T R A P E Z E
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coldValentine
Sunday, October 11, 2026
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Vision
H U M A N E Y E
The eye senses light and passes along this information
to the brain. The mind's visual cortex receives these
impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.
The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that
may occur in transmission. It also collaborates with the
emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.
Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots
provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a
gagging sense of revulsion.
B A L D E A G L E
The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect
a rabbit from two miles away. Its eye has five times
the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.
The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly
grey shaded monochromatic. Their eyes are packed
with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost
no room for the eye's color-responding cones.
S U M A T R A N T I G E R
The black and white nocturnal vision of the
Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,
deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest
as well as the dark of night. You cannot see it
but it definitely has its eyes on you.
W H A L E
The left eye of the whale has an entirely different
watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.
They see most poorly in every direction, except for
in front. They have no view of the direction they are
headed, explaining one reason why whales are known
to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets. This applies
mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as
the blue whale and gray whale.
Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation
to chase down their prey.
C O Y O T E
The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in
the fullest of night and at dusk. But their noses and
their ears play the more important role in the life of
this predator. Their highly sensitive nose is best used
for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly
detect the slightest movement and the precise
direction from which it came.
B A T
Bats are not blind. They have eyes of varying ability.
Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon
and a heads up on large obstacles. Echolocation
is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space
around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.
Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the
aid of color. Most have no capacity for echolocation.
Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources
on providing traits they don't need.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Friday, October 9, 2026
Sunday, October 4, 2026
Saturday, October 3, 2026
Reason
S E L F A W A R E
Vitruvian Man
da Vinci
Humans don't settle for just being.
We have our own specific identity
and we want it to have purpose.
Why do I exist?
What should I do?
How do I fit in?
These are questions requiring reflection -
objective observation of one's own personal
characteristics as well as one's role in society.
Physical sustenance alone is never enough
to sustain the life of the mind.
A G R I C U L T U R E
Farming. Growing crops for future food.
Provide water and protection for the plants.
You understand time as a string of days.
There is a time to plant, time to nurture and
time to harvest. These seasons repeat as a
group into a year. Tracking the paths of stars
in the night sky enabled ancient farmers to
calculate where they were in the plant's
life cycle. Observation and simple math
enabled humanity to harvest a surplus,
providing enough food to support the
creation of towns.
E N G I N E E R I N G
Ziggurat of Ur
2100 BC
You need a plan.
What will it look like?
How long will it take?
How many builders will be needed ?
What kind of material is best to use?
What about the weather?
Where's the money?
We will need engineers and mathematicians.
Of course, this all has to be recorded so hire
a good number of scribes.
P O L I T I C S
What a clever species we are.
We organize to get things done.
Someone has to be in charge.
Rulers were made King.
Laws are made to govern behavior.
Disputes arise between societies that
sometimes require the lethal use of force.
Politics involves the acquiring of power
and then its efficient use for governing.
A R T
Venus of Willendorf
About 30,000 years ago someone carved
the woman of their desire. She was
four inches tall, a token of sensual form.
Her compact curves fit comfortably in the
palm of one's hand - just small enough
to take with you wherever your group
chanced to wander.
The head is under a basket. Could be
this prehistoric artist figured carving
facial features too difficult. Could be
that art doesn't always follow logic.
F A I T H
Life ever lasting. Heaven awaits those
of faith. It is a sacred story involving
redemption, as God had his son crucified
for the sake of cleansing humanity of
their sins.
Stories of faith address questions that have
answers science cannot provide. Like matters
of the spirit, sacred events leave no physical
trance for our detection. Undoubtedly,
much remains beyond the ability of our
current scientific instruments to discover.
But it will still need to be physical to detect.
Organizations promoting spiritual values often
validate human feelings of empathy, as well as
setting standards for decency and fairness.
Love thy neighbor.
What a concept.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
Sunday, September 27, 2026
Saturday, September 26, 2026
Recent Life
H E S P E R O C Y O N / A N C I E N T D O G F A M I L Y
The long muzzled face looks like a dog.
The stance could be shared with a cat.
Long neck. Long tail. Too long for a
modern dog. The long torso allows for
considerable bend - like a greyhound.
The spring of the back adds to the animal's
propulsion. The leg's backward knee is
actually the animal's ankle. Beneath it
are the foot bones that never touch ground.
I C E A G E E L E P H A N T
The Pleistocene extends back over two million years.
It was a time of fluctuating cooling and warming climates.
At its peak the last Ice Age covered 30 percent of the
globe's land area. The fossils of this species of elephant
were uncovered in South America. Elephants populated
the Earth everywhere.
P A L A E O L O X O D O N A N T I Q U U S
Thirteen feet tall at the shoulders.
Just about fifteen tons on the scale.
It's hard to come up with the name
of a four-legged mammal that is larger.
The diverse and widespread family of
elephants is now reduced to a shrinking
pool, mostly domesticated or protected
inhabitants of government lands.
A L L I N T H E F A M I L Y
Flat footed. Every member of this family of species
uses its foot bones for feet, and not a leg extension.
The tree dwellers, Gibbons and Orangutan,
have arms that reach the full length of their body to
touch the ground. The Gorilla's head is larger than the
human's but half of its skull is made up of a massive jaw.
Only the human stance is totally vertical. What truly
stands out, though, is the size of the human cranium,
where the brain resides, holding within its confines
the ability of reason and imagination.
P R I M A T E R E S O R T
This lakeside resort is representative of a Pleistocene
environment that primates of all sorts continue to favor.
It has a healthy forest, access to plenty of water as well
as providing a comfortable, mild climate for lounging.
It's ideal for gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees and
gorillas. Humans would add a Hyatt.
S A B E R T O O T H
11,000 years ago Ice Age saber toothed tigers
inhabited what is now Los Angeles. There were likely
human witnesses to the likes of these Saber Tooths,
Mammoth Elephants and Giant Sloughs.
It is in this arena that human awareness may first
separate these people from the ancients.
It is the isolation of human consciousness.
A new story begins.
* * * * *
© Tom Taylor
OVER EASY
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