Still Gravity

The prospect of finding alien life is exciting, but... like the writer Arthur C. Clarke said: Two possibilities exist: Either we are alone in the Universe or we are not. Both are equally terrifying. All depends on what we find - if we find anything at all.  Stephen Hawking opened the can of fear. He was fine with listening and looking from the shadows; not much with telling where we are in the universe.  There are risks in meeting other civilizations no matter how intelligent they are. In 2010, Hawking reminded: We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet.

Finally, I read it.  The Road to Oxiana covers Byron's ten-month journey through the Middle East and Central Asia in the 1930s - Oxiana goes for the Oxian River, the ancient name for the Amu Darya.  The style is interesting. The book reads like short slices of life that sometimes morph into longer entries. Especially when Byron got caught in its favorite topic: ancient architecture. He was a connoisseur that never graduated from Oxford.  Sometimes the lecture crashes into opinionated tirades such as Byron's views of the Buddhas of Bamiyan . Some will puzzle the modern reader. For him, the statues were "unfresh art" made of "unbeautiful material". He didn't see originality there, just a mix of "Persian, Indian, Chinese, and Hellenistic" art - at that time, parts of the  Buddhas were already gone.  His views on Persian art were different. Byron delights profusely in the splendor of the Sheikh Lotfollah Mosque , that masterpiece from the 17th cent

Historical marker in Floral City, Florida - License our images  here .         The longest bicycle trail of Florida crosses this town with old tales to tell. The Withlacoochee State Trail was an old railway repurposed by the state for recreation. Before talking about Floral City, check this montage of our photos to get an idea of the place.   The Timucuan village of Tocaste lasted over 800 years in the spot of Floral City. Then passed by the Spanish explorers Pánfilo de Narváez and Hernando de Soto , and after the 18th century there was the Seminole Indian village  Cho-illy-hadjo  - I guess it survived until the start of the Second Seminole War in 1835.  The oldest surviving home in Floral City is the Duval House. Its owner, John Paul Formy-Duval, was one of the first white settlers of the area. His father was a French doctor that came to America fleeing the bloody French Revolution. John Paul served in the Confed

Visiting Dade Battlefield Historic State Park - License our images  here .  Now looks beautiful and peaceful, but in this spot in December of 1835 a bloody Indian ambush started the Second Seminole War.  Seminole warriors attacked an American column of 110 men travelling from Fort Brooke (Tampa) to Fort King (Ocala). Only three men survived the battle. The commander of the troop,  Major Francis L. Dade , was also killed in the battle.  This battle was also known as the Dade Massacre - the Indians returned and killed any survivor they found. The park has markers at the places where officers felt. You can see them in this collage of our photos.

From his  Gitanjali .  Days and nights pass and ages bloom and fade like flowers. We have no time to lose, and having no time we must scramble for chances. Only let me make my life simple and straight, like a flute of reed for thee to fill with music. Ask not what I have with me to take there. I start on my journey with empty hands and expectant heart. The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long. I can see nothing before me. I wonder where lies thy path! Light, oh where is the light? Kindle it with the burning fire of desire! I must launch out my boat. The languid hours pass by on the shore—Alas for me! The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. I keep gazing on the far-away gloom of the sky, and my heart wanders wailing with the restless wind. From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door, and I know that of a sudden the happy moment will arrive when I

Latin manuscript, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Florence - Image: Public Domain.  If you walk around and randomly ask who Seneca was, I bet most people will have no idea. But how to blame them for not knowing about a guy from the times before the phones, the web, and Netflix. At the end, what can Seneca teach us about life in this era of high technology and disinformation? And, by the way, who the hell was Seneca?  Lucius Annaeus Seneca History calls him Seneca the Younger. Not because he looked young and cool, it was just not to confuse him with his father who, in a very "original" way, was called Seneca the Elder - he was an expert in rhetorical matters.  Seneca the Younger was born in Hispania and raised in Rome, but because he suffered some breathing issues - probably asthma -, also spent some time chilling out in the faraway lands of Egypt.  Being part of a family of writers and politicians, our man couldn't avoid getting involved with Imperial powers and politics.