Back when I was in graduate school the general consensus was that human evolution had generally halted or at least slowed in the early Holocene. It was believed that the strong evolutionary pressures that had operated on early hunter – gatherer populations had eased with the transition to agricultural economies and settled life. Estimable University …
Month: December 2007
Going Postal
Your tax dollars at work. As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.
Last word on Mailer, plus..
Phillip posted below on Mailer, and I agree. A last word, from an email I sent: Betsy once wrote, for the MIT paper, an announcement on him– something like “the overrated self- regarding egotist Norman Mailer will appear…” She assumed it would be caught in rewrite but it wasn’t. His Gary Gilmore book was a …
More Pygmies
We discussed before here the interesting phenomenon that often occurs when species of large fauna get trapped on islands. Natural selection in the restricted habitat favors smaller individuals and you end up with a dwarf or pygmy subspecies. Previously we talked about pygmy mammoths in the California Channel Islands and dwarf water buffalo in the …
“Arboricide”
After my post last week on tree-trimming follies in Burbank, California, I couldn’t pass this article by. A man in Nevada is facing 35 years in prison because he felled, topped or killed 60 trees that blocked his view of the Las Vegas Strip. Honestly, you’d think we were druids.
Joe Brown
Chas has a link to an excellent piece on the fine and neglected western writer JPS (Joseph Paul Summers) Brown. I met Joe Brown when we were both signing books at a sadly defunct bookstore in Tucson. I had brought a copy of his Forests of the Night, which could give Cormac McCarthy a run …
Goshawk
For the first time in nearly a decade we have a Gos in the dining room- kitchen alcove at Casa Q: He is a bit of a rehab case– he is utterly terrified of dogs, though Ataika is trying to teach him, and when he is at a lower weight he is alleged to scream …
Dog pix of the week
Looking northwest on the ranch from the northeast corner: ‘Rissa runs: Lashyn: “Want a bath, ‘Taik?” “I don’t think so.”
Projectiles
In days past, black powder and especially bow hunters were the most careful of all. Most were “naturalist” hunters, and had the ability to stalk close as well as the discipline not to take a shot that was less than perfect. Now, with a lot more time open for bowhunters and the availability of modern- …
It begins again
Congressman Lloyd Levine introduces mandatory spay- neuter in California again.