http://207.142.110.11:80/tomar/ -- Lawrence F. London, Jr. mailto:london@sunSITE.unc.edu http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGardenTitle: JONATHAN TOWNE's WEB PAGE
In the closing years of the 20th century, a singular event occurred that has the potential to enrich lives by providing access to information on demand. The internet as a form of communication is in its infancy, with many bugs to work out(such as making it easy to use for the computer moron, and the matter of speed and capacity.) It's potential to enrich lives and to actually bring people together by creating communities is evidenced by e-mail, newsgroups and chat. It is possible for people to develop talents and express themselves-differently, but effectively through web publishing. This web page is an attempt to facilitate the expression of some of my own creativity. It is also to provide a forum for discussion of some important issues(in my mind!) as we go into the 21st century.
Because I don't want to spend my time learning fancy programming, you won't find here another cute web page with fancy graphics and embedded java applets. Doing so will lose the message. Technology needs to remain humanistic and accessible, otherwise we are lost. This web page hopefully will reflect an optimistic but responsible portrayal of the future of homo sapiens, a successful if not weedy species on this speck of flotsam on the edge of an ordinary galaxy among billions. I hope to update it, improve it, expand it and above all, learn from it as I explore this new communication tool.
To describe myself in a thumbnail: I'm employed as an Registered Nurse at a local hospital and live, work and play on a 36 acre farm with my spouse and two kids. We have a low key farming operation, growing our own vegetables, raising cattle, and use our own wood products for heat and building materials. We are organic, using cow manure and purchased minerals, while relying on nature to provide by using nitrogen fixing crops, and green manures. Working in the outdoors is very important to me as are walking in the woods frequently and observing spring woodland wildflowers(I seem to do less of this- regrettably- as time goes by) As you can surmise, the health of the environment is of major concern(the word health ties this into my livelihood-nursing-more later). To balance the budget as a responsibility to the next generation is a trivial act, if in the meantime we leave a toxic environment with its resources denuded, and with its inherent beauty desecrated.
We belong to an organization, Michigan Land Trustees, from whom we bought this farm, and share many of their values. It seems that a family value that we don't hear much about, is land stewardship. Something else that people are unaware of, is that organic farming-for many crops anyway- is perfectly capable of equivalent yields to chemical farming. With either, management is key. Our backyard.
Fun at Sleeping Bear Dunes
My employment at a local hospital provides me with an income, a lot of challenge, and a way of helping people who truly need it. Since much of today's health problems are related to lifestyle choices, many of them ill-informed choices, as health care workers, education is a major component of our work. Of course, this education should have occurred many years earlier than when they are hospitalized. The challenges we face in reducing health care costs, would be much allieved if the necessary education and good life style choices were done early in our lives. In fact, I would venture to say, there would be no healthcare crisis if this were the case.
With the Voyager missions to the outer planets, the Hubble Space Telescope and the Galileo mission in progress, you would have to have your head in the sand, not to be aware of some of the exciting discoveries in space science and astronomy. A new perspective on our place in the universe that is somewhat humbling can be appreciated by observing the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus (making that planet the nearest thing to hell that I can think of). The possible(probable?) discovery of fossil life from Mars and its implications that we cannot be unique (already 2 examples in this solar system-although a strong argument exists that life may have originated on Mars then migrated to earth via meteoric impact before it went extinct there, since conditions were probably better on Mars during the early epochs of our solar system than on earth for life to evolve). To me this enlightening perspective of our insignificance in the scheme of things makes it all the more important to conserve and protect our planet and its biosphere. The internet is a huge repository of space images including the latest Hubble pictures, where you can see for yourself, these exciting discoveries.
Well this is my corner of cyberspace! Whether you want to hurl insults or just say hi, email me tomar@cybersol.com.
A sugar maple woods in the fall
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March 29, 1997.
