Prairie Mary sent a review of Bill Buford’s excellent new book Heat, which describes how a fancy New York editor (The New Yorker, Granta) decides to learn to be a Tuscan butcher under the influence of Mario Battali. Italians and others from Catholic cultures (Battali blurbed the hilarious Bad Catholic’s Guide to Good Living, which …
Month: June 2006
“Entering Human Lives “
A friend, a serious writer and reader of this blog, is now working on some tales of her life as an Animal Control Officer (“dogcatcher”) in a big city. Here is a tale of life at the sharp end. Take it away…. The early complaints about this case were about noise from barking dogs, a …
Working Like a Dog
A new trend in officedom seems to be bringing your pet to work. According to Ellen Wulfhorst of Reuters, several thousand US companies (possibly one in five) allow employees to keep animals at the office and/or telecommute in order to spend more time with their critters. Call it a quirky, dot-com startup kind of idea, …
Bull Market
This was too cool a photo-opportunity to pass up. Think they could get a job on Wall Street?
An Artist on “Hands- On”
Blogger and wildlife artist Carel Brest van Kempen had alot to say in this old post about his attitudes to “hands- on” interaction with the biosphere (see Matt’s post below). “A spoiled child of the west, I grew up in an area as sparsely populated as any in the temperate zone. Fences were few and …
Lemaitre
Father Georges Lemaitre, mathematician, physicist, and diocesan Roman Catholic priest, is generally considered to be the father of the cosmic “Big Bang “theory. This informative TCS article suggests that he had admirably sane attitudes about the relations between science and religion too– sometimes ones unexpected by his colleagues. “Back in the early 1930s, the Nobel …
Self- Pollination
Self pollination is not all that rare, but this newly discovered Chinese orchid appears to be an extreme case. “The orchid produces no scent or nectar, and the researchers did not see a single instance of pollination by an insect or by wind. “Instead, the pollen-bearing anther uncovers itself and rotates into a suitable position …
Kazakhs in Space
I often say “Kazakhstan is a player”. More eveidence can be found here at the Moscow Times: “Kazakhs Put First Satellite In Space”– may be behind a firewall but it is an AP report and you might Google it. In case not, some snips: “Kazakhstan sent its first satellite into space Sunday in the country’s …
Condors and Lead
This NYT article tells of the (recurrent) problems with California condors acqiuring lead poisoning from carcasses. “Wildlife officials laid traps for California condors to test for lead poisoning after many were spotted feeding on squirrels that had been shot.” “Even microscopic lead traces from ammunition can paralyze digestive systems in the endangered species and cause …
Stolen Petroglyphs
USA Today brings us the sad news that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the convictions of a Reno man and a co-defendant who stole this beautiful petroglyph from the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest. Government prosecutors proved that the men took the boulders containing the petroglyph from USFS land, but the 9th Circuit …