This evocative image Walking on 125th Street, created by Nicola Villa, brings to mind just how far out of touch we are when it comes to distance, something not even considered when driving to a store 6 miles away, something that would take Josey Wales an hour to cover (Clint's a biggie with me) as the average speed of a walking horse over distance is about 6 miles per hour thus confining Josey to a very small territory in which to mete out justice to the bad guys. (At a gallop, The Pony Express averaged nine mph over 25 mile stages.) If Josey lost his horse and was on foot, his "average walking speed is about 5 kilometres per hour (km/h), or about 3.1 miles per hour (mph)."
I write this after reading a long tract from Cluborlov, an excellent site created by an Russian engineer who, as Kurt Vonnegut would say, knows of such things regarding economic collapse, sailing and the dire consequences of running out of energy, something our society is reluctantly beginning to face as we move further into the 21st century. While I don't wholly agree with Orlov on his take regarding a dark future for civilization, (Tech has a way of changing things thank god) I greatly respect it as his argument is persuasive and nuanced, characteristics all to rare in this age of packaged information designed to entertain and divert in order to keep real news at bay while we watch American Idol and wait, with baited breath, to see if NFL football will come to pass, two "important" events that have absolutely no impact on one's life save that of our being entertained while conveniently ignoring issues that do impact our lives, i.e., climate change, energy depletion & fiscal/governmental meltdown.
"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things." - Herman Melville
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