I Am Not Hamlet

     Having children has to be one of life's top three pleasures (also one of life's top five annoyances).  Guiding them as they grow, watching how they navigate the wonder found in the world is a slow-burn of joy.      In addition to one's own children, joy is found in the babies of creatures we share the world with.  If one can combine animal babies with one's own, one may have stumbled upon an alternative energy source that cannot be usurped by corporations.      My children and I have watched infant praying mantids leave the relative safety of their egg case and venture into a world of danger, and for a fortunate few, maturation.  We've set a luna moth free that we observed from caterpillar to cocoon to adult.      Most recently, we've watched Eastern American toad tadpoles ( Bufo americanus americanus ) metamorphose into tiny toadlets. At the toad "delivery room" It's hard to believe these tiny creatures can survive.  That's

I used to teach mass media to high school students and it never surprised me when most of them, when asked, thought that advertising (and pop culture in general) had little to no influence on them.  Adults, quite often, tell themselves the same thing. If advertising didn't work, however, it wouldn't exist.  Those billions spent would be wasted money--which isn't to say that all advertising works all the time--it doesn't. An old acquaintance was on Facebook asking about getting a tattoo.  I replied that the response was merely bandwagoning--tattoos have been so mainstreamed that many who have them now are the same people thirty years ago would have turned their noses up at them. Artifacts, ideas, attitudes: these are in our ecosystem and all influence us for good and ill.  To think otherwise is simply fooling oneself. We pride ourselves on originality and individuality, but I find those to be overrated.  One, it's damn near impossible to be completely origina