The Environmental Protection Agency has announced the winners of the third annual Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder Contest, which is designed to recognize intergenerational creativity.

Winning photo in the Rachel Carson Sense of Wonder contest. This photo was offered by Isabel L., age 16, and Isabel M., age 42.

The winners are not identified specifically, but you can review the photos, essays, poems and dances named as winners and honorable mentions by going to the EPA’s Web site. It doesn’t appear we have any winners from Washington state, but I hope local folks are entering this contest. Maybe we’ll have a winner or two next year. (See EPA site for entry details.)

The first-place photo at right is by Isabel L., age 16, and Isabel M., age 42. Here’s the description: “My mom and I were in the beach at Acapulco watching the sunset and while we talked about time and growing up. We took a picture of the sea and the sunset but we also captured a small boy playing in the sand enjoying the beach.”

Click here for the three photo winners and an honorable mention.

The winning poem was a combined effort of three generations of women: Katie, 21; MaryKate, 53; and Kate, 92.

Place of Peace
By: Katie, MaryKate and Kate

Knee-deep in purple asters, where maples gaily spill,
Unwept living crimson on our firm New England hill,
Our little half-built house awaits you, serene and still.
Such peace is here
And quiet dreaming.
No din of fear
Like sirens screaming
Or brass bells tolling, no dark hate rolling
That troubles the wind-washed silence under
These white clouds flying.
Only the crying of a far bird calling
Like a feather falling
That flutters earthward from above.
Warm as the sun that softly spills
Its life-giving light across the hills,
Kindling the crimson apples for the day of your returning.
When sunwashed sky turns crimson gold
And cool breezes fall from top of hill
Bringing clouds of bat food buzzing still

After the day’s chores done. Memories wash over
Of small children laughing in silver drops of water,

Blushing under other’s gazes peeking through clover.
My family founded in elder days
Continues the call that Nature makes
For our souls returning to this place of peace,
Where time stands still until we say
Who we are and where we are from.

From black olives and candy flowers made on Sunday’s
I am from the Lake (wet, warm, natural)
I am from the lily, dogwood, earth, planted in the front yard.
My mother’s earth. I’m from long trips and dark features.
From the long line of Kate’s and of Robert.
I’m from the stubborn and matriarchal.

I’m from tall altars and winding passages with spires from the sky.
I’m from Europe, France, England, Germany, Ireland, Scotland,
A mutt all around.
From the broken butt to being my rock and storms.
The stubborn women through and through
I am from the old, dust, moths, mold.
I am from mothers and lakes and lots of people,
With love.

Click here for the other winning poems.

The first-place essay is an illustrated story by Logan, age 6. It’s called “Fish with a Crab.” His kindergarten teacher, Linda, age 61, had this to say:

“I was amazed when Logan handed me his first story. It was two months ago. In one school year, he was gone from a total nonreader/writer, to a storyteller/illustrator. Equally amazing is his wealth of information about the natural world. He loves his fish tank, his tarantula, and all of the creatures that fill his life with joy… I see his pure delight in observing nature. He sees nature for what it is, an interaction between the living and nonliving world. His love of the wonder of nature fills him with stories and they flow freely from his heart and mind.”

The essays, including Logan’s can be found by clicking here.

Mixed media include both written creations and poetry.

This year, the EPA included a category of dance for the first time. I thought the Winged Migration dance — the second one below — was creative.

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This week’s bit of humor comes to us from National Lampoon, which espouses the health benefits of water in a new video.

Water has numerous effects, thanks to unintended additives, according to the video at right. But watch out for the consequences of consuming drinking water.

Quoting from the video:

“With residual pharmaceuticals entering our water table daily, you can be confident the cure is only a faucet away. Results may vary by region.”

And then the requisite warning:

“Water is not for everyone. Water may not be consumed if you are currently on water. If you’re pregnant and nursing, … might become pregnant or are reaching puberty before the age of 7, water may not be right for you. Please discontinue use of water while drowning or if drought occurs.”

And then come the freaky side effects of water, which take up the remainder of the video.

Another video about water purports to show a world record for drinking 1.5 liters of water — just about 4 seconds.

I found another video that has nothing to do with water but shows a world-record speed for a person getting undressed. I’m hoping this is amusing without being offensive.

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Are you in the mood for a little poetry? This week, I offer four funny rhymes plus a fifth that demands a little introspection. (I’ve linked to the sources where I found these.)

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream,
Until you hit the waterfall
And then you start to scream.

New Tank for My Goldfish
By Kenn Nesbitt

I bought a new tank for my goldfish.
They shot me right in the behind,
and then they drove over
my little dog, Rover.
I guess that I bought the wrong kind.

Daddy Fell into the Pond
By Alfred Noyes

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And then there seemed to be nothing beyond,
Then
Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone’s face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
“Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He’s crawling out of the duckweed!” Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,
And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.
Oh, there wasn’t a thing that didn’t respond
When
Daddy Fell into the pond!

Tinkle, Tinkle Little Car
By Cecilia L. Goodbody

Tinkle, Tinkle little car
How I wonder what you are.

Leaking oil every day
Having it your own way.

Going up hills real slow
I don’t want you any mo’.

Tinkle, Tinkle little car
Boy, what a lemon you are.

A Snowflake Falls
By Ruth Adams

One night I saw a snowflake fall,
Past memories it did recall,

And as the snow fell to the ground,
So quietly without a sound,

(Click here to read the entire poem.)

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This week, our amusing subject is otters, thanks to a suggestion from Fred Felleman, who spotted a satirical story about an oil spill. It comes from The Onion. (Click here.)

I tracked down the video at right, which appears to shows an otter dancing to the music…

To round out our otter adventures, check out:

— The otters who made themselves at home in a human’s house and

— The otter who became close friends with a badger.

Who would have believed it?

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I’ve never owned a pet rat or a pet mouse, so I don’t know if surfing comes naturally to these little animals. But I have to say that I was impressed with a few select videos of surfing rodents.

The first, in the viewer at right, is called “The Radical Rodents.” There is also the Radical Rodents 2 (click here).

These creatures seem more comfortable around water than Twiggy, the famous water-skiing squirrel. I won’t bother with you with those videos. Nor will I trouble you with videos of surfing cats, which seem to be freaked out by the surfing experience, despite claims of their owners.

I will, however, share with you a video of a surfing dog, which seems quite comfortable in the sport.

If you’d like to find out if pet rats enjoy water, check out the story in the London Daily Mail from October of last year.

If you want to observe whether rats like water, take a look at this video of rats playing in water and this one of rats diving for food. If you have a pet rat and want to teach him or her to love the water, check out this instructional video.

Finally, how about some rats “ice fishing,” as the video calls it.

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I thought it would be fun to tell a few jokes about fishing on this Amusing Monday, so I typed “fishing jokes” into the search engine. Hundreds of pages came up.

I thought it would take time, but be entertaining, to go through the many jokes and pick out the best ones. I guess the joke was on me, however. While fishermen apparently like to tell humorous stories, I found the same jokes over and over again — no more than a couple dozen total.

Here are the best of the ones that I can tell in mixed company, with an oddball video thrown in on the side. As always, if you know a good one, please feel free to tell it.

No fish

One day an inebriated ice fisherman drilled a hole in the ice and peered into the hole. He heard a loud voice say, “There are no fish down there.”

He walked several yards away, drilled another hole and peered in. Again the voice said, “There are no fish down there.”

He then walked about 50 yards away and drilled another hole. Again the voice said, “There are no fish down there.”

The fisherman looked up into the sky and asked, “God, is that you?”

“No, you idiot,” the voice replied. “It’s the rink manager.”
—

Running from the law

A couple of young guys were fishing at their special pond off the beaten track, when out of the bushes jumped the game warden.

Immediately, one of the boys threw down his rod and started racing through the woods with the warden hot on his heels. After about a half mile, the guy stopped and stooped over to catch his breath. The warden finally caught up to him and gasped, “Let’s see your fishing license, boy!”

The young man pulled out his wallet and handed the game warden a valid fishing license.

“Well, son,” said the game warden, “you must be as dumb as a box of rocks! You don’t have to run from me if you have a valid license!”

“Yes sir,” replied the boy, “but my friend back there, well, he don’t have one…”
—
(more…)

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Every now and then, I think back to when I started working as a reporter long, long ago. I marvel at the technological breakthroughs that have come about since that time, which seems like another world.

In the old days, if I had a question, I would need to call and talk to someone on the phone. Now, I can simply type a few words into my Google search engine — and voila! There’s hardly a need to talk to anybody at all.

Typewriters have given way to powerful computers. Type a few letters and the computer will complete your word, your sentence, your thoughts.

The Internet has brought us videos, interactive computer games and even this blog. It won’t be long until I can program my computer to write this blog, so I can spend my time doing other things — such as searching out funny videos for this Amusing Monday feature.

This week, we turn to “The Onion” for some “news” about how various technologies have made our lives richer. Check out these links. (If you encounter an ad, wait a few seconds then click on the text above each screen to skip it.)

You Tube contest challenges amateur film producers

Facebook and Twitter keep you connected with your teens

Google’s new Opt Out Village

“Warcraft” sequel brings more realism to video gaming

Can video games prepare your child for the future?

The future is now: Macbook Wheel

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Human waste along the Skokomish River recently triggered the closure of shellfish beds downstream in Hood Canal. While there is nothing amusing about that, a lot of us learned how worried health officials can become about the transmission of human pathogens.

The health concerns are very real. Some groups have tried to convey the concerns with entertaining videos about water quality, particularly in countries where sanitary facilities are lacking.

I’d like to share some take-offs of old movies and a TV commercial put together by the online magazine “Good.” The occasion was World Water Day in March, created by the United Nations to call attention to the importance of clean water.

The altered movies are “Cool Hand Luke” and “Psycho.” Click here to see the commercial for “Crocodile Mile.”

For good measure, I’ve thrown in something called “Good Water.”

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For some reason, educators and others have been inspired to write many songs about the water cycle. You know, water evaporates and goes up, then comes back down as rain and snow.

I’ve posted my two favorite videos here. Neither of the You Tube postings identifies who wrote the songs or who performed them. Please let me know if you have details about them. I guess the second may have been shown on “Bill Nye, the Science Guy.”

Considering all the water cycle videos I found, I thought it might be some kind of contest until I realized that the videos were produced at various times over several years. Still, some people pretended there was a contest. For example, Jared Simpson, who writes Waterblogged.info, created some interesting categories for a bunch of water-related videos he posted on his blog.

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In this humorous video, staffers of “The Daily Show” debate each other over health care reform, focusing specifically on so-called “death panels.”

An obscure provision in one of the health care bills has struck a nerve with some people, shifting discussions in town hall meetings and thrusting former Alaska governor Sarah Palin back into the spotlight for a short time.

Many independent observers are saying the nonexistent “death panels” were a convenient scare tactic. In this satirical segment, as in the public, there seems to be confusion about how the health care plan would work. The debate itself begins about a minute and a half into this video.

I don’t normally diverge from water issues. But I have to ask, does this remind you of any environmental or “scientific” debates taking place in our country?

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