it’s so hard to get away from plastic, even though I do make an effort to do so. Not making much of an effort this day…
You can get some very interesting effects using plastic wrap. I am so weak.
Very cool, this. More people need to work on the plastic problem. It seems as much as I try to eliminate plastic products from my life, I end up surrounded anyway.
Photo credit: Ari Jónsson
Plastic bottles can lay around in landfill sites or the ocean for centuries. While our planet struggles to cope with our ever-increasing appetite for plastic, an Icelandic product design student was inspired to create a little something to address the issue.
Ari Jónsson, from the Iceland Academy of the Arts, has harnessed the properties of red algae to create a biodegradable bottle for drinking water. He unveiled his invention at Reykjavik design festival DesignMarch last month. The bottles are made out of agar powder, which derives from the supporting structure in the cell walls of certain species of algae. If this is added to water and allowed to cool, it will eventually set and mould into a jelly-like substance.
The bottle retains its shape when it’s full of fluid but will start to decompose as soon as it’s empty it.
First up, absolutely stunning macro shots of some awesome insect architecture: Macro Photographs of Nature’s Tiniest Architects by Nicky Bay. Be sure to click the link so you can see all of the photos. All I have is “Wow!”
Arctiine moth pupa (Cyana sp.)
Bagworm Moth
Next, a lake of mirrors. This left me speechless. A Photographer’s Digital Journey to Produce a Lake of Shattered Mirrors.
“Impact” by Erik Johansson, image provided by artist.
Swedish photographer Erik Johansson had a vision for a digital photograph of a lake shattering like a mirror, an image he wanted to produce as accurately as possible. To achieve this effect for Impact, Johansson bought 17 square meters of mirrors, found a boat and a model, and posed all three in a stone pit until he got the best shot for the final image. Several months of planning, shooting, and editing later and he has an entire video that documents the tasks that lie far beyond the many hours he spent in Photoshop.