Journal club Christmas
Two quotes from
Bruce Cockburn appropriate to the Christmas season (and the mood it gets me in):
"This bluegreen ball in black space
Filled with beauty even now
battered and abused and lovely"
from the song "Planet of the Clowns" on the album The Trouble With Normal (1983)
This was written in the early 1980s, and there seems little doubt that the "bluegreen ball" has suffered more battery and abuse since then.
In an article "US consumerism poses global recession threat" on the ABC news website, Richard Vietor (Professor of Environmental Management at the Harvard Business School) warns that unbridled (American) consumerism may lead to "catastrophic recession". Easy to point the finger at the USA; there are lots of Americans, but other western countries should not feel too righteous either. I have pessimistic moments when I worry a lot about humanity's impact on our planet. I had one cycling to work this morning in fact, dodging traffic until the sanctuary of the cycle path through the King's Park bushland, prompting me to include Cockburn's bittersweet lyrics above. What will become of Earth? -- the weary Terra may shrug her scarred but resilient skin yet, and rid herself of parasites...
...but Christmas is still a time for hope, as an older Cockburn observes:
"Like a stone on the surface of a still river
Driving the ripples on forever
Redemption rips through the surface of time
In the cry of a tiny babe"
from the song "Cry of a Tiny Babe" on the album Nothing But A Burning Light (1991)
Images from www.cockburnproject.net
I have worked at UWA since 1995, coming from New Zealand to take an appointment as Lecturer in the Soil Science group in the former Faculty of Agriculture. I completed my PhD, from Lincoln University in New Zealand, in 1991. If you really want to find out about work stuff go
here. In real life I love my wife, daughter and guitar. Occasionally, I wish I had chosen a career as a carpenter, counsellor or poet.