Our family is in Louisville Ky for a long weekend. We have memories of Louisville, since our youngest daughter attended college at a Kentucky school, and resided for a few years in Louisville. Louisville is a medium sized city on the southern side of the Ohio river. Historically Kentucky is a border state, divided in loyalty during the terrible four years of the Civil War in 1861. That seems so long ago. In fact, that was not so long ago when one considers that the issue between two ways of life is still very much in play in our nation.

We are here to celebrate Pride week with friends living in Kentucky. There will be a parade today at noon and then an afternoon of food and drink and music at a local park close by the river. I am excited about what the day holds for us.

Yesterday we enjoyed the Louisville zoo as an expressed desire of our grand daughter. Kids and adults universally enjoy the presence of animals in a zoo.

The ape represented here unaccountably caused me a feeling of sadness. He/she is called a Siamang, or singing ape. Pairs are monogamous, bond for life. They “sing” a territorial duet, typically in the morning. Their inflatable throat allows loud hoots and “whaas” that can be heard for miles. The ape photographed here was not singing at the moment. Does it sing at any time now? Does it have a mate?

I consider our species. A visitor from another planet might say that we are a singing species. Also might one observe that some of us do not sing very much any more? A majority of us spend nearly all of our time focused upon a palm-sized iphone screen, and that is not conducive to singing, or even conversing.

I think that we ought to wake up… Our way of life is simply not sustainable.

Well, we can hardly do without a song can we? This by Donna Summer is a classic. The lyric describes the inherent tragedy of our human experience. Things are melting and we simply do not notice.