Snake Dance

Why be a Vegetarian?

Give up meat to save the planet .

Give up meat to save the planet because Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming, Lord Stern.

“Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

Direct emissions of methane from cows and pigs is a significant source of greenhouse gases. Methane is 23 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a global warming gas.

Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.


He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

Puppy Love

Ernst Becker

Our fair city, Vancouver has a university named after an explorer called Simon Fraser and Becker was a prof there.

Enjoy Every Sandwich

Warren Zevon told Letterman that that might be what he's learned about Life now that his own earthly existence is near the end.

Randy Pausch - The Last Lecture is another guy who saw it coming:

Dying 47-Year-Old Professor Gives Exuberant ‘Last Lecture’

1:44:08 - 2 years ago

Randy Pausch Almost all of us have childhood dreams: for example, being an astronaut, or making movies or video games for a living. Sadly, most people don't achieve theirs, and I think that's a shame. I had several specific childhood dreams, and I've actually achieved most of them. More importantly, I have found ways, in particular the creation (with Don Marinelli), of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center (etc.cmu.edu), of helping many young people actually *achieve* their childhood dreams. This talk will discuss how I achieved my childhood dreams (being in zero gravity, designing theme park rides for Disney, and a few others), and will contain realistic advice on how *you* can live your life so that you can make your childhood dreams come true, too.

Zevon talks about his upcoming demise with Letterman

Two weeks before he died Warren Zevon released this cover of the song which was written by Bob Dylan

Keep Me In Your Heart For Awhile

collige, virgo, rosas ("gather, girl, the roses"),

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he's to setting.

That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.

To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time is a poem written by Robert Herrick in the 17th Century. 

First published in 1648 in a volume of verse entitled Hesperides, it is perhaps one of the most famous poems to extol the notion of carpe diem. Carpe diem expresses a philosophy that recognizes the brevity of life and therefore the need to live for and in the moment. 


Related but distinct is the expression momento mori ("remember that you are mortal"); indeed, memento mori is often used with some of the sense ofcarpe diem. However, two major elements of memento mori are humility and repentance, neither of which figures prominently in the concept of carpe diem. So the two phrases could also represent opposing worldviews: with 'carpe diem' representing carefree, overflowing life and 'memento mori' a humble, meek existence.


Latin Poem by Horace Odes 1.11

Tu ne quaesieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi	Don't ask (it's forbidden to know) what end
finem di dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios	the gods will grant to me or you, Leuconoe. Don't play with Babylonian
temptaris numeros. ut melius, quidquid erit, pati.	fortune-telling either. It is better to endure whatever will be.
seu pluris hiemes seu tribuit Iuppiter ultimam,	Whether Jupiter has allotted to you many more winters or this final one
quae nunc oppositis debilitat pumicibus mare	which even now wears out the Tyrrhenian sea on the rocks placed opposite
Tyrrhenum: sapias, vina liques et spatio brevi	— be wise, drink your wine, and scale back your long hopes
spem longam reseces. dum loquimur, fugerit invida	to a short period. While we speak, envious time will have {already} fled
aetas: carpe diem quam minimum credula postero.	Seize the day, trusting as little as possible in the next.

It does not matter the color of the cat so long as it catches mice. ~ Chinese Proverb