Welcome 2008!
Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty
light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him
die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the
snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the
true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no
more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all
mankind.
Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring
in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the
times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel
in.
Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the
spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of
good.
Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of
gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of
peace.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Image: D. Morris
...
Felice Anno Nuovo, Gelukkig Nieuwjaar, Antum salimoun,
Feliz Ano Novo, Xin Nian Kuai Le, Bonne Annee, Sun Leen Fai Lok,,
Selamat Tahun Baru, L'Shannah Tovah, Feliz Año Nuevo, Prosit Neujahr, Akimashite
Omedetto Gozaimasu, Manigong Bagong Taon, Happy New Year!
"The impulse to keep a diary is to actual diaries as the impulse to go
on a diet is to actual slimness. Most of us do wish that we were slim
diarists. It’s not that we imagine that we would be happier if we kept
a diary; we imagine that we would be better—that diarizing is a
natural, healthy thing, a sign of vigor and purpose, a statement, about
life, that we care, and that non-diarizing or, worse, failed
diarizing is a confession of moral inertia, an acknowledgment, even, of
the ultimate pointlessness of one’s being in the world. Still,
rationally considered, what is natural or healthy about writing down
what happened every day in a book that no one else is supposed to read?
Isn’t there something a little O.C.D. about this kind of behavior?
Writing is onerous (especially with an ultra-thin pencil)—writing feels
like work because it is work—and, day by day, life is pretty
routine, repetitive, and, we should face it, boring. So why do a few
keep diaries, when diary-keeping is, for many, too much?..."
An Explorer's Notebook is an exhilarating selection of Tim Flannery's essays and articles written over a period of twenty-five years. In them we see his evolution from the young scientist doing fieldwork in remote locations to the major thinker who has changed the way we all think about climate and the threat that global warming presents to our planet.
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