ECOCRITICISM NATURE AND SILENCE

It is pretty irritating to watch the isla estrella, submarine/surface environmental garbage collectors posing all smiles with their black plastic bags in front.  It would be more intelligent to use transparent bags, with pertinent recycling of you know what. There is no virtue in the action of moving garbage from one spot to the dump, forgive moi. The other useful activity these environmental specialists could perform,  would be to measure water quality, plus botanical inventories of plants, animals and or fish encountered in such fun, biannual activities.  That is me beef, the lack of substance, vision, long run results.  For that reason I move in  other directions, because I can, enjoy research, looking at me practice with some rigor, seriousness, lacking...in the others....

NATURE AND SILENCE

CHRISTOPHER MANES

PAGE 24

 

There is only the unfolding of life form, more or less genealogically related, each with a mix of characteristics. To privilege intellect or self-consciousness, as opposed to photosynthesis, poisoned fangs, or sporogenesis, may soothe ancient insecurities about humanity's place in the cosmos, but it has nothing to do with evolutionary theory and does not correspond to observable nature.

 

In similar fashion biocentrism brings to bear the science of ecology upon the exclusionary claims about the human subject. From the language of humanism one could easily get the impression that Homo sapiens is the only species on the planet worthy of being a topic of discourse. Ecology paints quite a different, humbling picture. If fungus, one of the "lowliest" of forms on a humanistic scale of values, were to go extinct tomorrow, the effect on the rest of the biosphere would be catastrophic, since the the health of forests depends on Mycorrhyzal fungus,  and the disappearance of forests would upset the hydrology, atmosphere, and temperature of the entire globe. 

 

In contrast, if Homo sapiens disappeared, the event would go virtually unnoticed by the vast majority of Earth's forms.  As hominids, we dwell at the outermost fringes of important ecological processes such as photosynthesis and the conversion of biomass into usable nutrients.  No lofty language about being the paragon of animals or the torchbearer of evolution can change this ecological fact--which is a reason enough to reiterate it as often as possible.

Mercifully, perhaps, there exist other touchstones  for appraising human worth besides ecology and evolutionary theory--philosophy, literature, art, ethics, the legacy of Renaissance and Enlightenment, for the most part, that Dryzek, Bookchin and other humanist environmentalists clamor to preserve.   When, however, the issue the silencing of nature by the rhetoric of "Man" we need to find new ways to talk about human freedom, worth and purpose without eclipsing, depreciating, and objectifying the nonhuman world. Infused with the language of humanism, these traditional fields of nature are ill-equipped to do so, wedded as they are to the monologue of the human subject.


Back in the studio, the local literature scene, novel/short story is a good token of the blind, anthropocentric mode of looking at our concrete/asphalt surroundings. Take SIMONE* for example, in thet narrative there are two meaningless instances of vegetation, everything else is about the self, total alienation, absolute disconnection, indifference from the little, dull, scarce flora/fauna still with us in most metropolitan areas of isla estrella, formerly Puerto Rico, USA.

* Rodriguez Julia, Ana Lidia Vega, Luis Rafael Sanchez, are in the same bag, it is as if flora/fauna were not part of our summer time and the living ain't easy...If you think differently check them out...



ECOCRIITICISM: OTHER PERCEPTIONS ON NATURE ECOLOGY ENVIRONMENT AND LANDSCAPE

DISGUSTED with the perception, invisibility of our ecology, environment, landscape and nature for many years, I suspected there must be other views from other places that would help explain/understand the hilarious, improvised, self congratulatory, posing, useless, dull, lacking aesthetics/imagination landscape maintenance and installation in ISLA ESTRELLA, formerly Puerto Rico, USA.

It goes beyond turf, palms, Ficus, the dominant trend in that area. It includes the other fads in  water-soil, garbage collection twice a year segments of the environmental niches in the concrete/asphalt isle.  The organic agriculture, urban chickens, are in the same bag. It seems  that all these groups pretending to be useful are just trying to make some money selling whatever they have at hand and/or obtaining federal grants for the heck of it.

It is hard to believe that in 2013, no private/public group,  any government agency has any knowledge/notion of one group of people in the USA, getting rid of turf/lawns in every possible, imaginable space such as highway medians/sidewalks with tons of money saved in one hand.  On the other, the substitution of grass with ground covers, self seeding plants requiring mowing twice a year or none at all.

The elimination of tractors, mowers, trimmers, blowers with gas/oil/fumes pollution, labor is also another gain when one eradicates grass from spaces in which sports are not practiced.

The carnival of garbage collection twice a year is not the only way one could be useful in terms of our urban context, nor it is planting clams/oysters to filtrate water in Condado lagoon, or  giving away and planting trees in the wrong places as every other tree planted between the University of Isla Estrella in RIO and the Nechodoma Episcopal church.

The blind fools in charge of these groups have never noticed the undulating or broken sidewalks, the mutilated branches near the electrical wires on the Ponce de Leon avenue and every other street in the metro zone.

Most people create groups with some faint idea of what ecology, the environment is, creating more problems than solutions.  Facebook has plenty of young adults with the enthusiasm of elementary children and the principal, planting in sterile/compacted soil for example, or planting this or that for profit, including earth worms, pretending to be serious about ecology, nature, environment but motivated by profits and posing in front of the little or big hole, spade in hand.

To be continued

The Ecocriticism Reader

Landmarks in Literary Ecology

Edited by Cheryll GlotFelty & Harold Fromm

T

THREE SURGEON IN THE HOUSE

THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE with meaningless, useless, irrelevant good intentions in feisbuk.  Preachers without tools, focus, perspective, rigorous systematic habits, understanding of soil, air, water, temperature, diseases pertinent to ecological, environmental issues that your humble servant is not sure to laugh, cry, or shoot the staggering amount of fools stuck with collecting garbage as the only possibility in their feeble minds to be useful.

Restoring nature, in this case, mutilated trees, perhaps the most picturesque, unique in the whole of the Puertorican isle, for the fragrance of their flowers, resistance to disease, lack of concrete breaking root system and nice canopy.

Talk is cheap. Imagine if ten people out of the thousands infatuated with garbage collection syndrome, with the right tools, understanding of pruning, could follow me. one tree at a time...

Since that logic is not going to happen, I will continue my solitary mission, without press conferences and media attention. After all they are all a bunch of retards without vision...but prone to fever recognition desires...as the incredible jerk who recently asked me, how do I want to be remembered.

The same idiot that keeps a header in his feisbuk  spot from a foreign farm....his dream...Surely, he has never shared a photo of his farm. JERK.  dream if that is all you can do

I rather set trends as I have, than look for posing or incontrollable desires for recognition....


I

EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN ON ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES IS A WASTE.

THE MORE I LOOK AROUND, more convinced I become. All those 'educators', racketeers on the environmental bandwagon are just milking the cow, for profit/recognition, making believe to lay people, education/workshops will provide some kind of solution in 10/20/30 years to globe warming and habitat destruction.

It is cool to watch the butterfly people in Aula Verde, and every other branch of the make believe tree, to numerous to enumerate, but the greatest segment is the garbage collectors club, but that wont do.

The biggest destruction of our environment are adults, not children, therefore a little vision would demand education for employees of municipalities, private industry and homeowners.

Forget for a moment the great destruction by building/highway developers.  Habitat destruction, soil, tree, water is done by people, supine ignorant and their supervisors with trimmers, machetes, lawnmowers and diggers.

Teaching children how to build vertical gardens with wooden pallets, plant edible gardens in old polluting tires, is lame and stupid, useless and a waste of time.

Children can not use tools, in consequence being unable to destroy or restore, it would be logical to educate the culprits, those who are constantly in the field creating havoc.

that is that.

LA TIRANIA DE LA IGNORANCIA SUPINA EN PUERTO RICO

EL 23 DE JUNIO, luego de semanas de constante lluvia se me ocurrio.
Disenhar una prueba simple e irrefutable para demostrar empiricamente como la ignorancia supina que padecen los habitantes de esta insula de concreto/asfalto, en todos los aspectos de la cultura, sociedad, religion, politica, educacion, economia es un abismo de garrafales proporciones.

El objeto, el metodo es sencillo. Es una franja de tierra, ver foto a la derecha, de 160 pies de largo por 16 pulgadas de ancho,-- calcule usted palido lector el area en pies cuadrados,-- en el estacionamiento del antiguo Hospital San Carlos, crecian no menos de 25 especies de plantas, enredaderas, arbustos I arboles identificados en adicion a otras 15 sin identificar.

Todo fue destruido en un instante, para el montaje circense previamente presentado en este espacio o en los otros.  Los autores intelectuales se tumbaran 150,000 toletes en 'jardines I murales'  como esa belleza que aparece oteando un horizonte de color diarrhea.

METODOLOGIA

 

Sembrar unas 75 plantas entre semillas/division/esquejes

de unas 10 especies.

 

Calcular el tiempo de poda manual con las tijeras que aparecen en la foto.

 

Entre siembra I poda durante 5 dias, 20 minutos diarios fueron suficientes para la tarea.  Costo al erario, reconocimiento, agradecimiento: CERO.

 

Costo al municipio, magos/magas de 'murales/jardines' del las fuerzas oscurantistas, o satanicas diria Michael Castro?

 

Por lo regular son dos o tres empleados municipales o por contrato,  con cortamatorrales cuyo salario es como minimo 50 toletes al dia.

Anhada dias por vacaciones, enfermedad, dias libres.  Sumele la depreciacion del vehiculo que los transporta, la gasolina que consume I el tiempo a llegar.  Ahora calcule la gasolina/aceite en los trimmers/blowers, la contaminacion por ruido I gases.

Resultado? La destruccion total de toda la vegetacion, insectos, reptiles y aves, indirectamente al destruir su alimento/albergue.

La poda manual que llevo a cabo me permite identificar aquellas plantas que por su estetica, forma, capacidad de producir nectar  deben permanecer, reduciendo al minimo yerbas sin destruirlas en su totalidad por tener su funcion de cubresuelos evitando la erosion.  Si, palido lector, la erosion es evidente en el asfalto.

SIN EMBARGO, existe un pequenho problema, los cortamatorraleros del pais, picapalos de autopista, terroristas con trimmer no saben leer/escribir.  No tienen algun certicado en Commercial Horticulture Landscape Management, de algun jardin botanico como el de Nueva York.  Tampoco un curso de identificacion de yerbas/plantas o tres carajos, como tampoco lo tienen los arquitectos paisajistas, los supervisores de los empleados, Carmen Yulin, Liliana o el del estuario.org.

La intencion de este escrito, agua I sal para todos/as, es simple. Ante la duda, que en mi caso, es irrazonable dada la trayectoria del municipio en este espacio durante los ultimos siete anhos, es si manteniento la franja verde mas o menos cuidada, vendran los hijos de satan, terroristas con trimmer a destruir nuevamente la vegetacion.  De ocurrir eso, habria que anhadir la mala fe a la ignorancia supina genetica nacional.

Para terminar observe  estos anfibios con cuidado. Uno azul pintado magistralmente en una composicion tridimensional que parece estar vivo, pintado gratis, versus el otro que parece lapacheando en diarrea, por una parte de los 150, 000 toletes.

Pero no lo deje ahi, ignorancia supina significa lo que puede, debe hacerse I considere la bancarrota del pais.  El supermercado Selecto que se fue a quiebra en Ciudadela pagaba 55, 000 toletes mensuales de energia electrica.  Como puede cualquiera hablar/pensar/escribir sobre el desarrollo de economia alguna, cuando el costo energetico cargara con un tercio o la mitad del costo operacional?

Solo un imbecil, o aquellos de quienes hablaba Ortega I Gassett en la Revolucion de Las Masas, con un porciunculo del conocimiento en su area de trabajo/studio, se atreveria a invertir algo, o considerarlo. Para no entrar en los monumentales embotellamientos de transito insulares que acabarian por joder el costo de cualquier proyecto que requiera transporte.

Asi que si desean embarrar cuanta pared de cuanto edificio abandonado  encuentren,  como el ejemplo adjunto haganlo, es solo contaminacion visual. Pero no jodan con el medioambiente, .pretty please with sugar on top'.  Amen con pan.

PD En terminos costo/esteticos, los muchachos de la Pandilla con su peritaje, como el anfibio azul, hubiesen podido pintar algo memorable, duradero, no sobre papel, sino sobre el concreto, por cinco o diez mil dolares.   De los jardines podria encargarme yo.

 

CONSTRUYENDO EL PAISAJE

RECIENTEMENTE descubri--como de costumbre quien menos puede habla/escribe--a  ciertos personajes que no menciono, son decenas de canes con collar similar, i considerando el dominio de lo tozudo-obtuso en este circulo, respecto a los temas: en peligro de extinction, naturaleza, paisaje, ecologico, huertos caseros, corredores, parques de esto o aquello, biodiversidad, medioambiente, estuarios/tinglares/mangle, arquitectura, soberania agricola,  paisajista, etnobonaticos, ecologos, hidrologos I los que faltan ninguno/a siembra tres carajos ni posee alguna rigurosidad no importa el tema I las charlas que ofrecen con sin igual desfachatez.

Como puede hablar de 'construir el paisaje' alguien que permite con singular ceguera esto:

  Aquellas personas que se atreven a discutir estos temas deberian ser capaces de demostrar algun respeto a la inteligencia de los insulares, rigurosidad en cuanto a suelo, agua, aire, flora/fauna, naturaleza, biodiversidad. Las palabras son agua I sal, como lo seran los muralitos/jardines,  puro academicismo protagonico, solo util, saludable para los egomaniacos/as insulares.

Otra muestra de la seriedad con la cual habria que juzgar a los responsables de esta barbaridad obtusa al maximo:



Por otro lado, a quien le importa verdaderamente el entorno, el medioambiente en feisbuk, en Puerto Rico?  Cuando se ha visto a Camila I sus serruchos, declarar que las cortadoras de grama, cortamatorrales, blowers, gasolina/aceite, C02, ruidos/gases,
pesticidas, herbicidas, fungicidas, insecticidas, uso de agua potable para irrigar cesped son absolutamente incompatibles con el paisaje?
Y quienes de los mencionados/as han protestado ante la barbaridad destructiva del golf, en su puta vida?

Todos/as quienes pretenden hablar/escribir de soberania alimenticia, agricultura sostenible estan ciegos/as?  O estan inmunes a la esupidez aberrante que permea la insula? Como es possible tal indiferencia, falta de interes que realmente no requiere sino un poco de cojones/ovarios de acero, criterio, unas cuantas credenciales no vendrian mal para denunciarlo, hasta el dia del juicio final.

Un paisaje no importa si en los utopicos corredores, o los mas apremiantes/cercanos, los urbanos de concreto/asfalto, se construye con ahinco, compromiso, estudio riguroso,
teoria I praxis, como las fotitos a la derecha. No creando portales
inutiles en feisbuk sin creatividad alguna, sin otro proposito que conseguir decenas de 'like' que por cierto este servidor i la  Sociedad Horticultural Bouret  no tiene, ni pide, ni exige, ni espera, pero es absurdo que tanta gente haga click en otros portales que ni siquiera se actualizan o demuestran rigurosidad mas alla de lo personal, socializar o vender lo que tengan a mano, cabrones/as.

EARLY MORNING GUERRILLA ATTACK IN SAN CARLOS

THE enemy is like any disease, it never rests, as a result I keep watching their moves, it could be a neighbor destroying the vegetation around their residence to avoid the annoying leaves sweeping required.  Or it could be Carmen Yulin's terrorists with trimmers. She has kept the tradition started by Nuno en el Uno, this one, under the pig headed representative.  http://youtu.be/MTKfeW-_xK0

At any rate I woke up with the sound of the raindrops,  a good sign for any surprise attack, since whatever is planted has a good start, no matter if by division as in this attack or by seeds, my favorite tactic.

You have to understand, the modus operandi of them enemies...one day, when least expected, machete/trimmer in hand they will destroy everything you have done...except  the knowledge of seed viability and behavior, will allow a percentage of the whole to survive since when throwing or planting any seeds, not all of them will germinate grounds at once.

With division, I cut the leaves as  short as possible, planting as deep as necessary to allow them plants to develop a root system.  Once there are some roots if you choose correctly the machete/trimmer nature butchers can only destroy the top, while the plant recovers coming back after a while.  An on and on, destruction, restoration.

This link is one of various post on the subject if you search under guerrilla gardening here, you will be able to see the trajectory.
http://antigonumcajaneveningpost.blogspot.com/2010/11/tips-for-tropical-guerrilla-gardening.html

The enemy never rests, you have to stay in shape, good stamina and physical condition, otherwise, they will defeat you.  Attack and vencera!
Them pollinators, other flora/fauna will be grateful for your cojones, even if the enemy and collaborators will laugh at your efforts while watching their useless lives fading away.