From Chas Clifton’s OTHER blog, Letter from Hardscrabble Creek, comes via two other links this striking image and message of a strong black woman with a gun: “Free People Own Guns” Hardscrabble Creek is another example of how simple categories tend to break down these days– it’s Chas and his opinions on academia, contemporary paganism, …
Month: July 2005
Cellphones
Michael Blowhard has posted on his experience of finally yielding to getting a cellphone, and his experiences are an eerie parrallel to mine. Most young people seem to use them without effort, resistance, or inhibition, but we both have some trouble. Is it generational? For instance: both of us were more or less convinced by …
Good Things from Britain #3
And of course they still make the most beautiful shotguns in the world (go to the photo galleries).
Good Things from Britain #2: Great Drunks
This morning while reading James Lileks daily Bleat, I came upon this wonderful throwaway line. He was talking about Peter O’Toole, who apparently appears in “Troy” with Brad Pitt. (We here at Casa Querencia don’t see many movies because the nearest theater is 26 miles away, and the nearest good one closer to 100). The …
Good things from Britain #1– Adventure Novels
I often express my disappointment in modern great Britain, but only because I so admire her past. So today, in solidarity, some odd things I love about Britain. First, a great 20th Century adventure novelist, John Buchan. His combination of high- Tory romanticism, democratic common sense, and happily- expressed prejudice would never see publication today. …
Footprints
Matt Mullenix sends news of some possible pre- Clovis footprints preserved in volcanic rock in Mexico. Most authorities are skeptical, but express openness to seeing the new evidence. Pre- Clovis Americans, if they existed, seem to have left little BUT footprints so far. Maybe Matt has the answer: “Hmmmmm. makes you wonder if the first …
Update
I have updated my post on the Unocal deal (scroll down). The unlikely coalition of The New Yorker and National Review Online are defending it. I remain skeptical…
The Eastern Wolf
The canid predators of the northeast have increased during my lifetime. When I was young and they were rare everyone called them “coydogs”, assuming that they were dog- coyote hybrids. This was biologically unlikely for several reasons– their uniformity, the difficulty of pups produced from a one- estrus parent (the coyote) and a two- estrus …
Au Contraire on Zebras
In Grayal Farr’s piece on St. Vincent Island he wondered if anyone ever hunted zebras. I knew they were sometimes used as lion bait but hadn’t really thought about the matter much. Reader (and writer you should read) Tom McIntyre writes: “Curiously, I just completed a feature story on this very topic, which will appear …
Soviet Childrens’ Animal Books
Whatever my feelings about the late and monstrous Soviet Union’s government, anyone who knows me also knows of my (sometimes infuriated) love for Russia. And one of the things I love is a certain strain of Russian art that ran beside and under the godawful “Socialist Realist” style, and has survived the Soviet Union (I …