Warrior?

KH writes:

...I have a happy little spider living in my bathroom underneath the sink. She’s been there for awhile now and shows no signs of leaving. What is the life expectancy of a spider anyhow?

I have always assumed a spider lives about one year, but now that I think about it...I don't know. Anybody out there in the Blogosphere got the 411?

I figure it's all about timing. When will the babies best be able to survive and find food in the Darwinian contest? I've seen spider hatchlings in the Fall and Spring, each having its advantages, alternating between dispersal and ready access to prey.

There is one other amazing sight on Fall afternoons in the gorge...Flying spiders!

As the late afternoon light momentarily cracks the shadow within the gorge, spiders fly. They climb to an appropriate launch point and release a long strand of silk with which to sail the air currents. it doesn't matter which way the winds go at the time, sometimes upriver, sometimes down. The spider silks glisten in the sun as the arachnid airforce fly where the wind takes them. Thousands of them float by my field of vision from the rock I like to sit upon on such days. It is a common occurance. Nothing rare about it except for someone to appreciate it.

Much wonder to be observed!


KH also said:

Did ya hear Jimmy Carter on NPR this morning? He was very well spoken. I’m not very familiar with him or his presidency, as he was in office when I was born. But I was impressed by what I would consider his ability to ‘quietly persuade’.

Me too!

James Earl is a good and wonderful man. I glanced at his new book in Borders a day or two ago but put it down in favor of "The Onion"...Must have my satire! ...The mind's most nutritious food group.

Anyway, Jimmy Carter is at the top of my list of great people who could have made a difference...but didn't. Ronald Reagan lied his way into the Whitehouse, and Jimmy Carter let him. That was the turning point in world history...America's descent into fascism.

You folks probably know that I am in constant search for the methods of honest persuasion in the never ending battle against Cognitive Dissonance. I believe very few things, though I suspect many. One thing I do believe with all my being, is that we are at war with the forces of evil within all humans. I don't see it in terms of any supernatural mythology, but merely the choice the human race must make in detemining its future, and ultimately whether it will have one.

Jimmy Carter is an honest man, and he proved that the Untied States government cannot function with just one honest man in power. It was him against the world. Even his own political party worked against him (something Howard Dean is facing today.)

What Carter lacked was the warrior nature required to deal with his enemies. He truly loved them in his Christian heart....and he let them survive. This was terribly wrong, as it turns out. The vermin that were not dealt with have now done away with truth in America. Speak the truth and you will be visciously attacked, as Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame found out. People who speak the truth must be revered or America is doomed.

Jimmy Carter is one of those....But he won't save our country. There must be more.

Where are our Warriors?

Courage,

Steve