The mountains of the moon
There’s an area of Uganda sometimes called the mountains of the moon. Among other things, it’s famous for its gigantic flaura and fauna; six meter high heather, the world’s largest elephants, that sort of thing (a perfect foil for colonialist representations of Africa, of course; I first heard of the place through Willard Price’s kinda racist Adventure series). What no-one told me, though, is that America is a kind of mountains of the moon, as well. Of course the roads and the cars are enormous; hell, our cooker is ludicrously big, and if the kitchen wasn’t such a tip right now I’d show you a picture. What’s only become apparent now that spring has more or less arrived is that the plants have the same gargantuan quality:
And a couple of other quite nice pictures of Berkeley while I’m at it:
4 comments
Leave a comment
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
I can’t believe you have this sweet gig in America. I like America. Swap?
Comment by Alistair @ 2/24/2006 4:34 pm
Elephants, in Uganda? Are you sure?
Comment by Matt @ 2/25/2006 12:09 am
Well you know, Alistair, I like America too. There’s a right-wing cliché of decrying Europe as a statist totalitarian nightmare, and while that’s obviously mostly bullshit, it’s not completely false. Both the individualism (which can play out as a form of self-centeredness) and the demand for pleasure (which often gets captured as consumerism) are very visible features of America which any communist utopia will need to incorporate. One of Marx’s most attractive characterizations of communism is the state where the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all. America is maybe not doing so well on the second part of that vision, but the focus on the free development of each is not an unattractive starting point for communist projects.
Matt, my knowledge of elephants comes solely from the afformentioned Willard Price, so I can’t really speak for its reliability. Still, google seems reasonably well disposed to the idea of elephants in Uganda.
Comment by tim @ 2/26/2006 12:37 am
Tim, on an intellectual level I can understand and believe your position. However, this interferes with my practical, day-to-day stereotyping of you as Wolfie Smith, so I shall have to ignore your comment.
Comment by Alistair @ 2/27/2006 12:20 pm