…is not just something that affects the poor in other countries: it is never far away. This LA Times editorial is a step in the direction of public awareness, but says some things that just aren’t so. (Who am I to say? Well, I came down with a bad case in Zimbabwe, got obsesssed with …
Month: September 2005
Thunderbirds!
Reid and Chas both sent me this fascinating link to Prariemary on the “recent” presence of condors on the Montana plains. They apparently hung on until the buffalo were gone, and might return again if introduced in the wake of big herds– see last post. “When Claude Schaeffer, curator of the Museum of the Plains …
Re- Wilding: Update
A lot of misinformed objections continue to arise from the proposal to repopulate the Great Plains with a “Revived Pleistocene”. Two letters to Nature, here and here , make points that have little to do with the project. The author of the first worries both that the introductions won’t work and that if they do …
Computers Versus Recess?
Although I am not necessarily a fan of Orion magazine’s reflexive “Left Green” politics, they often have something to say against “progress” for the sake of progress. Recently, I was struck by this article about how computers are getting between children and the real world. “Computers not only divert students from recess and other unstructured …
For fun
A “Federal Agency” you have never heard of. (Jonathan Hanson explains how he found it “working”: “I wanted to refer to Mungo Park, the famous desert explorer, in my Sunset story on touring Arizona deserts, so I Googled him to fact-check. There was a rumor he was killed by a village of zombies, so when …
Who gets to have guns?
The rich, of course. According to this NYT story: “Mr. Compass, the police superintendent, said that after a week of near anarchy in the city, no civilians in New Orleans will be allowed to carry pistols, shotguns, or other firearms of any kind. “Only law enforcement are allowed to have weapons,” he said. “That order …
Kipling 2– On Writing
The essay to read is Clara Claiborne Park’s “How Kipling Taught Me to Write”, from the American Scholar. Since you have to pay to get the whole text, I’ll extract my favorites from the advice she selects– but really you should Read The Whole Thing. (Thanks to Reid for pointing me there). First, the inscription …
The Matter of China– and a bit on Derbyshire
China fascinates me. I have spent very little time there– only stops on passage to and from Central Asia; cannot speak the language, and know far more about its neighbors to the north and west. Nevertheless I think a knowledge of China is more important for those who would make decisions than, ultimately, knowledge about …
Wind Energy and Environmental Ambivalence
Electric generation by wind turbines is one of those progressive environmental measures that everyone likes in theory, but that most have second thoughts on once the issue of how many and where to put them comes up. My musings on this are prompted by an LA Times article today describing objections that locals have to …
ID Smackdown
This, as the previous Kipling post, is the forerunner to a long one. I hope to write soon on John Derbyshire’s wonderful, insightful, and overlooked China trilogy Fire From the Sun , as well as on China, the Chinese environment, a book on that subject– yes, I know, ambitious, especially with deadlines, Libby down with …