Entries by tag: sports
Heavy physical work, the care of home and children, petty quarrels with neighbors, films, football, beer, and above all, gambling filled up the horizon of their minds. To keep them in control was not difficult…. All that was required of them was a primitive patriotism which could be appealed to whenever it was necessary to make them accept longer working hours or shorter rations. And when they become discontented, as they sometimes did, their discontentment led nowhere, because being without general ideas, they could only focus it on petty specific grievances.
– George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
Cheetah population crashes, raising threat of extinction
The world's cheetah population is crashing, leaving the world's fastest land animal approaching extinction, according to new research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on Monday. There are now about 7,100 cheetahs left in the wild, the report said, down from an estimated 100,000 at the end of the 19th century. Cheetahs once roamed Africa and Asia, but they have lost an estimated 91 percent of their habitat. Most of the remaining cheetahs are in Africa, with about 50 remaining in Iran. In Africa, 14 of 18 groups studied were decreasing. Zimbabwe's cheetah population has fallen from 1,200 to 170 in 16 years. [USA Today, CNN]
SOURCE
The Week at http://theweek.com/10things/662478/10-things-need-know-today-december-27-2016
My thought: I'm still reading Sapiens and the first section, about how humans absolutely devastated the megafauna of every continent and island, is still reverberating through my consciousness. The extinction of many species, including the wooly mammoth and the sabre tooth tiger, immediately followed the introduction of our species to a land mass. We are still causing extinctions. You would think that we'd make an effort to sustain at least token populations of the more charismatic species. Instead it appears that the great white hunter would rather have one on his wall than to keep them alive in the wilds. As the political reality in the US turns even uglier, I have less and less respect and care for my own species. We may extinct ourselves, but that would be good for many other species.
I do not risk my life.
I take risks in order to live.
I take risks because I love life,
not because I don’t.
--Stephen Koch, climber and extreme snowboarder
Hating people
because of their color
is wrong
and it doesn't matter
what color
does the hating.
It's just plain wrong.
-Muhammad Ali
Handsome, eh?
What does it tell you?
( What it tells meCollapse )
Even childless I want to give something to new generations, because it seems so sad to send young people out into the world without direction or inspiration. Where parents fail, family or community sometimes steps in. I see the baseball teams training in the park and the kids there are learning something useful. Coordination. Teamwork. I see a strong young woman on the tennis court who is obviously an ace, but who is toying with her two competitors, and idly watching me who is watching her. Will she have children? Perhaps not. Today I heard the daughter of a coworker say that she won't have children. Why not? Will she regret not having children? What will be her creative work in this world, if not baby making?
In many cultures a woman is of little or no use if she does not serve to birth and raise a brood of offspring for a man. Put the food on the table. Clean. What is a woman if she does none of this?
*new tag: legacy
- Current Mood:
pensive
--Liz Sutherland, 2008
This seems far fetched to me. Anybody know more? There must be more than this reason for the entire track team to be disqualified. And if it was simply because he pointed at the sky, I have to agree with the father. They would dismiss most basketball players and football players for their little victory dances if this were the rule everywhere. We should let people celebrate, even if the celebration is religious. Some would say especially if the celebration is religious due to our legal freedom of religious practice.
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