Autumn

 Yesterday was the Autumn Equinox, and tonight will be just slightly longer than today. I've been back to work these last couple of weeks, getting ready for eventually working with kids again. Our first day with kids is now slated for October 12th, and we'll be in distance-learning babysitter mode for the mornings and early afternoons, and hopefully getting some time to take the kids hiking after their "school days" are over. As with so much else this year, we're heading into uncharted territory. 

I've more or less finished my field guide project, and spent this morning helping clean and organize the nature lab. Each animal now has a dedicated "evacuation cage" if we have to evacuate them again. Did I mention that? We had to briefly evacuate them during the worst of the local fires. It was just a precautionary measure, but still... the fires did get a little closer to home this year. For many, it did much worse, of course. 

We have a new bird bath with a solar-powered fountain bubbling happily away in the yard. The birds have so far mostly ignored it, other than a California Towhee giving it a double-take before flying away. 

On Sunday, I went for a walk at the Sunnyvale Water Pollution Control Plant ponds. I took photos too, of course. Here are a Northern Harrier and a White-faced Ibis.

Oh, and what the hell. Also a Northern Shoveler.

Written to the tune of Empyrium "A Retrospective..."

World Life Expectancy

 While digging around online to find fuel to disprove an irritating infographic, I came across the World Life Expectancy site, which has all sorts of information about causes of death, broken down by country. According to the site, Japan has the greatest average life expectancy rate at 84.2, the U.S. is ranked at number 34, just under Cuba, with and average life expectancy rate  of 78.5. Which country is dead last? That would be Lesotho, with an average life expectancy rate of a mere 52.9, which is coincidentally almost exactly how old I am at the moment. I'm glad that I don't live in Lesotho.

Speaking of infographics and such, I managed to avoid Facebook for a whole day this week, but now I'm back on there getting irritated by stuff again. Our political discourse has devolved into memes and infographics, rife with factual errors and misspellings. People on both sides of the political divide aren't taking the time to fact check things they share, but then again facts seem to have ceased to matter to many people. Our online shouting matches are turning into offline shooting matches, and it's likely to get worse in the days leading up to the elections, and I imagine that the results of the election will be hotly contested as well, probably with violence from whichever side loses. 

How much of the blame for all of this can be laid at the doorstep of social media? Probably a lot of it. People are naive, stupid, and easily led. Right wing hate groups masquerading as patriots are more emboldened than ever, having been given a pass by the president to terrorize at will. There is violence from the left too, although most of it is against property rather than people. This of course adds fuel to lots of fake outrage from the right, and perhaps some real outrage as well. The frustration and anger is palpable. The future is uncertain. 

I'm going to keep doing what I do though. If the current generation goes down in flames, the next generation is going to need to be ready to put things back together again.