Comments for The Watermelon Blog

Comment on Winter Holiday by paul walter

paul walter — Fri, 17 May 2013 23:23:08 +0000

Excellent news..Keep on punching!

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by Eric Snyder

Eric Snyder — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:37:34 +0000

Certainly don’t have any problem with being “self taught.” But, as you said, your “basic training” allowed you to teach yourself. My point being you had a point of reference by which to judge truth & error.

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by David Horton

David Horton — Mon, 13 May 2013 21:09:09 +0000

Hi Judy, lovely to hear from you. Yes, sort of easing gently into straps rather than hitting them!

And indeed, one person’s elephant is another’s camel.

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by David Horton

David Horton — Mon, 13 May 2013 20:59:41 +0000

Good theory Eric. Just one small problem – I didn’t have a professor leaning over my shoulder, I was teaching myself using my own intelligence and basic training. You see human beings have the skills to analyse and interpret the world around them. Trouble is they get told they haven’t and they should just believe what someone tells them about what someone else told them etc, instead of using their own observations and their own analysis of the real world.

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by Eric Snyder

Eric Snyder — Mon, 13 May 2013 15:20:22 +0000

Great analogy Judy! And yet, even though each blind man has a different tactile sensation, there is the single over-arching truth that they’re all touching an elephant. Their individual sensations, no matter how “sincerely” they believe them to be true, are erroneous and inaccurate; pretty deadly if you want to avoid being trampled by the elephant!

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by Judy and Roger

Judy and Roger — Sun, 12 May 2013 23:47:41 +0000

Good to see you really hitting the straps again David. I agree very strongly with your image of the narrative, and making the connections, whether in social, family or environmental situations. With regard to the truth, though, I am always mindful of the old parable of the three blind men and the elephant. I am sure you would know it. My elephant will be different from your elephant.

Judy F

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by David Horton

David Horton — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:51:57 +0000

Thanks Gary, and welcome to the blog.

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by Gary

Gary — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:23:10 +0000

Hello David
That great aspiration, the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, is attempting to join some of those habitat fragments so there is contiguous habitat along 3 600km. This continent scale project will have to involve many who live on the east coast in different ways, otherwise it cannot be the success it needs to be. I think it is a wonderful analogy to be able to describe this work as a narrative, because so many of us see ourselves in a story more easily than we see ourselves as part of of the biosphere.
Gary

Comment on Like snowflake crystal by Eric Snyder

Eric Snyder — Sun, 12 May 2013 22:15:31 +0000

Nice “narrative” David! Yes, I think we do have the skills to take the fragments and reassemble them into “the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

What’s lacking, IMO, is the instruction you had when you first tried to join the ends of broken bones. Had you not had the professor looking over your shoulder to assist your bone assembly, you might not have successfully put them together.

Unfortunately, a number of our “teachers” fail to help us assemble “truth” and choose to lead us into a morass of relativism where WE decide what is truth and what is error for US. That approach sure wouldn’t have gotten you very far in your archaeozoology career.

Comment on A matter of taste by eremophila

eremophila — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:06:56 +0000

I’m wildly applauding! Living in deep countryside, I don’t have to contend with malls and many of the other items you mentioned, but I would love someone to check out a store for chemical outgassing before I have to decide about entering. If said person wore bright yellow coloured clothing also, it may help bring others attention to these toxic buildings! Yellow being the colour of canaries, who once performed, albeit unwillingly, their role as ‘taster’ of the air.