So Much To Learn... So Little Time

Tucson Weather Today

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Yesterday I checked my (Early Voting by Mail) Arizona ballot choice for presidential candidate for the Republican Primary to be held February 28, 2012. I dropped it in the mail bin in the office even though there was no mail pickup yesterday, which was President's Day and a legal holiday for employees of the U.S. Postal Service. It will go out in today's mail and arrive at election headquarters (or whatever it's called) here in Tucson either tomorrow or the next day. Now I can proudly wear the patriotic sticker proclaiming...

Hooray for me.

Who (whom?) did I vote for?

That's for me to know.

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If there is one thing I am truly thankful for it's that I was born into this time and place where such grand and open opportunities to learn exist. There is so much knowledge out there, free for the taking, that no single individual can access and absorb it all within a mere lifetime.

There are some truly wonderful sites scattered among the many flashy and extravagant come-ons manufactured by all those money grubbing pitchmen on the World Wide Web. Oh yes. There certainly are. I've seen some of them. Occasionally I have mentioned a few of my favorites here on my chatty little blog.

Today I decided to point my readers to a few of what I consider to be some of the more interesting ones.

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"Always walk through life as if you have something new to learn and you will."
--Vernon Howard

Science Fiction

SciFiStation is a website for Science Fiction fans, for Science Fiction researchers, and for anyone else with even a passing interest in Science Fiction.

Even if you are not a dedicated fan of Science Fiction, you might enjoy learning some of the fascinating facts about the subject, and this site is an excellent place to get your feet wet, so to speak.

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Another site I visit every day is Grammarphobia and I never leave it without having learned something new about English grammar. For example: There is a difference between the words 'ethics' and 'morals' -- did you know that? I mean did you really know that? Grammarphobia HERE has an informative short article regarding the differing meanings of 'ethics' and 'morals.'

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Kelsey Grammer

Born February 21, 1955

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Dmitrii Lezine has on exhibit some of the most fabulous photos you have ever seen. Well... the most fabulous photos that I've ever seen. (On the Internet.)

If you appreciate stunning, jaw-dropping photography, take a look HERE

You won't be sorry.

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"Education consists mainly of what we have unlearned."
--Mark Twain

Never Too Old To Start

Tucson Weather Today

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While reading new (and even old) books I sometimes get ideas for weird science fiction stories I could write based on the factual information pouring forth from the pages into my eyes and is then shunted to some repository within my brain, where it is somehow mysteriously mixed about and only much later brought to my attention... often to then be edited, judged, and usually discarded.

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan contains facts about foods of which I was completely unaware. It states that mushrooms are still a mystery to us and that we don't know the most basic things about them.

Now, that sparked a story idea... what if these mushrooms actually comprise a complex network of intelligent beings that co-exist with the Earth's familiar plant and animal life and are wholly necessary for the continuation of that familiar life... and one person discovers this fact and that the mushrooms are being threatened by some new human endeavor and so sets out to remedy the threat.

Below is a four-paragraph excerpt from the book:

"Part of the problem is simply that fungi are very difficult to observe. What we call a mushroom is only the tip of the iceberg of a much bigger and essentially invisible organism that lives most of its life underground. The mushroom is the 'fruiting body' of a subterranean network of microscopic hyphae, improbably long rootlike cells that thread themselves through the soil like neurons. Bunched like cables, the hyphae form webs of (still microscopic) mycelium. Mycologists can't dig up a mushroom like a plant to study its structure because its mycelium is too tiny and delicate to tease from the soil without disintegrating. ... To see the whole organism of which [the mushroom] is merely a component may simply be impossible. Fungi also lack the comprehensible syntax of plants, the orderly and visible chronology of seed and vegetative growth, flower, fruit, and seed again. The fungi surely have a syntax of their own, but we don't know all its rules, especially the ones that govern the creation of a mushroom, which can take three years or thirty, depending. On what? We don't really know.

"Fungi, lacking chlorophyll, differ from plants in that they can't manufacture food energy from the sun. Like animals, they feed on organic matter made by plants, or by plant eaters. Most of the fungi we eat obtain their energy by one of two means: saprophytically, by decomposing dead vegetable matter, and mycorrhizally [like chanterelles and morels], by associating with the roots of living plants. Among the saprophytes, many of which can be cultivated by inoculating a suitable mass of dead organic matter (logs, manure, grain) with their spores, are the common white button mushrooms, shiitakes, cremini, Portobellos, and oyster mushrooms. Most of the choicest wild mushrooms are impossible to cultivate, or nearly so, since they need living and often very old trees in order to grow, and can take several decades to fruit. The mycelium can grow more or less indefinitely, in some cases for centuries, without necessarily fruiting. A single fungus recently found in Michigan covers an area of forty acres underground and is thought to be a few centuries old. So inoculating old oaks or pines is no guarantee of harvesting future mushrooms, at least not on a human time scale. Presumably, these fungi live and die on an arboreal time scale.

"Mycorrhizal fungi have coevolved with trees, with whom they've worked out a mutually beneficial relationship in which they trade the products of their very different metabolisms. If the special genius of plants is photosynthesis, the ability of chlorophyll to transform sunlight and water and soil minerals into carbohydrates, the special genius of fungi is the ability to break down organic molecules and minerals into simple molecules and atoms through the action of their powerful enzymes. The hyphae surround or penetrate the plant's roots, providing them with a steady diet of elements in exchange for a drop of simple sugars that the plant synthesizes in its leaves. The network of hyphae vastly extends the effective reach and surface area of a plant's root system, and while trees can survive without their fungal associates, they seldom thrive. It is thought that the fungi may also protect their plant hosts from bacterial and fungal diseases.

"The talent of fungi for decomposing and recycling organic matter is what makes them indispensable, not only to trees but to all life on earth."



I first became aware of the above described book when I read about it at Delancey Place -- and the fictional story idea keeps hanging on. Will I write the story?

Maybe . . .

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I had planned to add another segment here, but instead found myself immersed in the pages of a new book.

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A mediocre idea that generates enthusiasm will go
further then a great idea that inspires no one.
--Mary Kay Ash