Tangent trigger from the ‘Made In Sheffield’ disc just reviewed, but seems relevant enough given the low scores most of us city-dwellers would get in the ‘bioregional quiz’ recently posted online by author Kevin Kelly.

What’s a Bioregion? – ‘An area that shares similar topography, plant and animal life, and human culture – with boundaries defined by natural features rather than political borders’. Yeah, yeah – but rather than jump on the bioregionalism bandwagon ( there is actually a googlable movement of ’em out there ), what this quiz is useful for is pointing out how disconnected most of us are to the surrounds that sustain us. The full 30 questions are available here (www.kk.org/cooltools/archives/000957.php ), as well as recommendations on how to find out the answers. And if these samplers aren’t enough, ( http://ecofoot.org & www.rco.on.ca/ecofootprint_print.html should satisfy any remaning eco-quiz appetites )

1) Point north.
2) What time is sunset today?
3) Trace the water you drink from rainfall to your tap.
4) When you flush, where do the solids go? What happens to the waste water?
5) How many feet above sea level are you?
10) Name five native edible plants in your neighborhood and the season(s) they are available.
11) From what direction do storms generally come?
20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put?
23) If you live near the ocean, when is high tide today?
27) Where does your electric power come from and how is it generated?
28) After the rain runs off your roof, where does it go?

Monday: Rolf Harris crying on TV about his parents. Tuesday: Drunken graves and mortality chat with one of my own parents. Wednesday Morning: A call from Alice Springs tells me a friend has died. After an hour of solid outpouring to each other about the girl we thought had died, she rings us to let us know about a girl with the same first name – Anna, a young spritely forest activist from Newcastle, who has unfortunately passed away. Jolting relief, mixed with sadness. Death, inevitable, is always around, yet somehow only rarely do we pick it up with our everyday radar.

Mid-Week Motivation Tip 763:
Nothing gives perspective like mortality. It’s somehow still surprising to remember we have limited time. And limited interactions with each other. Old Harriet Beecher Stowe knew this, and probably wanted us to soak up this phrase sooner rather than later:
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”

Other People Who Also Purchased Death:
“I am just going out. I may be some time.”
-Lawrence Oates, on Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition, while suffering from frostbite and sheltering from a blizzard, Oates felt he was reducing his companions’ chances of survival and he ended his life by leaving the tent.

“I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.”
– famous last words of one Humphrey Bogart.

“Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people laugh,”
– George Bernard Shaw

“Why reflect on death? When you start preparing for death you soon realize that you must look into your life…now…and come to face the truth of your self. Death is like a mirror in which the true meaning of life is reflected,”
– Sogyal Rinpoche

Death On The Web
It’s a technology column after all. And emotional content should probably be limited when your insides are shaped like rock ballads. Plus, people spend so much time online, invest so much of their identity and energy, so much of their life online, that inevitably there should be a flipside. And yes, death is a dot com, alongside coffins, already commodified long ago by entrepreneurial URL farmers. deathpenaltyinfo.org is self-explanatory, and www.near-death.com profiles a large number of Near Death Experiences and deals with related psychic and religious phenomena. deathonline.net is made by the Australian museum and features all manner of information about ways we identify death, what happens after death physically, how the dead are disposed, and how we remember the dead. All flanked by the encouraging quote: “Health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die”.

Obesity Terrorism
There’s no doubt figures out there somewhere which would compare military and health expenditure in the States, but approximately 280,000 adult deaths in the United States each year are attributable to obesity. Australia is probably not far behind per capita.

Lung Terrorism
Smoking kills about five million people every year. In Australia, smoking caused the deaths of 19,429 Australians in 1998-9. Or 53 preventable deaths every day. Smoking resulted in over 900,000 hospital bed days and cost over $700 million in hospital costs alone. One in five deaths occurred in the 35-64 years age group. Lung cancer is expected to overtake breast cancer as the leading cause of cancer death in women in the next couple of years. Anthony Burgess, Lucille Ball, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Bette Davis, Sammy Davis, Jr., Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, Jerry Garcia, Groucho & Zeppo Marx, Roy Orbison and presumably everyone else who has ever starred in a black and white film, and Mr.Addicted to Love, Robert Palmer – have all died from tobacco-related diseases or smoking addiction.

The Dead Holt’s
Doesn’t have the same ring to it as the ‘Dead Kennedys’, but not many Australian politicians have been assassinated, had a plane drop out in the Bermuda triangle, or ski-ed drunkenly at high speed into a tree while looking through a video camera. Harold Holt however, Australia’s Prime Minister in 1967, is one of the world’s most famous drowning victims, diving into the surf on 17 December, 1967 at Cheviot Beach south of Melbourne, never to be seen again. Rumours that he had faked his own death in order to run away with his mistress, or that he was an agent for the People’s Republic of China and picked up by a submarine off Portsea and taken to China, are probably unfounded. Somebody at the Harold Holt Memorial Swimming Pool might have a better idea though:
www.stonnington.vic.gov.au/lifestyle/sport/aquatics/haroldholt

Bullet-Time
Remember Christopher Walken in ‘The Dead Zone’ – who would’ve thought that the utterly spooky character in that would be running for President of the United States in 2008? ( www.walken2008.com ). Undoubtedly he’ll be seeking to avoid assasinations as practiced in that film, and as suffered by J F Kennedy in 1963, Malcolm X in 1965, Martin Luther King Jr in 1968 and John Lennon in 1980. And more than likely, Christopher Walken won’t be applying for residency in Iraq where 20-30,000 Iraqi civilians have died since the second Gulf Attacks started ( www.iraqbodycount.net ). Either way, am sure Mr.Walken is talking and spending time, with those he needs to most right now.

jean poole