Of the three readings, I especially liked "A Mortal Occupation" by Susan Orlean. I never knew where orchids really came from until now. Always in flower shops, orchids are on display in the windows; a classically beautiful plant. Now knowing their somewhat tragic history gives me a new perspective on exotic flowers in general. It's one thing for the orchid hunters to be killed by natural disasters or local wars or savages, but to be killed by other orchid hunters? I thought it was absurd how the orchid hunters acted towards each other, leaving fake maps or abandoning their hunt just to hunt each other, and burning the areas where they found their precious orchids so no one else could collect the same specimen. Nature can only provide so much. The fact that these people thought they could take whatever flower or plant they desired with no consequences to the land from which the plants once grew is terrible. And people still haven't figured it out.
In the reading "Frontiers of Capitalism" by Anna Tsing, some interesting and relative questions were posed, such as, how does nature at the frontier become a set of resources? and how do ordinary people get involved in destroying their environments, even in their own home places? In a way, these are unanswerable questions. If we knew why people destroyed this earth, then we could come up with some way to stop, and at least preserve what is still left.
In "The River of Doubt" by Candice Millard, I gained even more respect for Theodore Roosevelt. The fact that he, a former president, embarked on a journey like that under such extreme conditions which were far from comfortable, just to be part of a discovery, is very admirable. And despite less than ideal acomodations, he still was so charming and personable with every person he met.