Global Amity

This morning I was angling for carp off the fishing pier at Lake Byllesby Regional Park in Dakota County Minnesota with my father. Around a 10 am, after a morning of fruitless fishing, a group of Karen children flooded the fishing pier. Shortly thereafter my father hooked a decent sized bass. The commentary was not in English, but the children grew excited as my father reeled in the fish and cheered when he landed it. After removing the hook my father asked, “Anyone want it?” The answer was loud and unanimous from the children. A little girl, perhaps seven years old, reached out and grabbed the fish with both hands. I was impressed by their willingness to take the fish and their lack of the misconception that grocery stores and restaurants are the only sources of food.

There the Jew, the Mohammedan, and the Christian transact business together as though thy were all of the same religion, and give the name of infidels to none but bankrupts;

The above was written by Voltaire in regards to the financial industry in London of the eighteenth century. The full citation can be found on page 119 of The Age of Voltaire by Ariel & Will Durant.

This salamander was encountered on a turkey hunt in the Whitewater Wildlife Management Area in southeastern Minnesota on October 26, 2010.

It was quite docile and didn’t seem at all bothered by the temperature. I learned later at Oxbow Park that the salamanders in SE MN do quite well in cool temperatures. It was surprising to see the salamander out in the open on a trail in an area that offered lots of exposure to predators.

The following passage is taken from the final chapter of The Age of Louis XIV by Will & Ariel Durant. The chapter covers France’s decline of power, influence, and economic might during the end of the reign of King Louis XIV. I found it timely since large corporations are currently sitting on over $1 trillion in cash equivalents with no apparent idea for how to use meaningfully use those funds while nearly 10% of the American workforce is unemployed.

Taxes rose even as prosperity declined. Colbert’s massive system of state-regulated commerce and industry had begun to collapse before his death (1683). Partly it died through the drain of men from farms and factories to camps and battlefields. Chiefly it died through self-strangulation: governmental regulations stifled the growth that might have come under less supervisions and restraint, more liberty to breathe, to experiment, and to err. Enterprise found itself bound by a maze of orders and penalties; the complex mechanism of economic activity, moved by the toilsome hunger of the many and the inventive greed of the few, groaned and stumbled under a monutain of rules, and threatened to halt. So soon as 1685 we hear the cry of laissaz faire, sixty-five years before Quesnay and Turgot, ninety-one before Adam Smith. “The supreme secret,” said one of Louis XIV’s intendants, “is to allow complete freedom of trade. Never had manufacturers and commerce so wasted away in this realm as since we have taken in into our heads to build them up by decrees of the state.”

The following pictures were taken in Seattle, Washington between July 17 and 20 of 2010. The city’s prevalence of locally grown and organic produce makes Minneapolis seem like a corporatist stronghold.

These photos don’t necessarily show it, but Seattle was overcast and dreary a great amount of the time. As a Minnesotan I found this surprising for July.

These photos were taken in the spring of 2010 while the water was high in the Long meadow Lake Unit of the Minnesota River Valley National Wildlife Refuge.

These photographs were taken on a hike to the top of Angels’ Landing in Zion Nation Park on May 12, 2009.

On January 17, 2010 Evan Finnes and Peter Beacom hiked off trail into the Superior National Forest to investigate the rock formations around Tonic Lake.

The purpose of our visit was for Evan to investigate the origins of the rather circular depression surrounding the lake. I provided the 4×4 vehicle and Evan provided the fuel. Evan also brought a new pair of snow shoes and I did not. It was interesting to see the difference the snow shoes made. Evan was able to move through marshy lowlands twice as fast as me in my boots.

Tonic Lake lies north of Tomahawk Road and south of the Bounary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.  We drove north from Tomahawk road on a forest service road that recently had only seen use by snowmobiles. We parked along a fork in the road south of the lake and continued in on foot. We spent about three hours hiking up and down ridges, photographing rocks, and traversing a frozen marshland, until we eventually reached Tonic Lake.

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