On the nature of the Greens

While working on my paper and looking into potential graduate programs, I've been doing a lot of reading on environmental ethics. One interesting (and I feel rather telling) point I have noticed is that the so called "deep ecologists" (the guys who go out and attack whaling ships and lie down in front of bulldozers and put metal spikes in trees to break logging equipment) seem to have a bit of trouble finding jobs at universities. ;-)

Before the articles written by more mainstream thinkers, there are happy little paragraphs listing all their credentials and prestigious universities where they work. For the deep ecologists, their paragraphs look more like this:

"Jerry Smith has written several books on the evils of modern society and technology, including "Why We Should Ban Cars, Planes, and All Modes of Transportation," "Democracy's War on Nature," and "Let the Chickens Run Free." He lives by himself in a cabin in the Adirondacks. [We're not exactly sure where, because he's currently hiding from the U.S. government for burning down an animal testing facility]."

This, of course, is a slight exaggeration, but a surprising number of the radicals do seem to live out in cabins by themselves. I wonder why......

More adventures

Once again, I have been remiss in my posting responsibilities. Most recently, I have been studying like mad to take the GRE, working on a philosophy paper analyzing a critique of anti-anthropocentric and biocentric ethics, and attempting not to burn down the dorm with my cooking experiments.

Oh, and I found my first FRCDS (the school where I'm working) four-leaf-clover. That was fun - I thought I was losing my knack for finding them.

On the weekends, I've been hanging out with Frank. Our recent activities have included going on a lunch cruise on Lake Michigan, taking a water taxi on the Chicago river, briefly experiencing Taste of Chicago, a trip to Shedd Aquarium, and dancing in the park in the city. Photos from the river taxi (courtesy of Frank)



Oh, and the Illinois Railway Museum. First, I went a few weeks ago when Frank was driving a train that was in operation back in the 50's. I got to ride up in the engine with him, which was fun. Trains are a lot more complicated to operate than cars.

Frank at the "wheel" of "old clunker"

Me at the controls (scaryness)

These last two weekends, we've been going to the museum to work on the train Frank adopted (well, he and one or two other guys are the caretakers of it). It was a bit dirty, so we had to make it all spiffy for when it will be running again. Trains take a lot of time and effort to clean. :-) Still, it's fun to help with Frank's projects.

------Too sexy...... -----------------On top of old clunker ------

------In his element-------------- Old clunker's checkup----