I have a name for the epic that's playing out these days: I call it the story of the globe and the earth. The globe is the world we inhabit in our cosmopolitan lives, the world of iphones and startups, human rights and fundamentalisms. The globe is centered around the human - even when it pays attention to the non-human (for example, when that dentist shot and killed Cedric the lion) it does so because we are commenting on the human. The earth is the planet that supports the globe: animals, trees, rocks and mountains. The earth is profoundly nonhuman.

More here, fierce reader. Like the statue of liberty, I urge you to send your hungry masses of letters, complaints, disagreements and if all else fails, words of praise.