deep waters

I like the word bathysphere, which conjures to my mind all kinds of arcana of nautical experimentation. I sometimes imagine that the study of what is beneath the ocean is a pure science adventure more deserving of public dollars than various earmarks and subsidies.
I like the idea of un-personned exploration of the ocean floor--a Sputnik of the Sea. I thought today about perspective--a topic which occurs to one when one is immersed in ideas like the way that things must look different from a microscopic vantage point. I sometimes wonder if there is a second intelligent species under the ocean's surface. If I owned a bathysphere, I would hunt out silicon-based lifeforms, and make friends of manatees.