psycho-babble

New York is where it’s going to begin, I think. You can see it coming. The insect experts have learned how it works with locusts. Until locust population reaches a certain density, they all act like any grasshoppers. When the critical point is reached, they turn savage and swarm, and try to eat the world. We’re nearing a critical point. One day soon two strangers will bump into each other at high noon in the middle of New York. But this time they won’t snarl and go on. They will stop and stare and then leap at each other’s throats in a dreadful silence. The infection will spread outward from that point. Old ladies will crack skulls with their deadly handbags. Cars will plunge down crowded sidewalks. Drivers will be torn out of their cars and stomped. It will spread to all the huge cities of the world, and by dawn of the next day there will be a horrid silence of sprawled bodies and tumbled vehicles, gutted buildings and a few wisps of smoke. And through that silence will prowl a few, a very few of the most powerful ones, ragged and bloody, slowly tracking each other down.
-Nightmare in Pink-

Heavy stuff...Thanks to Ruth’s Mamaw (how did you know I would like it so much?) for sending me John D MacDonald’s Travis McGee series of novels where I found this gem and so many more apocalyptic contemplations on our modern society. Published in 1964, John D MacDonald was obviously way ahead of his time. Didn’t he know we’d still be bumping into each other filling in wetlands and paving over fields without complaint for another 50 years at least? Something happened in the early 70’s which killed our awakening conscience just as we were beginning to ask the right questions, and it wasn’t disco. I think that the answer can be found in the documentary Century of the Self (thanks to M.G.A. for sending us that BBC video!). If you haven’t seen it then you must! It describes the development and application of modern psychology to mass marketing resulting in the CREATION of product driven consumers. I.E. the products and advertising define and shape the consumer rather than the other way around. The result is sort of a host/parasite relationship where critical decisions and unique thoughts are no longer made by the consumer. The TV head zombie above represents this concept, but it can also be found in nature.

Which brings us to Mdudu of the day- Woohoo! I felt real sorry for this little zombie bug because a parasite had invaded its body, exploded out the top of its back (as you can see) and was steering the zombie body around forcing it to eat endlessly on this leaf. It thought that it needed to consume MORE and MORE leaf and had no other reason to live -so I drove a sharpened stick through its head- poor bastard.



Sorry that I haven’t posted much in the last couple of weeks but we have really settled into a routine here and so there’s not much exciting stuff happening. Got the rash under control- so I’ve got that going for me- thanks for your concern ;). Ruth’s Aunt Carolyn and cousin Caitlin visited us for a week, which was really nice. They are some real troopers and were up at 5:30 in the morning with us and not back from forest until 7 at night and still full of energy. We had hours and hours of good conversation and I think Greenwald will have a couple of new readers when they get back to the states. I know what you’re thinking!- I hope I didn’t scare them off either.

Each day, we’re reminded that we’re in Africa in so many ways. Many times it’s just the incredible beauty of the SKY-



Other times it’s the color of sunrise across the train tracks which we cross each morning on our way to work-



But mainly its feeling like we’re Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and every day is the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade…every day. To watch the video, right click play button.



If ANYBODY reading this blog happens to have an old soccer ball lying around that you don’t need any more and want to donate to the kids- please deflate it, put it in a manila envelope and send it to:

Jack Mock and Ruth Steel
Udzungwa Ecological Monitoring Center
c/o Udzungwa Mountains National Park, PO box 99
Mang’ula – Kilombero, Tanzania

We’ll give it away to one of the villages and post a video of the kids going insanely happy over your gift!

Thanks-
Jack