June 7, 2004 was a glorious day at a glorious place ...
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June 4th's beauty was so abundant that it merited division into five folders:
Yosemite Rainbow Factory
Hetch Hetchy Wildflowers
Wapama Falls
O'Shaughnessy Dam
Waterfall Heaven
I'm quite certain that these titles are self-explanatory. This is Yosemite National Park and it is a glorious, beautiful, breathtaking place.
***
Today's a cloudy day. I cannot complain. Since the fall began, I've had sunny days at least 90% of the time. Fall, Winter and Spring provided near-continuous sunshine and blue skies to Florida. This pattern is interrupted occasionally by cloudy weather.
I'm watching the wind toss around the oak trees, pine trees and palm trees outside my window. It is a beautiful sight and one which I have spent the last ten years watching nearly continuously. These trees provide a view of both the sunrise and sunset, too.
My desktop image is yesterday's immature bald eagle. When my screensaver comes on the first image is always either a dolphin or a manatee.
There's a message in all of these photographs. We happen to live in an infinitely beautiful Universe on an infinitely beautiful planet. Too bad humankind neglects all of these in order to pursue money, violence, warfare and self-destruction by planet-destruction.
The greatest tragedy in the Universe is the human tragedy. This tragedy is especially tragic because all of these sorrows and horrors are self-inflicted. The dinosaurs went extinct by bad luck. A random asteroid wiped the dinosaurs out. The Homo sapiens, though, aren't willing to wait for an asteroid to wipe us out. We've trashed the planet, provoked the Sixth Great Extinction and we're working full-time at the profitable business of finishing the job of self-extinction.
I suggest that humankind stop doing all of these things. I suggest that humankind abandon hatred, violence, destruction and warfare. But who can reason with humankind? Who can save humankind?
Promises of heaven and threats of hell didn't reform humankind. The threat of extinction won't wake humankind up from its addiction to self-destruction.
I suppose, then, that the human tragedy must have a tragic end.
My hope and my confidence are fully invested in Nature. After four billion years against the worst possible odds, Nature continues to survive and prosper. There's is life after the Homo sapiens.
David Mathews
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