Oriole and Peacocks

Sounds like a fable, doesn't it?

I biked to Midway, back via Ft Springs. 34.5 miles, 2h50m. Beautiful morning, sunny and cool but windy.

I saw a baltimore oriole on US62 just south of Midway. Amazingly bright orange, he flew ahead of me down the road for a while.

I saw and heard the peacocks on Moores Mill Rd. I think they're at Elkview Farm, at the top of the hill up from the creek. No tail displays, but the chest feathers are such a brilliant iridescent blue. I was thinking, "This is the place with the peacocks, wonder if there are any ..." and then heard one call -- loud and distinctive, no mistaking it for anything else.

Finished my 2nd library book, "Surface Detail", by Iain M. Banks. It is a Culture novel, I think he's done about 6 or 7 of these. I love The Culture -- an advanced, "8th level", post-singularity galaxy-spanning pan-human civilization. Artificial intelligence is ubiquitous, in orbital and ship minds in particular. Wow, an extensive Wikipedia article -- "anarchist, socialist, and utopian". Most of the stories seem to deal with The Culture dealing with more primitive civilizations. My son loved the 2nd Culture novel "The Player of Games" (1988).

"Anarchist, socialist, and utopian" -- what's not to like? I mean seriously, how do conservatives see the future? Or are they too busy trying to reclaim the past to think about the future? Right now, this very moment, there is enough food to feed the entire world. But 20% of the world is starving because of politics. When are we going to quit letting the "haves" get away with saying "there's not enough to go around". They've been saying that for 6000 years, and it's a lie now more than ever.