Earth

[close] Join author Sharman Apt Russell, recent winner of the 2016 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Nature Writing, for a conversation about our relationship to the Earth. Recently I had to give a short speech and found myself talking about this exchange with a friend: “Once,” my friend said, “I believed the Earth was my mother.” Yes, I thought, I remember that. We are shaped in our mother’s womb. We drink from her. We eat from her. Every day she nurtures us with so many gifts. She loves us. She loves me. Then, later in his life, my friend replaced the image of the mother with that of the lover—what he called “matedness.” Yes, I nodded. We have covered the Earth. It would be too easy now to joke about infidelity, estrangement, divorce. Instead I give the metaphor its due: we are the bride of the world, and we are the groom. Our human consciousness, interpenetrated, mated with the Earth. Next my friend said, “And now I think of the future as our child.” And this caught at my heart. This made me feel something new. The future is our child. * * * This event invites your thoughts on the image of “the future as our child.” Pop in and post. I’m interested in your ideas.

[close] Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space ~ Carl Sagan “Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives.  The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena.Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny #world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”  Join us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JJBOOKS100?s=09

[close] The year is 2053, the world has gone to hell with the undead, you and your comrades of the only soldiers alive. You belong to the sector 7G which is the last standing army squad alive in this world. You and your friends are the only hope for this world to get better, and Zombie free.

[close] A place to discuss all the unique aspects of Deaf culture as highlighted in the thriller Silent Fear (A novel inspired by true crimes) by Lance & James Morcan. This group can also be an intersection of sorts where Deaf and hearing people can engage and learn from each other.