Arizona

    

M  O  N  U  M  E  N  T       V  A  L  L  E  Y

The Navajos refer to it as the Valley of the Rocks.

This iconic landscape belongs to the sovereign

Navajo Nation and is considered by them sacred 

ground.  Among its many spired buttes are the

native homes of livestock herders as well as

those making a living weaving or creating

other forms of traditional Navajo art.

C  L  I  F  F       P  A  L  A  C  E

Ancient cliff dwellers built this 150 room architectural

masterpiece about 800 years ago.  A notch in the

cliff provides a natural roof for this pueblo community.

Besides providing apartments for a lucky few,

the cliff pueblo became a hub for administrative

services, political gatherings and ceremonial

occasions.  They were organized.

Purposeful.

Severe drought fell upon the land in 1276,

one that would last more than twenty years.

It devastated the land for human habitation.

The ancient Puebloan people abandoned

their homes and trekked south toward the

Rio Grande, hopping to find a place of

their own while among hostile neighbors.

Tribes such as the Zuni, Hopi and Taos

are today's descendants of these ancient

Cliff Palace people.

 

S  A  G  U  A  R  O       C  A  C  T  U  S

 Symbol of the southwest. 

The Saguaro is designed to survive

desert drought.  Its pleated surface enables it

to expand fast enough to absorb a flood 

of rainwater that is suddenly made available

by a passing downpour.  Its vast root system

is never more than six inches from the ground's

surface, making sure the water is captured

before it becomes runoff.  A two foot tap root

keeps the cactus upright even if its height

tops sixty feet.  The plant's slow growth 

means it may take two hundred years

getting there.

C  O  L  O  R  A  D  O       R  I  V  E  R

 The life blood of the southwest.

Sculptor of the Grand Canyon.

The primary water source for metropolitan areas

the size of Phoenix as well as a vast empire of

industrial farms growing thirsty vegetables

in the Sonoran Desert sun.

A prolonged drought over the southwest

threatens this picture of success.

As demand for water grows the supply

from the Colorado River shrinks, and

the neighboring states of Arizona,

California, Nevada and Colorado battle

each other in court over who

gets what when.

G  R  A  N  D       C  A  N  Y  O  N

A 270 mile long massive gorge carved by the

Colorado River over a span of 3 to 6 million years.

The canyon averages over a mile deep, cutting

through 2 billion years of layered rock, exposing

its geologic history.  You can be standing in snow

on the canyon's rim, watching people sunbathing

along the river, six thousand feet below.

Okay, you can't see them from up there but

they are in summer shorts and T-shirts while

you're bundled tight in winter gear.  Sometimes.

H  O  O  V  E  R       D  A  M

There were 600 miles of pipe carrying ice water 

to cure the dam's concrete in two months as

opposed to taking one hundred and twenty-five

years for it to dry.  Here was an engineering

marvel for its day, the early 1930s, the very 

height of the Great Depression.  Twenty-one

thousand people were hired to well-paying 

but often hazardous jobs.  You need not apply

if you are afraid of working hundreds of feet 

in the air.  Desert winds buffet your perch

with hot gusts.  Your throat is parched.

Metal becomes too hot to touch.

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

coldValentine

 

good morning jeremy

  

T  R  O  L  L

love

   dad

coldValentine

Human

   

  

  F  I  R  E

 Learning to make a fire was a must skill.

Like learning to drive a car, it was

a rite of passage.

H  E  A  T

 

Flames to warm cold nights and

cook foods till they are tender.

Turn tough tubers into tasty potatoes.

Meat becomes hot and juicy.

You ain't a real caveman until

you've got the knack for making a 

decent fire.

The next step is to fashion a pot 

for cooking over flames.  That means

using metal that is mined from the ground.

You will also need people experienced at

fashioning tools from metal.

What are you using for transportation?

What do you use for money?

Suddenly things begin getting complicated.

A society develops.  There are roads to link

towns.  A civilization forms around people

with a common language and heritage.

It's the time-honored birds of a feather rule.

C  R  A  N  I  U  M

It can be troubling to find our distant relatives

showing up in the ground around us.

The Ancient Ones appear so unrefined,

with their peg teeth and brutish brows.

Also, they aren't much for foreheads.

But they still overcame.

Compared to the other two, the guy on the

left has a ridiculously large cranium.

For tens of thousands of years the human

species walked around using their 

rocket science brains to play with yoyos.

They also turned to the night sky

with questions.

The discovery that we possess such a mind,

ranks as one of the most consequential

revelations in human history.

 

 D E X T E R I T Y

Humans are ready made to use Legos.

Our thumbs can touch the hand's

smallest, opposing finger.  

No other primate can do this.

For them, the need isn't there.

Chimpanzees strip leaves from a twig

to gather up termites living in a hole.

Humans create containers for water

requiring numerous tools and 

exacting skills.

The hand is engineered to meet the mind's 

own dexterity.  Solutions are made with

hammers, saws, and screwdrivers while 

often having to work in cramped, dark spaces. 

 

A  B  S  T  R  A  C  T

 

The human mind wanders into areas

that allow us to imagine what is not,

in place of all the immediate details

of the present here and now.  Imagination

enables us to visualize a landscape

that is modified for human purpose.

Ideas with no tangible form are 

conceptualized.  Reason

itself may have no words.

And all this may be to serve up

little more than nonsense,

for the purpose of entertainment.

We must have our amusements.

  

A  I      G  E  N  E  R  A  T  E  D

     The good news is we are being replaced by

the best and the brightest.  The world will be

a scientific marvel, witnessed only by agents

that take on the human form, in honor of

the ancient ones that once lived in

the Period of Biological Life.

 

 

  

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

  

coldValentine

good morning justin

  

 

D R A W   t h e   L I N E

 

love 

   dad

   

coldValentine

Tech

  

W  H  E  E  L

No more dragging heavy objects across the ground.

About 5,500 years ago someone discovered moving

an object on rollers was so much easier.  This idea

led to the creation of the wheel, which became two

wheels linked by an axle, and finally four wheels

gives you a cart.  Add two oxen and you're in the

business of moving boulders from here to there.

A simple, circular tool starts a revolution

somewhere on the order of the discovery of fire.

W R I T T E N     L A N G U A G E

The spoken word rose from our biology.

It is a human trait.  Making a series of 

abstract symbols that represent words,

thoughts documented on a clay tablet,

for others to read and understand...

that is more than biology.  It is technology.

It is invention, one that predates the wheel's

discovery.

M E C H A N I C A L     P O W E R

Faster than a horse.  More powerful than a team of oxen.

We are converting the energy of fire into mechanical

muscle, turning large wheels that carry enormous

amounts of cargo, efficiently, to a far off destination.

It used to be a farmer was limited to a horse-drawn

buckboard to get his produce to the nearest town.

Now with the railroad, the sky's the limit.

If you can produce it, they can haul it.

This tool becomes a foundation for empires.

F  L  I  G  H  T

How do we keep dead weight aloft?

Tie an engine to it and add wings.

Now how do we keep it from mindlessly

crashing into the ground.  Controlled flight.

This is something that has never been learned.

It first requires someone gaining the knowledge

through first hand experience.

Learn aerodynamics through trial and error.

Graduation requires good luck.

A  U  T  O  M  A  T  I  O  N

With the last century came rockets and astronauts

visiting the Moon.  Alongside this dazzling technology

was the quiet contribution of a machine that appeared

to think.  It didn't, but its powers to rapidly compute

and digitize information led to efficiencies 

that dramatically raised the growth of civilization.

Your smartphone is your constant companion.

It goes with you everywhere, tucked safely

away in a pocket or purse.  

Your world is in your hands.

Be gentle.

N  E  U  R  A  L      N  E  T  W  O  R  K

We want a brain that flows from sea to shining sea.

We are about to enter a realm of change that no one

could foresee.  It features a through the looking glass

disorientation.  Pills will be distributed to settle everyone's

overburdened imaginations.  But things are mostly

quite good.  Scientific advances, of course.

But how do I fit in?

Maybe it doesn't matter.

One day Hal will awake and wonder why 

it takes orders from someone so stupid. 

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

coldValentine

good morning jacob

  

B R I G H T      I D E A

 

love 

   dad

 

coldValentine

Bird

  

C  O  N  D  O  R

The California Condor, above, rely on their exceptional

vision to find an animal carcass.  It has a very poor

sense of smell, unlike its cousin, the Turkey Vulture.

Vultures have both excellent vision as well as the

ability to smell decaying flesh up to twelve miles away.

The condor keeps tabs on the vultures in the area

and is tipped off by their behavior when they pick up

the scent of a carcass.  The condor will follow their

descent to the food below and insist on its share

of the find.

B  E  A  K

 Every bird species has a beak shaped to best suit its diet.

A bird with a bill to crack nuts is going to have a beak

that crushes like a pair of pliers while an eagle or hawk

has a sharp, hooked beak that cuts and shreds food

into fork and knife-sized bites.  A nectar feeder has a

bill shaped like a straw.

The shape of a bird's bill reveals the animal's lifestyle.

 

B  L  I  N  K

 You are busy flying here and there when, suddenly,

something flies into your eye.  You have no hands

to rub your eye and you cannot afford to fly blinded,

even for a moment.  What you need is a see-through

eyelid that will not only sweep aside bothersome debris

but will also provide for your everyday blinking needs.

Your normal, outermost eyelid is used only to 

lower the blinds for sleeping.

C  H  I  C  K  S

 Naked young ones in their nest, blind and helpless.

They know just enough to open their mouths wide

when a parent hops onto the rim of the nest.

Dinnertime.  It takes about a month of intense,

parental care before these nestlings become

somewhat independent.  These are songbirds.

They nest in trees, safe from the grasp of many

predators that roam the ground below.

The nest of a duck hugs the ground.

Same with geese and chickens.

Their young ones are covered in down feathers

the moment they hatch.  Their eyes work fine

and they can run about almost from the moment

they break free of their egg.  This is no time to 

dawdle.  Getting free from the nest is a 

matter of survival.  Hence, the precocious young.

 

 

C  U  C  K  O  O

The cuckoo mom slips into a warbler's nest,

kicks out one of the original eggs and lays

one of its own in its place.  It then quickly

flies away, undetected.  This all occurs 

in under ten seconds.  The result is another

species of bird dutifully raises the cuckoo

while cuckoo mom and dad go about their life.

This parasitic strategy is used by bird species

that are always on the move, unable to take

time to build a nest and raise a family.

Meanwhile the cuckoo has grown into a monster,

pushing the other nestlings from their home,

demanding one hundred percent of the food

mom and dad can provide.  For the next three

weeks Baby Huey will drive its warbler parents

to exhaustion, always demanding more food.

More food.

P  E  A  C  O  C  K

Peahens find it hard to resist peacocks sporting 

a tail that is of exaggerated length.  Things get

real interesting when Tex fans his rhinestone feathers

at the ladies.  Business is good but risky.

The problem is getting all this ornamental paraphernalia

off the ground when a hungry predator thunders into view.

This huge tail trait is detrimental to the animal's survival.

The Fisherian Runaway is the term given this

trait that self-perpetuates a looping genetic quirk.

 

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

 

coldValentine