Jack Turner---The song of the White Pelican

Perhaps it is time to realize that the knowledge won from hard data is limited; perhaps it is time to allow wild animals to establish the degree of intimacy between us.” Wild animals always can express what we are, what we are going to express. Observing ourselves in the nature from the aspect of the sound of white pelican, this point is really attractive. Jack Turner shows us a white pelican’s soaring in different environment, like in the mountain, the thunderheads and so on. Those descriptions remind me of the Song of the Stormy Petrel written by Maxim Gorky. Gorky uses Petrel to express a kind of brave to face the darkness. But what Turner wants to express that soaring of white pelican is a simple expression of a kind of wilderness, passion and joy. He uses sounds of pelican to express a kind of emotion people have to show us , we should be like white pelican “soaring” whenever we wants.

Journal-- A Sand County Almanac

The “Land Ethics” and “The land pyramid” really shocked me, and it is pretty logical and persuasive. “Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land”. Yes, it is, but the problem is the development of the conservation is nearly no progress. The reason why this situation happened based on the basic conscience from “people to land” we have. The human still act the role who domains the land today according to the Aldo Leopold’s evidence and explanations. For example, Aldo show us, “some species of trees have been ‘read out of the party’ by economics mined foresters because they grow too slowly, or have too low a sale value to pay as timber crops…” Economics conscience is fundamental weakness, and it is also a central point Aldo want to tell us. Everything improvement good for the land conservation but also pursuing the economics benefit will be difficult to work and lose its durable. What we should realize is land and we are community, and we should respect land in a moral and philosophy level not domain it. Those new concepts and thoughts in “A Sand County Almanac” are really thoughtful.

Journal—Wendell Berry

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
I am not really making sense about this poem. But one thing I am sure that the farmer is really mad. I got this emotion from the way he expresses. He uses a lot of extreme and negative things, paradox things and realistic sentences to show the farmer is mad. Like, he said “So, friends, every day do something that won’t compute.” I think I would like to tell my friend do something that will be compute. Also, he said “Ask the questions that have no answers.” People want to get the answers based on the questions. I like one sentence which is really realistic is “Lie easy in the shade.” I have question that what is the reason which made the farmer so mad? I think it would be related to the historical events, because I read the introductory information from the beginning of the reading, it said “as the voice of a new agrarianism, with an old fidelity…”Also, the word “profit” appears in this poem many times. So it related to some rules that the farmers don’t satisfied.

The Making of a Marginal FarmI think the story is beginning with “The differences between knowing a place and living in it, between cherishing a place and living responsibly in it.” This is an important thing that Wendell Berry discovered in his whole life. He was responsible for the land he lived. Through the description of his land restoration experience, he wants to show us evidence that restoration of land is not only good for environment and also good for people’ life from economy perspective. Because he said “it is possible to for a family to live on such ‘marginal’ land, to take a bountiful subsistence and some cash income from it, and, in doing so, to improve both the land and themselves.” Sustainable development is the concept flashed in my mind after I read this reading. Our economy, society, resources and environment protection should get coordinate development. I think they are an inseparable system, it is necessary to achieve the purpose of economic development, but also protect the nature system. One question in this reading is what is the meaning of the word “marginal”?

Smokey the Bear Sutra

Smokey the Bear Sutra is really interesting and different one I read. Gary Snyder uses a very different way to express the nature, to emphasize consciousness of environment protection. He uses principle of Buddha to see the nature, just like the first paragraph delivers that all the things are beings even grasses. In his Smokey the Bear Sutra, Smokey the Bear is avatar of the Great Sun Buddha to be a warrior to protect the nature environment. And everything related to Smoky the Bear, like his hat, trousers, have a specific symbolic. This is a way to warn people pay more attention to the problem exists in our nature. Buddha is very popular in China, I know that the original idea about nature addressed by Buddha is grasses and woods are beings. Buddha is like philosophy, it gives us a new way to see the world, to understand all the things. Buddha is pretty amazing to discover.

Journal- Having Faith

Since I read Silent Spring, I know more about the pesticide (DDT) which can lead to a bad result in natural environment, Having Faith gives me a chance to know that how chemicals physically affects the people living in this environment, and how this affects the future children of the generations to come. I remember that Steingraber mentioned in Having Faith that “Man is not at the top of the food chain. His breastfed infants are.” Infants have been influenced at every crucial stage of growing from the breastfeed caused by the toxic contaminants in food. Steingraber makes this reading like a different chemistry and biology books from the normal one, using the informative way to explain the toxic contaminants and some chemicals in our food to convey that she wants to recall us to protect the future of baby, protect the human reproduction and protect the nature.

Journal -Feeling the Nature----My first summer in the Sierra

John Muir gives me a chance to find the beauty of the nature. I really like the part he wrote “It is easier to feel than to realize, or in any way explain, Yosemite grandeur.” What I read in this part is really a kind of feeling of him not just descripts or tells me how the waterfall looks like, how the mountains looks like. I can feel his heart beast caused by his enthusiasm for the glorious nature. He's truly excited can be found in rocks, water, mountains, woods, all the things in the nature. Nature is a really good gift from God. After read this passage of John Muir, I know that feeling the nature can be a good way to find the truth and beauty of Nature.

Journal--Silent Spring

Silent Spring, a term was supposed to represent the season it could just as easily represent a natural environment where the sounds of life, but now is no longer exists caused by the people’s activities. Rachel Carson changed the way I thought about the environment’s movement today. At beginning, a Fable for Tomorrow is a fictional tale that reflects many true stories of how people have made a tragedy of their environment themselves by chemical pesticides. Just like her said “No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it themselves.” By gathering scientific evidence detailing, she makes me know that “a shadow of death” caused by the chemical pesticides people always use to protect their farm. It calls us action to protect our surroundings before we destroyed them. Nature has its inherent system, we use advanced high-tech (like chemical pesticides) means to support this system, rather than excessive destruction of this natural system.

Journal #9 Industrial Tourism and the National Parks

All the things started at “snarling whine of a jeep in low range and four-wheel-drive.” I saw the terrible industrial situation and heard the noise from different machines in the National Park under Edward Abbey’s description. The development of society (Industrial Tourism) has already broken the quiet of the basic nature in author’s mind. Simple reasons for that would be pursing the maximum benefit and money. Industrial Tourism makes National Park modernize but losing the real nature of it. According to Edward Abbey said new machines were added in the National Park, the different kinds of problem made by Industrial Tourism like the stress of traffic jam, I can read the unsatisfied emotion of Edward Abbey from the “turmoil of those urban-suburban complexes”. National Park is a holy place to let us embrace the nature but not a place to make money. Society should be developed, industry should be developed, but a truth is suitable industrial development can bring a surprised outcome both nature and society.

Journal # 8 A First American Views His Land

Momaday shows the relationship between Native American and nature, he gives me a chance to further learning about the culture of Native American from their spirit of nature. From the Navajo ceremonial song of celebrating sounds that are made in the natural world, I can read the realization of Navajo that the nature is beautiful and their respect for the nature. I think this would be the Native American’s spiritual value of the nature, also is their trust and belief. I like the way Momaday to show the song “voice above…voice below”, it feels that the voice of human and voice of nature have a good combination, and seems that the sounds in nature more powerful. Nature is where we alive in and where created us. So whatever the culture is, recognition of beauty and respect of nature are a kind of universal idea.

Journal #7 Walden

A lot of deep thoughts exist in Thoreau’s Walden from sentence to sentence. One thing I thought most in Walden is “Our life is frittered away by details. Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity!” It obvious shows that Thoreau pursues the simple living. He wonders that why we live with such hurry and complex of life. I like he uses the boundary of German Confederacy as an example to demonstrate that we concentrate more internal than external, in other word he means that we pay more attention to details than the overall situation. But what I think is simple living is an ideal in our society, because society is changed from simple to complex, simple living existed in history, so we can’t live in history in today’s society. Also in some situations, details are essential factors to decide one thing, so “Our life is frittered away by details” is a little bit absolute.

Song

Beijing Welcomes You

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLTy2kpxOjM

Journal # 6 Blood Dazzler (Second Part)

The second part of the Blood Dazzler expresses more about the result and the endings which were Hurricane Katrina made. I was enjoyed the Back Home part, it shows totally different home than others. Home in our mind which should be happiness and colorful. But in Blood Dazzler, Patricia Smith starts with “Everything crawls…” to show the damage which the Hurricane brought to. In addition, she says” Everything floats dizzy samba” which makes me easy to imagine. Under Patricia Smith’s poem, I feel this home full of funk and terrible memory. All the things in the home in silent reflect emotion of sadness. Natural disasters lead us to darkness. Life goes on, yesterday is a history, we should looking forward to the tomorrow begin a new starting point.

Journal # 5 Blood Dazzler (First Part)

Patricia Smith uses the poems to tell information and deep internal thoughts in the moment of the Hurricane Katrina. She expresses the thoughts through different voice like through the Hurricane Katrina’s perspectives, the voice of former FEMA Director Michael Brown and so on. I like Patricia Smith expresses the things very real no matter things are bad or good. For example, from the prologue, “Weak light, bleakly triumphant….” Real things always can make vivid memory in my mind. Also, I am interested in the form of the part at page of 19—“what was the first sound”. The last sentence in each paragraph is the first sentence in next paragraph. This form makes every part interlock together to attract me to read to the end.

Journal # 4-- The Ninemile Wolves by Rick Bass

I was interested in Rick Bass uses his imaginations and his own thoughts like “I imagine that they are killing” at beginning and in the middle, he said “I hoped- lope through the woods, running north, headed to the border” to express directly what exactly he hopes and what he was not satisfied. They are just like the wolves’ thoughts. Then Bass shows openly that he is not satisfied for the action of the government and some people purely by money. Because some actions to the wolves has already broken the ecosystem and the predator-and-prey cycles and he stresses the importance of the balance to ecosystem. The biological chain in the nature is balance. The extinction of any species would affect the balance of the entire biological chain. Respect for the natural choice is also our choice.

Journal # 3 Refuge：An Unnatural History (Second Part)

I enjoyed the part Terry Tempest Williams dreamed women from all over the world against the conducting nuclear tests in the desert. It shows her desire to against the government and military with breaking her Mormon culture, which is "authority is respected, obedience is revered." From her voice she expressed that what the obedience bring for her is the death of her mother, her aunts and what we should do is speaking out loud to defend our right of health living in the country. Also, the country should stop nuclear tests immediately. In my opinion, as a sovereign of a country, the people should be considered first under any consideration. As a person in this country, defending our privilege is our basic responsibility.

Journal #2 Refuge：An Unnatural History (First Part)

Terry Tempest Williams uses an informative way to introduce the change of water level of Great Salt Lake and lead to the rise of the Great Salt Lake is a threaten to the burrowing owls. But finally the reason why the burrowing owls was cinderblock building took over the mound of the burrowing owls. From the “I held up my fist…lifted my middle finger to the sky” the description of action shows the Terry Tempest Williams really rage at that time and indicates that she loves these burrowing owls. Also, from the dialogue between those three men, it shows that some people in our life are unconcern about the natural life. When we pursued economic profit, we should have responsibility to think about the natural life. In addition, I like the writer “snapshot” a lot of different kinds of birds from the ground to the sky in her memory. It makes me have a vivid picture in my mind.

Home place

1-What the image represents?
This image represents the area BaDaLing in Beijing. There is a famous building in that area--Great Wall

2-What one thing seems most emblematic of a place you've lived?
I think Great Wall is the most emblematic of my hometown. Historical and fantastic building in the world.

"Photo " of Great Wall
The Great Wall is a dragon standing in the east of the world. It winding stands in the mountains surrounding by trees never change. A block of the cyan stones construct this historical and invincible wall. These ordinary stones being closely together without any space make the Great Wall unbreakable. Standing on the Great Wall and touching the stone next to you, you can feel the traces of the war clearly. The Great Wall you are standing on now was the battlefield for the war in ancient time. Looking forward at a part of the Great Wall, you never see the end of it. Great Wall is really the crystallization of human wisdom.

reading response for the"Everything Is a Human Being"

It is a very thoughtful reading, and also really need to read more times so that I can better understand and also can know more about the writer really want to express. At the beginning of the reading, what I think is this reading is just talking about we should treat every natural resources like animals, trees and all the things have lives equally. But in fact in the middle of the reading, I realize that the main purpose of this reading is that we should treat every human beings equally, no dicrimination, like racial in black, like the women in the society and so on. She expressed her strongly desire to defend the power and the same treatment of different social classes, different racial, different gender and so on. She uses the trees, snakes, some natural lives to show her main point of this essay, so that it suitable for the title"Everything Is a Human Being" and tell the readers a simple truth that using the same way to treat everything has lives to make readers have a deep expression of the main purpose of this reading.
The words and the way to describe some emotions are different and creative. The words are not the simple words we always use like in the essay there is a word"eerie". Different words express different level of the emotion the writers has. The words she used are very deep and impressive. Also, she describes the trees in the way she feels herself and a simple dialogue between her and trees. It makes that part like a poem. Those are what I think.