Sunflowers near Arles

There are now 61 trees per person, according to recent satellite images taken of Earth. 

A record six species of fish returned to healthy levels in 2011, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported to Congress on Monday, including the Chinook salmon along the northern California coast, the coho salmon off Washington State, and the Pacific widow rockfish.

Sunflowers turned last summer toward the sun, in fields near Arles, France, one sunflower pretty much looking like another sunflower, just as they had for centuries.

The late Johnny Carson said this about performing: "You can be the center of attention without being yourself."

To know

How to accomodate this great desire to know?

To know what's happening, and to know before others know.

By the time it's in the newspapers it's too late.

Very little on television is worth knowing. Only sports and old black and white movies.

At a certain time of day and in a certain light, we can actually see the stuff we're breathing and it's not a pretty sight. Better not to have seen and to keep on breathing.

We make the world up by how we look at things. Looking at the world this way, dust is only the earth coming back to itself, to make a new beginning.

Yes, it's good to know and to be slightly ahead of the others, but not so far ahead that you know so much more than they know you make them uncomfortable.

Japantown, San Francisco

We wake up thinking about the things no one else wants to think about.

For instance:

When did all three branches of our government (executive, legislative, and judicial) become subsumed by the military?

Is the writing of Paul Auster as good as bad writing gets or as bad as good writing can be? Did George Oppen write long short poems or short long poems?

Are we 1) living the life we've wanted to live, 2) living the life someone else wanted us to live or 3) living the life we thought someone else wanted us to live?

There's no sleep left in us when we wake. Any nightmares we might have had are erased by the pleasant memory of the dinner of Wappa-Meshi and green tea ice cream at the restaurant Maki, and the notebooks bought at Kinokuniya Bookstore in which to record our dreams.

Gerhard Richter

Abstracting the abstraction is what Gerhard Richter the painter is so good at.

He's an image-making monster, but reserved, self-effacing.

In his book, "Gerhard Richter, The Daily Practice of Painting--Writings 1962-1993" (MIT Press, 1998), there's an interview with Richter that has this exchange:

     Q: What reason is there for continuing to paint?

     A:  Money

Watching Richter work,which is allowed in the movie called Gerhard Richter, it becomes clear that Richter doesn't like being watched. The paintings he is making at the time he is being watched and filmed for the movie are large abstractions on which he applies paint mainly with a large leveling instrument that he manuevers over the canvas skillfully, using two hands. Think of a giant windshield wiper as made by Charles Ray.

Richter apparently cleans his own tools, which is admirable considering his status and age.

Mr. Obama's earring

VP Biden tried it on first.

It fit pretty well but the color was shocking. And VP Biden wasn't quite sure where to wear it, on the right ear or the left?

It actually looked a little better on Sec. of Education Duncan, a younger man more comfortable with this powerful voting bloc who tried it on before VP Biden but in much more private quarters. Sec. Duncan, sent out to scout the territory for VP Biden and Pres. Obama,  wore his on his right ear, which is the preferred place for sending the proper signal. (Michael Jordan wears his on his left ear, a sign of comfortable male hetrosexuality, diamond stud by Tiffany.)

Pres. Obama, an evolved and evolving male, then said , "I have to tell you, it's taken me some time but I'm comfortable, I have to tell you, it's taken me some time but, I have to tell you that at a certain point I've just concluded that for me, I have to tell you, it is important for me to go ahead, I have to tell you, and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married." 

A CNN Poll taken in late March indicated that policies towards gay and lesbians were tied for last in the most-important issues facing the country.

A picture of Pres. Obama' s earring was not available at presstime.