water column

Oceanographers in Queensland for the first time have produced a comprehensive, global map charting out the pristine, untouched areas of oceanic wilderness, which sadly reveals that there is only a small percentage not already befouled by mankind.
Researchers admit that they were expecting to find much broader expanses of unspoilt waters and ecosystems but these contrary results, testament to the endless assault that people are waging with careless pollution, climate change heating up waters and disrupting currents, over-fishing, sand-mining (the chief component of all the concrete and glass that goes into new construction) and intensive shipping, demonstrate the degree of negative, disruptive impact that humans have had above and below the waves.

liner notes

On this day thirty five years ago, Madonna released her eponymous debut album, including the songs “Borderline, “Lucky Star” and “Holiday.” Dismissed by some critics at the time as a one hit-wonder, the artist thanked them during her induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a quarter of a century after the album’s release offering that “they pushed me to be better and I am grateful for their resistance.” In that spirit, we should take a moment to appreciate the influence and the legacy of this opening opus.

outstanding in his field

Reading a gentle and sincere appreciation of sparing a lone oak tree in a field and speculating on the farmer’s motivations for doing so inspired me to share one of our favourite examples that we pass quite often. I’ll admit that I have a weakness for pausing to admire a windbreak or a tree thriving in isolation.

mcmlxxxviii

A hat-tip to and in full agreement with the source that directed our attention to another visual chronicle from Alan Taylor exclaiming that 1988 doesn’t seem like three decades ago but here we are.
We enjoyed perusing some of the iconic images of the cultural and historic touchstones of the year that punctuated with (the mostly not pictured) establishment of the internet with the first trans-Atlantic connections and also the advent of the first computer viruses (you don’t get the automobile without the traffic jam and car wreck), the Soviet Union began to transition away from a strictly command economy and travel-restrictions were relaxed, the discovery of the first exoplanet—though unconfirmed until 2002, and the beginning of the campaign to eradicate polio.