Wergosum's Random Blog | People’s opinions…

20131227: A quote about US (and Western!) attitude towards wolves. From: M.P. Nelson, J.A. Vucetich, R.O. Peterson & L.M. Vucetich. 2010. The Isle Royale Wolf – Moose Project (1958-present) and the Wonder of Long-Term Ecological Research. Endeavour 35(1):30-38. Downloadable from http://www.isleroyalewolf.org/wolfhome/tech_pubs.html.

These were some of the darkest days for wolves in North America. North Americans of European descent had beensystematically hunting, trapping, and poisoning wolves forhundreds of years. The US government, through the US Biological Survey, had been actively engaged in a wolf eradication program that was redolent of genocide – or perhaps more accurately ‘genuscide’. Wolf eradicationwent far beyond the presumed ‘practical necessity’ of removing a threat to livelihood. Wolves were, in fact, vilified

and hated. This hatred manifest itself in sometimes gruesome fashion, where wolves would be trapped and systematically tortured to death.

For many people, ‘wolves notonly deserved death but deserved to be punished for living’. Or, as Durward Allen himself put it, ‘To them a

carnivorous animal is not wildlife; he is the enemy of all honest wildlife. The wolfdoesn’t live in the forest; he infests it. You don’t just kill a predator; you execute him. You don’t hunt him for sport; you track him down in a crusade for moral reform’.

20131122: Jacques du Guerny

Le sexe est une interface (si l’on peut dire) majeure de la communication

20130113: The International Herald Tribune Asia Edition, KindleLoc. 1873-74

Mr. Wilson demonstrates that historically the destruction of cities has not been a way of winning wars; it is the destruction of armies that counts.

From The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-but Some Don’t (by Nate Silver,2012), Kindle Loc. 7199-7200

Vladimir Lenin said that “the purpose of terrorism is to terrorize.”

20130112, received from Wolfgang, the “poem” below by Ross Coggins (The expert died in 2011. He spent much of his working life with USAID, but also did some time with FAO.)

The Development Set

Excuse me, friends, I must catch my jet –
I’m off to join the Development Set;
My bags are packed, and I’ve had all my shots,
I have travellers’ cheques and pills for the trots.

The Development Set is bright and noble,
Our thoughts are deep and our vision global;
Although we move with the better classes,
Our thoughts are always with the masses.

In Sheraton hotels in scattered nations,
We damn multinational corporations;
Injustice seems so easy to protest,
In such seething hotbeds of social rest.

We discuss malnutrition over steaks
And plan hunger talks during coffee breaks.
Whether Asian floods or African drought,
We face each issue with an open mouth.

We bring in consultants whose circumlocution
Raises difficulties for every solution –
Thus guaranteeing continued good eating
By showing the need for another meeting.

The language of the Development Set,
Stretches the English alphabet;
We use swell words like ‘epigenetic’
‘Micro’, ‘Macro’ and ‘logarithmetic’.

Development Set homes are extremely chic,
Full of carvings, curios and draped with batik.
Eye-level photographs subtly assure
That your host is at home with the rich and the poor.

Enough of these verses – on with the mission!
Our task is as broad as the human condition!
Just pray to God the biblical promise is true:
The poor ye shall always have with you.

20090407, Dr. Hanif, Islamabad

Urbanization is the sister of globalization.

Any time between 14661012 and 15360712, a quote by Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, taken from: Daniel Blampain, André Goosse, Jean-Marie-Klinkenberg, Marc Wilmet, 1997. Le français en Belgique, Duculot, Gembloux, page 369

[Le français est une] langue barbare et anormale qui s’écrit autrement qu’elle ne se prononce, et qui possède des sons stridents qui lui sont propres et des accents qui n’ont rien d’humain