At the wedding last Sunday, my brother- in- law, an anthropologist who has worked for more than 30 years with the Chamula Mayas of Chiapas, told me bemusedly that the latest fad for these VERY religiously syncretic people– they have incorporated their own Paganism, Catholicism, Presbyterianism, some sort of Evangelicism, and alchoholism with little effort. …
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Microchip everything!
Eveyone interested in keeping domestic animals should read this post on animal control and the “PAWS” bill. The odd alliance of the AKC, the HSUS, and the worst of all, PETA, are lining up with the support of “conservative” presidential hopeful Rick Santorum in a bid to control all domestic cat and dog breeding and …
Beluga Caviar
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has banned importation of Beluga Caviar from the Caspian. Something had to be done. My only concern with a total ban is that, as always (and as in ivory before it) it equally penalizes those countries with real conservation, and those where poaching and corruption are rampant. Ironically, Iran …
History’s Ironies 2
In Nigeria, white farmers driven from their land in Zimbabwe, and their modern methods, are being welcomed with open arms. One can only hope it will stay that way.
History’s Ironies 1
Chinese colonists in Xinjiang, patriotic Communists when young, are being dispossed by the new Chinese capitalist economy, and have nowhere to go. It is sad, but probably neither Uyghurs or Tibetans are shedding any tears.
Moving Photo
This photo of Condoleeza Rice and a Kyrgiz eagle falconer is amazing, and should move anyone but the most hardened ideologue. When I was born, her family was living under Jim Crow, and he was a Soviet “minority” forbiden to roam with his herds, as his ancestors had always done, or even fly eagles, by …
Extremely Cool Beetles..
…at this Cornell site. The carbon dust illustrations here are particularly nice. Thanks to Will Brown of Blue Ridge Biological.
I could be wrong…
Any reader of this blog knows I am wary about China. So when I read an essay called “The Chinese are our Friends” in the November Esquire (not available online) I had to read it. It was not as weak a case as I supposed, and the author, Thomas P. M. Barnett, was neither a …
The 1918 Flu Pandemic…
…was a bird flu that jumped, just like H5N1. Author Gina Kolata also wrote Flu, THE book on the pandemic. Get your Tamiflu– its coming, sooner or later.
Carnival of Derbs
John Derbyshire has written many quotable and irascible things lately. In this essay he suggests a rough but possibly realistic exit strategy in Iraq– arm the Kurds, our only friends; give guarantees to the Turks; screw the rest. (Sorry, John, for a rather blunt but I think accurate summary). Who knows but that, with the …