Easter Island

I spent Saturday afternoon hiking with Sim and Scrumpy in Forest Park. The leaves are turning color -definately not Vermont -but it feels like Autumn. Scrumpy was off the leash and by the looks of her wagging tail , she seemed right at home in the big forest. I shot some video that captures a puppy's sense of wonder. It rained quite a bit on Sunday and I felt inspired to learn how to use the fireplace. More information to follow (assuming I don't cause any fire damage). I finished reading "The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes" and the book details 2 missing years when Holmes was travelling in Tibet without Watson. It was light reading and I finished most of it this afternoon.
I had a chance to hear Jared Diamond as a guest lecturer at a conference last week. As I watched all the technocrats shuffle out of the audience (like they really had somewhere better to be), I wondered if they had any idea this guy is a genius and had won a Pulitzer Prize. Diamond talked about some societies that he had researched for his latest book 'Collapse' and it details the fates of several civilizations and their respective rise and falls. He described a chapter on Easter Island and how when the Europeaners arrived -they found no trees or people -only the remnants of a once advanced civilization. Where did all the trees and people go ? How did they erect these structures -perhaps that is where the trees went? Research suggests that most of the timber was used to erect elaborate statues and the effects of this environmental change devastated the island, the people and an 'advanced' civilization. He stopped short of drawing any parallels to the modern day. He talked abouted the problems today in Haiti and the vastly diffferent fate of it's neighbor the Dominican Republic. Two similair societies that made very different decisions about their respective environments and how one is spiraling into political and social chaos and disorder while the other is headed towards a optimistic future. I'll add it to my wishlist of books to read.