Stoplights: Part I

This could only be so long in coming: traffic lights have been a bit of an obsession for a few years. I know they are in essence just a collection of shaped and painted bits of  metal and plastic (and a few grams of glass for the light-bulb), but they can be really interesting if you take the time to look at them.
For one thing, the lights are always there, regardless of witnesses (human or otherwise). At the main square of some grotty little town, there might be a single beat-up light on a wire across the street between the fire department and the dingy gas station. Now picture that same intersection at 2 in the morning, when the 900 or so residents are in bed, and even the night policeman is slumped against his desk, which holds a weak coffee he bought from the gas station before his shift. He's not thinking of the light outside. No one else is: they're all asleep (Our policeman isn't asleep--he's dozing. There's a difference). Certainly no one is waiting for the light to turn the shade of color that would signal a foot on the gas. Humans created those strange combinations of earthen and synthetic materials, but humans only spend a fraction of their year thinking about the lights that they made, and even less of a percentage of an entire lifetime. Right now, wherever you are, maybe reading this at your desk or sitting in the dark on the floor in the middle of the night (like the insects we all are), there are still traffic lights outside, always turning from green to yellow, to red.

Fish: A Study in Identity

Are you a fish? Don't just answer "no," and snort at the foolishness of the question. Consider carefully. First of all, what is a fish? It is an organism, classified by humans as being in kingdom Animalia. In that respect, you are in the same category as a fish. A fish is also, like ourselves, a vertebrate. That's two checks right there. A fish, unlike a sponge, has a nervous system, with a collection of nerves that we humans call a "brain." Also obvious: fish move, eat, excrete, secrete, and sense their worlds around them in much the same way that we do. They use gills to take oxygen from their environment, the way we use our lungs to do the same. Although there is a structural difference there, The principle method and purpose of lungs and gills are the same. What makes us any different from a fish? People often define social interaction and relationships as human characteristics, but fish share those as well. somewhat disturbingly, they also share our willingness to kill other members of our own species, and some will not even hesitate to kill those that are bound by blood. There is the fact that "human," or scientifically "Homo sapiens" is a species name, and "fish" is a very large category of organisms, but think about exactly how different the two are, and how uncannily similar.

Tribute to Elephants

I told one of my friends that I'd post this: Sheep, this is for you, about your fellows--
Enjoy!

The elephants are walking
Each one totally in sync
With itself, and somehow
Alone in the crowd

The elephants are marching
The steady, slow beat of their feet
Is the bass, changing tone
With the texture of the grass

The elephants are ambling
Every so often,
One of them calls,
Forming an intricate lead solo

The elephants are treading
In the hot sun, each solid heartbeat
Completes a rhythm section

The elephants are striding
Each one, a single band
With perfect proportion,
They slowly pass by

The elephants have gone
Their music fades, and
Another concert is over
The savannah applauds

Corners in General

 Have you ever thought about corners? Not the reactions that they receive, but the corners themselves? It's not a topic for polite conversation--if you bring them up, you'll get a lot of strange looks, and people will start muttering about your levels of sanity. But the corners are always there, on the fringes, and if you're paranoid, you can listen to them and they'll talk to you. The look up at the ceiling, right now (if you're inside). Unless you're sitting in a yurt or igloo, there are probably corners at the places where the ceiling meets two walls. Think about that for a minute. If there's a bug on it, what can it see? Put yourself in the mindset of the microscopic fungi that are almost certainly living their private lives right above your head. If the building is new, then realize that someone was recently thinking about the joint of the walls and the ceiling. It's amazing how much space a single junction of walls and ceiling can occupy in your mind, if you let it...