Re: Butterflies and life

From: Mary Bryson (mary.bryson@ubc.ca)
Date: Mon Apr 04 2005 - 10:28:44 PDT


Well, those butterflies and some notion of an elsewhere or other that is
unfettered... Would that it were so. I am especially fond of the Monarchs --
an endangered species precisely as they travel across space. Actually, the
butterflies - we could think of them as actants in some species of ANT -
part of the system and with no autonomous agency -- feed along the way on
milkweed, treated with pesticides as a "noxious weed", as well as
genetically-modified corn that produces a protein toxic to the larvae of
monarchs, and their habitat in their wintering grounds in Mexico is being
lost to devastating logging, resulting in a huge drop in the population of
Monarchs.

And so here we have a kind of cautionary tale about the impacts of
"development" <science, construction, the economy> on forms of life and
living. The kinds of loss produced by "development" produces an interesting
line of inquiry.

Mary

On 4/3/05 7:48 PM, "Marie Judson" <mjudson@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> It does relate to the topic, Kris, in the sense that
> the butterflies come across the border freely, unlike
> the humans.
>
> Marie
>
> --- Kris Gutierrez <gutierrez@gseis.ucla.edu> wrote:
>
>> THIS IS OFF TOPIC BUT IT CAN'T GO
>> UNNOTICED--SOMETHING CLOSE TO HOME
>> FOR THOSE OF US IN THE SOUTHWEST and hopefully
>> something else to
>> ponder: KRIS
>>
>> Soldados Mexicanos Muertos en Irak" (Xenophobes of
>> the Minutemen
>> Project want to play soldiers on the
>> Arizona-Mexico border, hunting
>> down "illegal aliens." Meanwhile, Mexicans are
>> dying in Iraq for the
>> US government) -- FULL TEXT:
>>
> <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/04/soldados-mexicanos-muertos-en-
>>
>> irak.html>
>> --
>>
>> Kris D. Gutierrez
>> Professor
>> GSE&IS
>> Moore Hall 1026
>> UCLA
>> Los Angeles, CA 9009501521
>> 310-825-7467
>
>
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Marie Judson
> Ph.D. Candidate
> Department of Communication
> UCSD, Mailcode 0503
> 858.643.9090
> mjudson@ucsd.edu
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>



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