I can see a dead Redwood tree out my window, and I wonder what toxin it sucked up from the ground or out of the surrounding air. I often look at the sad trees lining the freeways, with dry spindly branches festooned with trash and coated by dust, and wonder how long it will be before they're gone. The other day, while out getting the mail, I noticed a sad little rat sitting by the mailboxes, so sick with poison that it didn't move when I retrieved my junk mail and dumped it in the nearby recycling container. It got me thinking about how many other species we poison, either intentionally or inadvertently. Creatures like rats are drawn to our garbage, and I've always wondered why people get so upset about rats in the dumpsters. It's not like we're using that stuff. Might as well let the rats take what they can. Sure, there is the disease factor, but people are much more likely to catch diseases from rats who hang out by the mailboxes than from the unpoisoned rats tunneling through the dumpsters.

Currently listening to: Eleni Karaindrou "Ulysses' Gaze" soundtrack