Wandering the streets of bewilderville . . .

In this Thor's day mailbox . . .

The first canal in the United States to connect western waterways with the Atlantic Ocean – 363 mile long Erie Canal – opened to traffic 198 years ago today.

America's first jet-liner, the Boeing 707, went into service on today's date in 1958 on a PanAm flight from New York to Paris.

And in 1970, Muhammad Ali returned to the ring after a three years absence due to his refusal to be inducted into miltary service during the Vietnam War.

I've lost count of the number of times, during my tenure in graduate school, that I heard the words “James, we aren't here to re-invent the wheel.” Sometimes, I caught the thought “why not?” before it slipped out to embarrass the room. Over years of study my critical/evaluative perspectives toward science, logic, and received knowledge expanded to embrace ever wider views – a background distant squeaking always accompaning my inquiries. A recent article by Jasmine Qureshi – put much of this into perspective. It was published in the online journal Radicle under the challenging title “Unlearning our bias: Anthropocentrism in nature and ecology.” Heads-up: it's a long peace, but IMO a worthy read.

When the universe calls – pick up – it might be the patron saint of unbelonging . . . or a poet on TED.