Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A trompe d'oeil from the ocean shore


The Atlantic Ocean is truly one of the world's most diverse shoreline ecosystems. The most recent walk on Stuart Beach here is Florida revealed a unique coral/seashell conglomerate formation embedded in the sand at the ebb and flow of the waves. The formation is pink and has the approximate shape of a uterus, with a smooth kidney-shaped 'fetus' in the center as if attached to a slender length of white shell-rim, surrounded by the coarse-textured pressurized coral/seashell.

It's to wonder -- in the evolutionary scale of life-science events, did the coral/seashell come first, broken off the common shoreline shelf of water flowing over and back from the sand, as pieces organically arranged to become the segments of more complex animal life?

The local Stuart News has presented a series of articles about the teaching of evolution in Florida schools, the most recent asserting that evolution will be taught but only as a theory. The most recent issues have also offered a rehash of the Natalee Holloway disappearance from the island of Aruba in the Caribbean Sea near South America.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Apex: the Democratic Candidate

Last month, Sir Edmund Hillary died. It's a wonder -- will the vast pyramid scheme of non-necessary businesses, social services programs, and journopathy working to put the first woman into the office of the Presidency finally end too?

As example: 'Curves' + 'Old Navy' + 'Jamba Juice' should = a secure place and viable local National Guard personnel plans so that Navy sonar equipment can be seized and implemented as an immediate action during aquatic emergency (i.e., drownings) -- but instead, there is/not a profit margin listed in the New York Stock Exchange plus demands to have workers who will supply the retail stock AND a steady stream of buyers.

Another example: with all the natural and synthetic materials and increased knowledge available to members of the medical sciences professions, the metal-working industry should be signing off from its most barbaric past 'doctoring' procedures ( primarily a use of needle and scalpel to pacify and repair ill 'patients') -- instead, new and more invasive procedures make medical practice more horrifying than every before. The Gastro-Intestinal Bypass procedure, intended to be based upon Japanese obi-band use, has been initiated with the kind of glee that accompanies a sports contest, where the 'obi band' is foreign and wrong so the knife doth protest.

A series of impeachments quite rudely eliminated other contenders with similar viewpoints to the CHAMPIONED WOMAN, but there is hope at the end of the wire -- to all appearances the natural death from old age of the first explorer to climb Mount Everest!

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Perch-fish behavior in Martin County, Florida

As a visitor in this region, sweeping up crushed palm berries from the sidewalk and roadway near the Saint Lucie River, there was occasion to simply dump the dead seeds and their fruits into a small nearby slough that connects with the river itself. What a surprise it was when a large perch-fish immediately raced into the tiny river 'pocket', fanning its spiny dorsal fin to stop itself quite precisely at the pile of fruit sinking and floating in the water -- I had to jump back. Then, to add to the maneuvers, a smaller relative and another yet-smaller perch-fish swam into positions beside the first -- small, medium and large with the appearance of side-by-side circular saws breaching the surface of the water.

Yesterdays' 'Stuart News' newspaper gave its description of the "Catch of the Week, Black Crappie (Speckled Perch, Speck) ...found in fresh water statewide in Florida... dorsal and anal fins are large and fanlike... ." The speedy and precisely arrayed three-fish set was an unforgettable experience -- truly a spectacle to watch!

Photo below:  wooden pallet, through street adjacent property between Kingswood condo complex and Ocean Palms Retirement complex