Viewing the World

SeaBrook, Lockeport, Nova Scotia, 8/19/18, 9AM

It's Sunday morning.  I'm in my "Observatory"'. How I've come to think of my Sunporch, where I spend most of my time at my country home in Nova Scotia.

"Seabrook", because it is bounded by the ocean Sea and a large Brook.

This is a great place to observe the natural world out my windows into the garden, forest, and the Atlantic Ocean.

Here I can watch the Hummingbirds getting drunk at my sugar water feeder.  An eagle or hawk high in the trees. The ducks and herrings in the cove. An occasional boat far out on the sea.

It's chilly this morning.  Even though it's August. That can happen here. Far from the fires raging in British Columbia and California and Australia or the heat of Baltimore.  I've even turned on my electric heater. The first time this year.

I'm feeling warm, safe and content.  As through my large powerful tripod mounted binoculars, I watch the waves crashing against the base of the Gull Rock lighthouse, 3 miles out to sea in the great Atlantic Ocean.

A violence I'm happy to observe from afar.



Thanks to the Internet I can observe the Whole World from here.

It's not a perfect Sunday.  My favorite Sunday NYTimes writer, Maureen Dowd, is not opining today.

Or so I thought, but then it became as good as perfect, in spite of missing this favorite ingredient.

Quite by chance, I encountered two great videos surfing the Internet: Steve Job's famous commencement speech at Stanford which I'd watched years ago.  And then one I'd not seen before, equally impressive: Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg's commencement speech at Harvard last year.

With the free world's values so threatened by political developments, what a delight to find, much to my surprise, from this quite unexpected source, a great message of hope and inspiration.

I thought you might like it too.  So here it is.

Thanks for reading and watching!