SmokeSound

We know, we simply know , that the earth is old; billions of years old.  It isn't a question.  Not any more.  We have known that ever since Darwin, or ever since what Darwin learned has had a chance to soak in. We know that life on earth is--roughly speaking--almost as old as earth itself.  Given a billion years, or so, to settle down, life appeared.  All the evidence, and it is evidence, show that life has been on earth for at least three-and-a-half billion years. As for other places in the universe, we do not yet know.  Not for certain.  It is quite likely, but it is a very large and old haystack we are noodling around in.  Logic is waiting for evidence.  We are the evidence on earth.  The evidence is in the rocks.  Bacteria is evidence.  Trilobytes.  Dinosaurs.  Millions of years of human evidence. The point is this:  It is worse than ignorance to deny what we know to be true.  It is perverse.  It is laughable. We also know that what we know is not something fixed in

 The game, of course, was suspenseful, and as is the nature of the Old Timers, they bore down, or is it Beared Down:  "Bear down, boys, bear down!"  It might as well be admitted:  the truck working on the centerfield scoreboard did more for the game than just add another fielder with a long wingspan. Runs were scored: all of them without a serious debate about the need for slow-motion replay. Proof that speed is illusory. Somebody will eventually pick up the ball.

He is three now And the days are        going fast It seemed to us So we said why don't we Stop at the playground By the library And slow the clock                                             

"Sure you dropped it here?" "I shot an arrow into the air. . . ." "Bill.  My name is Bill." UnCommon Grackle Sentry Duty Sharing Bread "Some of my best friends are . . . white!"

I have nothing but wonder      and wonder For the physicists and mechanics      in Geneva Or wherever it is they are      grubbing about To find the secrets of the Higgs boson      the God-particle Or whatever else is in      that donut hole My respect for how tangled The coils in their brains must be Even to imagine what they cannot see      and never will Given our lumbering clumsiness On the scale of things Is overrun only by The boy in our backyard Who is discovering How things are With a stick The mesquite tree Crafted his tool and      by some subconscious      subnuclear      subsistence Process Dropped it to him The day before he becomes three So that he can test The nature of reality He has switched      and swatted Everything within reach Including an imaginary beast He calls a Higgs Bison      without neglecting The bird feeder Pausing in his research To observe a butterfly Something in his almost Three-year-old brain Want to

Family Outing at Silverbell Lake A Flying Critter:  Maybe One of Those Drones Color Coordinated "Aren't there supposed to be two of us?" Shipwrecks in the Santa Cruz River "You made your bed!  Now lie in it!"