December 26 might be my favorite holiday. Not because it’s Boxing Day. Not because it’s the second biggest shopping day of the year (for sure not that!). Not because it’s St. Stephen’s Day in the Catholic calendar. Not even because it’s the First Day of Christmas. (The 12 Days of Christmas were inspired by the Saturnalia – the Romans’ 12-day feast in honor of Saturn that featured gift-giving and decking the halls with lights.) For me, December 26 is Book Day.
The hectic round of visiting is done. The fridge is stuffed with left-overs. The presents are still scattered under the tree. And I have a pile of new books to read – and some quiet time to read them. Actually it’s a little daunting: 5 books, 2,122 pages! This year's books include:
The Ancestor’s Tale, an evolutionary time travelogue in search of our earliest ancestors down through the millions of years by Richard Dawkins.
Loving Frank, a novel of Frank Lloyd Wright and Mamah Cheney by Nancy Horan.
Tree of Smoke, a novel of Vietnam and more by Denis Johnson.
In a Far Country, a tale of adventure set in Alaska in 1897.
The Complete Tracker, a guide to the tracks, signs and habits of North American wildlife by Len McDougall.
But that’s enough writing. Time to get reading.
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Dave's Faves
Sorry, couldn't resist that headline. Here are David's top five books for 2007:
Saturday, Ian McEwen
Atonement, Ian McEwen
The Worst Hard Times, Timothy Egan
Truman, David McCullogh
The River of Doubt, Candice Millard
McEwen and McCullough need no introductions, but I was not familiar with Candice Millard or this book. Just in case you were not either, here's the start of The Washington Post's review:
Just try to imagine it: George W. Bush loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle. There would be a media circus the likes of which the world has never seen. Picture the TV crews following in his wake, tripping over chemical toilets, generators and satellite phones. In these times of media gurus and spin-doctoring, we would write off the expedition as a stunt, a way of stealing the limelight from his rival's victory.
Rewind almost a century, to November 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most popular presidents in American history, is crushed at the polls by Woodrow Wilson after two terms in office (this was before the two-term rule). Roosevelt is 54 years of age, 5'5" tall, weighs more than 200 pounds and when speaking sounds "as if he had just taken a sip of helium." He's shunned by his high-society Republican friends for having run as a third-party candidate, and is generally lampooned by everyone else for losing by such a wide margin. What does he do? Sets off into the Brazilian jungle to venture up an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as "The River of Doubt," which has given Candice Millard the title of her fine account of the expedition.
Saturday, Ian McEwen
Atonement, Ian McEwen
The Worst Hard Times, Timothy Egan
Truman, David McCullogh
The River of Doubt, Candice Millard
McEwen and McCullough need no introductions, but I was not familiar with Candice Millard or this book. Just in case you were not either, here's the start of The Washington Post's review:
Just try to imagine it: George W. Bush loses re-election by a landslide and, undeterred by the humiliation of it all, sets off on a journey of unspeakable danger and hardship into the darkest depths of the Amazon jungle. There would be a media circus the likes of which the world has never seen. Picture the TV crews following in his wake, tripping over chemical toilets, generators and satellite phones. In these times of media gurus and spin-doctoring, we would write off the expedition as a stunt, a way of stealing the limelight from his rival's victory.
Rewind almost a century, to November 1912. Theodore Roosevelt, one of the most popular presidents in American history, is crushed at the polls by Woodrow Wilson after two terms in office (this was before the two-term rule). Roosevelt is 54 years of age, 5'5" tall, weighs more than 200 pounds and when speaking sounds "as if he had just taken a sip of helium." He's shunned by his high-society Republican friends for having run as a third-party candidate, and is generally lampooned by everyone else for losing by such a wide margin. What does he do? Sets off into the Brazilian jungle to venture up an uncharted tributary of the Amazon, known as "The River of Doubt," which has given Candice Millard the title of her fine account of the expedition.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Bruce on page one
If you subscribe to The Capital Times, you saw son-in-law Bruce on the front past last Friday. If not (you should), here is the top of the story:
Cooling Coal
Sierra Club Lawyer Here Successfully Fights Power Plant Pollution
Friday, December 14, 2007
By SAMARA KALK DERBY The Capital Times
In the last four years, local Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles has stopped 58 coal-fired plants from being built in the United States. As a result of his work, energy companies have abandoned their plans, fearing going through the permitting process of getting a new coal plant built.
Nilles, 39, is director of the organization's National Coal Campaign. He has stopped plants in Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Texas and Nevada. He also had a hand in last month's settlement in which the state of Wisconsin agreed not only to clean up UW-Madison's coal-fired Charter Street power plant but also to examine and possibly improve the operation of 13 other coal-burning plants it manages across the state.
He is in the process of fighting 54 more coal-burning plants in America. In the last two weeks alone, Nilles has beaten back four plants. "It's been a very good two weeks," he said, grinning.
Here is the link to the full story:http://www.madison.com/archives/
read.php?ref=/tct/2007/12/14/0712140281.php
Cooling Coal
Sierra Club Lawyer Here Successfully Fights Power Plant Pollution
Friday, December 14, 2007
By SAMARA KALK DERBY The Capital Times
In the last four years, local Sierra Club attorney Bruce Nilles has stopped 58 coal-fired plants from being built in the United States. As a result of his work, energy companies have abandoned their plans, fearing going through the permitting process of getting a new coal plant built.
Nilles, 39, is director of the organization's National Coal Campaign. He has stopped plants in Kansas, Illinois, Florida, Texas and Nevada. He also had a hand in last month's settlement in which the state of Wisconsin agreed not only to clean up UW-Madison's coal-fired Charter Street power plant but also to examine and possibly improve the operation of 13 other coal-burning plants it manages across the state.
He is in the process of fighting 54 more coal-burning plants in America. In the last two weeks alone, Nilles has beaten back four plants. "It's been a very good two weeks," he said, grinning.
Here is the link to the full story:http://www.madison.com/archives/
read.php?ref=/tct/2007/12/14/0712140281.php
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Harry's favorite books
Harry sent along his list of most liked/ most memorable books of the year, although he cautions that they may not all have fallen strictly into 2007 and therefor calls them "recent favorites." We accept the caveat and thank Harry for the contribution.
1. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
2. Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
3. Decade of the Wolf (reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park)
4. Lincoln and Tanney, James Simon (Tanny was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and wrote the Dred Scott Decision)
5. Washington's Crossing, David Hackett Fisher
6. The Land Remembers, Ben Logan
1. Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
2. Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan
3. Decade of the Wolf (reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone National Park)
4. Lincoln and Tanney, James Simon (Tanny was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and wrote the Dred Scott Decision)
5. Washington's Crossing, David Hackett Fisher
6. The Land Remembers, Ben Logan
Friday, December 14, 2007
Fear itself
“There go my people. I must hurry and catch up with them for I am their leader.” --Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
We heard Jesse Jackson at The Capital Times 90th birthday party Wednesday and came away more convinced than ever that if anything is to change, the people must lead; the leaders won’t.
The Capital Times story said it this way:
Most campaigns are "more poll conscious than change conscious," Jackson said. If the people push leaders to address the subprime economic crisis and better public education, the leadership will emerge and claim they were campaigning for those things all along. If the demonstrations are big enough, the candidates will catch up with the people."
Many of the issues that Jackson has championed, including civil rights struggles, were initially below the radar, he said. "It might not be popular or politic, but if it is right it will win ultimately."
Jackson’s brand of politics wasn’t popular with the mainstream media (with the notable exception of The Capital Times) and practical politicians when he ran for president – despite winning 18 million votes. It is the politics of hope, the belief that if enough people work for positive change, it will happen. It’s not popular now either. The Democrats too often seem to be engaging in the politics of despair – how to not lose. And the Republicans of course, are all about the politics of fear – fear the terrorists, fear immigrants, fear environmental protection, fear change of any sort.
Fear is the most basic of human emotions and is therefore the winning position in times of crisis. When Roosevelt said the only thing we had to fear was we had “fear itself,” most people understood that we had nothing to fear, but in fact, the important part of the sentence was the last two words. We must fear fear. One of the most common lessons of history – if anyone reads history these days – is that fear always leads to bad decisions – choices we will regret later. I don’t imagine I have to innumerate those in this blog. There's a long way to go to correct the abuses of the last seven years, but step one is to cast our most narrow-eyed suspicion on any politician who tries to lead by fear. They are always the enemy inside the camp.
We heard Jesse Jackson at The Capital Times 90th birthday party Wednesday and came away more convinced than ever that if anything is to change, the people must lead; the leaders won’t.
The Capital Times story said it this way:
Most campaigns are "more poll conscious than change conscious," Jackson said. If the people push leaders to address the subprime economic crisis and better public education, the leadership will emerge and claim they were campaigning for those things all along. If the demonstrations are big enough, the candidates will catch up with the people."
Many of the issues that Jackson has championed, including civil rights struggles, were initially below the radar, he said. "It might not be popular or politic, but if it is right it will win ultimately."
Jackson’s brand of politics wasn’t popular with the mainstream media (with the notable exception of The Capital Times) and practical politicians when he ran for president – despite winning 18 million votes. It is the politics of hope, the belief that if enough people work for positive change, it will happen. It’s not popular now either. The Democrats too often seem to be engaging in the politics of despair – how to not lose. And the Republicans of course, are all about the politics of fear – fear the terrorists, fear immigrants, fear environmental protection, fear change of any sort.
Fear is the most basic of human emotions and is therefore the winning position in times of crisis. When Roosevelt said the only thing we had to fear was we had “fear itself,” most people understood that we had nothing to fear, but in fact, the important part of the sentence was the last two words. We must fear fear. One of the most common lessons of history – if anyone reads history these days – is that fear always leads to bad decisions – choices we will regret later. I don’t imagine I have to innumerate those in this blog. There's a long way to go to correct the abuses of the last seven years, but step one is to cast our most narrow-eyed suspicion on any politician who tries to lead by fear. They are always the enemy inside the camp.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Favorite books of 2007 Part III
My favorite books of 2007 don't form any clear pattern. They are here because I liked them, or found them influential, or because they made me think. Some are still making me think months after I read them. The top five are presented here in no particular order.
Why Kerouac Matters: the Lessons of On the Road (2007), by John Leland. I read On the Road 40 years ago; I can hardly remember the characters anymore and certainly not the events. But Leland reminded me why Kerouac mattered to me then. His critique is insightful, sympathetic and scholarly. His writing (better than Kerouac’s) is hip, sharp and surprising. But that’s not the only reason this book makes my list. Lots of people ask why bother with Kerouac at all. He was a lush and a misogynist and not a very good writer. It’s because he caught the ghost of an America we all feel, but can’t quite catch. He believed it was possible to work hard, hold a job, raise a family (though he was lousy at all of the above) but still have a be-bop soul that wasn’t constrained by traditional thought. In his words: “We were embarked on a tremendous journey though post-Whitman America to find that America and to find the inherent goodness in American man. It was really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found Him.”
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan reminds us of how venal, selfish and pig-headed humans can be and at the same time how steadfast, honest and admirable in the face of inconceivable hardship. The stories are compelling and the writing is good, but the big, black cloud that looms over this book is the idea that we really haven’t learned a damn thing about messing with nature. The dust bowl was driven by economics and hubris and as soon as the price of wheat went up, people forgot the lessons of the dust and went back to making the same mistakes. We are making the same – or similar – mistakes still. And we are always surprised when nature bites us in the ass.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) by Michael Pollan, has changed my eating habits and that earns it a place on the list. Few books affect behavior. I hope this one affects the nation’s food policies, not just mine.
The History of Love (2005) by Nicole Kraus is a novel structured like the two halves of the yin-yang symbol. The stories come together at the end in a Dickensian way, but it seems not only natural but inevitable. The characters are true enough to break your heart and the writing does them justice. As you can see from my lists, I don’t read many novels. In fact, I quit reading two highly recommended novels in the middle this year because I got too bored with them. Nicole Kraus had an answer every time boredom knocked.
I am still reading Blessed Unrest (2007) by Paul Hawken, but I have a notion that it will become the next Omnivore’s Dilemma. Here’s how the publishers describe it: The dawn of the 21st Century has witnessed two remarkable developments in our history: the appearance of systemic problems that are genuinely global in scope, and the beginning of a worldwide movement that is determined to heal the earth with the force of passion, dedication and the force of collective intelligence and wisdom. Across the planet, groups ranging from ad-hoc neighborhood associations to well-funded international organizations are confronting issues like the destruction of the environment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. While they are mostly unrecognized by politicians and the media, they are bringing about what may one day be judged the single most profound transformation of human society.
OK, I showed you mine, now show me yours. What were your best books of 07?
Why Kerouac Matters: the Lessons of On the Road (2007), by John Leland. I read On the Road 40 years ago; I can hardly remember the characters anymore and certainly not the events. But Leland reminded me why Kerouac mattered to me then. His critique is insightful, sympathetic and scholarly. His writing (better than Kerouac’s) is hip, sharp and surprising. But that’s not the only reason this book makes my list. Lots of people ask why bother with Kerouac at all. He was a lush and a misogynist and not a very good writer. It’s because he caught the ghost of an America we all feel, but can’t quite catch. He believed it was possible to work hard, hold a job, raise a family (though he was lousy at all of the above) but still have a be-bop soul that wasn’t constrained by traditional thought. In his words: “We were embarked on a tremendous journey though post-Whitman America to find that America and to find the inherent goodness in American man. It was really a story about two Catholic buddies roaming the country in search of God. And we found Him.”
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan reminds us of how venal, selfish and pig-headed humans can be and at the same time how steadfast, honest and admirable in the face of inconceivable hardship. The stories are compelling and the writing is good, but the big, black cloud that looms over this book is the idea that we really haven’t learned a damn thing about messing with nature. The dust bowl was driven by economics and hubris and as soon as the price of wheat went up, people forgot the lessons of the dust and went back to making the same mistakes. We are making the same – or similar – mistakes still. And we are always surprised when nature bites us in the ass.
The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2006) by Michael Pollan, has changed my eating habits and that earns it a place on the list. Few books affect behavior. I hope this one affects the nation’s food policies, not just mine.
The History of Love (2005) by Nicole Kraus is a novel structured like the two halves of the yin-yang symbol. The stories come together at the end in a Dickensian way, but it seems not only natural but inevitable. The characters are true enough to break your heart and the writing does them justice. As you can see from my lists, I don’t read many novels. In fact, I quit reading two highly recommended novels in the middle this year because I got too bored with them. Nicole Kraus had an answer every time boredom knocked.
I am still reading Blessed Unrest (2007) by Paul Hawken, but I have a notion that it will become the next Omnivore’s Dilemma. Here’s how the publishers describe it: The dawn of the 21st Century has witnessed two remarkable developments in our history: the appearance of systemic problems that are genuinely global in scope, and the beginning of a worldwide movement that is determined to heal the earth with the force of passion, dedication and the force of collective intelligence and wisdom. Across the planet, groups ranging from ad-hoc neighborhood associations to well-funded international organizations are confronting issues like the destruction of the environment, the abuses of free-market fundamentalism, social justice, and the loss of indigenous cultures. While they are mostly unrecognized by politicians and the media, they are bringing about what may one day be judged the single most profound transformation of human society.
OK, I showed you mine, now show me yours. What were your best books of 07?
Saturday, December 8, 2007
Favorite books of 2007 Part II
This is the second of three posts with my list of favorite books for 2007. This post covers the five books that nearly made my top five list and they appear in no special order. This is not a countdown.
Tent Life in Siberia, was written as a journal by George Kennan, who was sent in 1864 to survey Eastern Siberia for a telegraph line and spent two years living with the natives in dark, cold yurts that smelled of smoke, sweat and blubber or camping out under the aurora borealis at 50 below. Like his contemporaries Mark Twain and John Muir, Kennan had prodigious powers of observation and wrote with a very sharp pen. For more, see my October 13 and 15 entries.
Speaking of Muir, he also makes my top-ten list for My First Summer in the Sierra, written shortly after the summer of 1869 from his journal notes. The heart of the book is not Yosemite or the unspoiled Sierras, but Muir’s own palpable love of the land and everything in it, his boundless exuberance and a Zen-like unity with grizzly bears and cumulus clouds.
Audubon, The Making of an American (2004), Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes’ 20th book, is a good account of JJ’s painting and naturalizing, if you’re already an Audubon fan, but I found it fascinating for its portrait of America in the early 1800s – the forgotten years of American history. Everyone (it seems) had boomer fever and business consisted of get-rich schemes and an endless attempt to collect on debts at a time when just getting from point A to point B required incredible physical energy and courage. It’s also notable for the descriptions of the nearly untouched wilderness of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and Audubon’s belated realization that it was all vanishing before his eyes.
The Making of the Fittest (2006), by Sean B. Carroll, is for fans of evolution. Yes, evolution has fans! Carroll takes evolution down to the genetic level to answer some of the puzzles of everyday life, including a fascinating chapter on color vision. There’s plenty of math and bio-chemistry in the book, but it’s still accessible for us dilatants.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America (1992), by E. C. Pielou, has more statistics and graphs than a glacier has gravel, but like the glacier, the book inevitably gets to its point. Pielou is worth reading just for her nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- the 105,000-year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit, as mediated by the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis (known as the obliquity of the ecliptic) and both mediated by the 21,000-year precession of the equinoxes, the movement of the equinox forward through the months. And that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. (Hint) It’s continential drift and the relative position of the continents.
Coming soon: My top five.
Tent Life in Siberia, was written as a journal by George Kennan, who was sent in 1864 to survey Eastern Siberia for a telegraph line and spent two years living with the natives in dark, cold yurts that smelled of smoke, sweat and blubber or camping out under the aurora borealis at 50 below. Like his contemporaries Mark Twain and John Muir, Kennan had prodigious powers of observation and wrote with a very sharp pen. For more, see my October 13 and 15 entries.
Speaking of Muir, he also makes my top-ten list for My First Summer in the Sierra, written shortly after the summer of 1869 from his journal notes. The heart of the book is not Yosemite or the unspoiled Sierras, but Muir’s own palpable love of the land and everything in it, his boundless exuberance and a Zen-like unity with grizzly bears and cumulus clouds.
Audubon, The Making of an American (2004), Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes’ 20th book, is a good account of JJ’s painting and naturalizing, if you’re already an Audubon fan, but I found it fascinating for its portrait of America in the early 1800s – the forgotten years of American history. Everyone (it seems) had boomer fever and business consisted of get-rich schemes and an endless attempt to collect on debts at a time when just getting from point A to point B required incredible physical energy and courage. It’s also notable for the descriptions of the nearly untouched wilderness of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys and Audubon’s belated realization that it was all vanishing before his eyes.
The Making of the Fittest (2006), by Sean B. Carroll, is for fans of evolution. Yes, evolution has fans! Carroll takes evolution down to the genetic level to answer some of the puzzles of everyday life, including a fascinating chapter on color vision. There’s plenty of math and bio-chemistry in the book, but it’s still accessible for us dilatants.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America (1992), by E. C. Pielou, has more statistics and graphs than a glacier has gravel, but like the glacier, the book inevitably gets to its point. Pielou is worth reading just for her nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- the 105,000-year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit, as mediated by the 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis (known as the obliquity of the ecliptic) and both mediated by the 21,000-year precession of the equinoxes, the movement of the equinox forward through the months. And that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. (Hint) It’s continential drift and the relative position of the continents.
Coming soon: My top five.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Favorite books of 2007 Part I
Saint Nicholas' Day is nearly upon us, so I guess that means it's time to erect the Christmas tree and think about the books that made an impression in 2007.
This is the first of three posts about the books that were my favorites or most influential or whatever for 2007. They are not necessarily new books; I just happened to read them this year. And they were not necessarily on the Drinking & Reading Society's list.
The first two are books about faith, and they could hardly be more different: What Paul Meant (2006), Garry Wills’ short, scholarly and generous reconstruction of the earliest writer about Christianity, and The End of Faith (2004), Sam Harris’s diatribe against the very idea of religion.
Wills draws upon dozens of scholars to present a strong argument that most of our current understanding of Paul is wrong – starting from the (fictitious?) tale of his conversion on the road to Damascus. Wills points out that Paul would have been angered and confused to hear his movement called Christianity. Unfortunately, I think Wills is better at telling us why what we know is wrong than he is at clearing saying what Paul actually did have to say to the 21st Century.
Harris’s argument starts from the premise that radical Islam is a threat to civilization as we know it, and, come to think of it, so are other radical religions, and come to think of it, all religions. So let’s just dispense with such irrational vestiges of our primitive past. Harris argues well and without quite the heavy dose of anger and vitriol that lace many similar books. But his task is Sisyphian. Religion seems to be as deeply embedded in our DNA as a taste for sugar or alcohol. By sticking to rational argument (although I suppose believers wouldn’t call it rational) he fails to address why religion appeals to us on an emotional level. For that I guess we have to read Franz deWaal and Jane Goodall.
The next two postings will be five books that almost made my list. Then I will get to the five books I would (and have) recommend to my best friends.
This is the first of three posts about the books that were my favorites or most influential or whatever for 2007. They are not necessarily new books; I just happened to read them this year. And they were not necessarily on the Drinking & Reading Society's list.
The first two are books about faith, and they could hardly be more different: What Paul Meant (2006), Garry Wills’ short, scholarly and generous reconstruction of the earliest writer about Christianity, and The End of Faith (2004), Sam Harris’s diatribe against the very idea of religion.
Wills draws upon dozens of scholars to present a strong argument that most of our current understanding of Paul is wrong – starting from the (fictitious?) tale of his conversion on the road to Damascus. Wills points out that Paul would have been angered and confused to hear his movement called Christianity. Unfortunately, I think Wills is better at telling us why what we know is wrong than he is at clearing saying what Paul actually did have to say to the 21st Century.
Harris’s argument starts from the premise that radical Islam is a threat to civilization as we know it, and, come to think of it, so are other radical religions, and come to think of it, all religions. So let’s just dispense with such irrational vestiges of our primitive past. Harris argues well and without quite the heavy dose of anger and vitriol that lace many similar books. But his task is Sisyphian. Religion seems to be as deeply embedded in our DNA as a taste for sugar or alcohol. By sticking to rational argument (although I suppose believers wouldn’t call it rational) he fails to address why religion appeals to us on an emotional level. For that I guess we have to read Franz deWaal and Jane Goodall.
The next two postings will be five books that almost made my list. Then I will get to the five books I would (and have) recommend to my best friends.
Friday, November 30, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Fighting global warming one truckload at a time
Bruce and I were cutting wood on the last day of deer season, risking getting a bullet in the back despite our orange vests and hats. Aside from the fresh air, here is a global warming balance sheet for our activity, figuring that wood is current account energy, versus fossil fuel.
The Smithers method assumes the following equivalents to one cord of average dry hardwood: 150 gallon No. 2 fuel oil, 230 gallon LP gas, 21,000 cubic feet natural gas, 6,158 kwh electricity.
A standard cord is a well-stacked pile of wood 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet. A cord of red oak weighs 4,886 pounds green or 3,350 pounds air dried. So a truckload (about 1/3 cord) should weigh between 1,115 and 1,640 pounds.
Then you have to figure the average efficiency of the heating appliance. Electric is 100%, a typical high efficiency furnace is 80%, a good wood stove is estimated at 50-60%.
So Bruce figures the visual is - a 55 gallon drum of fuel oil savings per truck load, or closer to 40 gallons assuming less efficient wood stove. Assuming we use about four gallons of gas for the truck and chain saws, the net energy benefit (and CO2) benefit is significant. Gasoline emits about 5-6 lbs of CO2 per gallon.
1,000 cubic feet of natural gas = 115 lbs of CO2 (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html.) So one cord = 21,000 cubic feet = 1.2 tons of C02, or about 800 lb of CO2 per truckload saving.
MGE's CO2 footprint for electricity is about 2.2 lbs of CO2/kwh. So 6,158 kwh of electricity = 6.77 tons of CO2, or about 2.25 tons per truckload.
The Smithers method assumes the following equivalents to one cord of average dry hardwood: 150 gallon No. 2 fuel oil, 230 gallon LP gas, 21,000 cubic feet natural gas, 6,158 kwh electricity.
A standard cord is a well-stacked pile of wood 4 feet by 4 feet by 8 feet. A cord of red oak weighs 4,886 pounds green or 3,350 pounds air dried. So a truckload (about 1/3 cord) should weigh between 1,115 and 1,640 pounds.
Then you have to figure the average efficiency of the heating appliance. Electric is 100%, a typical high efficiency furnace is 80%, a good wood stove is estimated at 50-60%.
So Bruce figures the visual is - a 55 gallon drum of fuel oil savings per truck load, or closer to 40 gallons assuming less efficient wood stove. Assuming we use about four gallons of gas for the truck and chain saws, the net energy benefit (and CO2) benefit is significant. Gasoline emits about 5-6 lbs of CO2 per gallon.
1,000 cubic feet of natural gas = 115 lbs of CO2 (http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/faq.html.) So one cord = 21,000 cubic feet = 1.2 tons of C02, or about 800 lb of CO2 per truckload saving.
MGE's CO2 footprint for electricity is about 2.2 lbs of CO2/kwh. So 6,158 kwh of electricity = 6.77 tons of CO2, or about 2.25 tons per truckload.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Old men and young earth
I was feeling pretty depressed after reading the story in Sunday’s NY Times magazine about a growing number of “credentialed scientists” who are advocates for creationism and young earth theory. I could almost feel the darkness descending. What’s next, I asked, auto de fe?
Then I read the paragraph below in Paul Hawkens’ Blessed Unrest. A year after the publication of On the Origin of Species and four years before Gregor Mendel first explained the probabilities that govern inheritance, learned men like Horace Greeley (the editor of the NY Tribune) and Louis Agassiz (the “discoverer” of the ice ages) didn’t even believe that plants necessarily grew from seeds. Yipes! So maybe this too will pass. Here’s the paragraph.
In 1860, Thoreau delivered his most important lecture from a scientific viewpoint, “The Succession of Forest Trees,” which introduced for the first time the idea that over time a community of plants and animals is gradually transformed in response to changes in the environment. Thoreau had just read Darwin’s Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle and was taken by Darwin’s description of species distribution and succession on the different islands of the archipelago. Horace Greeley vigorously contested Thoreau’s assertion that trees arise naturally from seeds that are dispersed by animals, water and wind. Greeley and others believed that wild plants under certain conditions were spontaneously generated. Their “progressivism” as it was labeled, was a variation of creationist dicta, positing a series of advanced creations on earth, culminating with man as the ultimate one, all linked by “an abstract unity to the mind of God.” At the time, this topic was an issue of vital concern to botanists and laymen alike with roots in theological principle. For progressives such as Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-born Harvard zoologist, spontaneous creation was fundamental to science, just as science was fundamental to religion.
Then I read the paragraph below in Paul Hawkens’ Blessed Unrest. A year after the publication of On the Origin of Species and four years before Gregor Mendel first explained the probabilities that govern inheritance, learned men like Horace Greeley (the editor of the NY Tribune) and Louis Agassiz (the “discoverer” of the ice ages) didn’t even believe that plants necessarily grew from seeds. Yipes! So maybe this too will pass. Here’s the paragraph.
In 1860, Thoreau delivered his most important lecture from a scientific viewpoint, “The Succession of Forest Trees,” which introduced for the first time the idea that over time a community of plants and animals is gradually transformed in response to changes in the environment. Thoreau had just read Darwin’s Journal of the Voyage of the Beagle and was taken by Darwin’s description of species distribution and succession on the different islands of the archipelago. Horace Greeley vigorously contested Thoreau’s assertion that trees arise naturally from seeds that are dispersed by animals, water and wind. Greeley and others believed that wild plants under certain conditions were spontaneously generated. Their “progressivism” as it was labeled, was a variation of creationist dicta, positing a series of advanced creations on earth, culminating with man as the ultimate one, all linked by “an abstract unity to the mind of God.” At the time, this topic was an issue of vital concern to botanists and laymen alike with roots in theological principle. For progressives such as Louis Agassiz, the Swiss-born Harvard zoologist, spontaneous creation was fundamental to science, just as science was fundamental to religion.
Potential future book
I have only started reading this book so I can't yet recommend it, but the topic - the global environmental and social justice movements - seems to be appropriate and I think you'll recognize the names below in praise of Blessed Unrest by Paul Hawken.
Paul Hawken states eloquently all that I believe so passionately to be true - that there is inherent goodness at the heart of our humanity, that collectively we can - and are - changing the world. -Jane Goodall
If you have lost a sense of direction in your life, if despair dogs your every step, pick up a pencil and pick up this book. -Barry Lopez
Nothing you read for years to come will fill you with more hope and more determination. -Bill McKibben
I believe Hawken when he says we are part of the Earth's immune system each time we exercise our active compassion in the name of social justice and ecological health. Blessed Unrest is a manifesto of hope for the 21st century grounded squarely in the hearts of engaged people around the planet. It is a field guide for all that is possible. -Terry Tempest Williams
Paul Hawken states eloquently all that I believe so passionately to be true - that there is inherent goodness at the heart of our humanity, that collectively we can - and are - changing the world. -Jane Goodall
If you have lost a sense of direction in your life, if despair dogs your every step, pick up a pencil and pick up this book. -Barry Lopez
Nothing you read for years to come will fill you with more hope and more determination. -Bill McKibben
I believe Hawken when he says we are part of the Earth's immune system each time we exercise our active compassion in the name of social justice and ecological health. Blessed Unrest is a manifesto of hope for the 21st century grounded squarely in the hearts of engaged people around the planet. It is a field guide for all that is possible. -Terry Tempest Williams
Monday, November 26, 2007
What's the matter with Biloxi
The Washington Post on Sunday had a very insightful article about the disparity in the recovery in Biloxi. You can find it at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/24/AR2007112400616.html
More than two years after the storm, the highly touted recovery of the Mississippi coast remains a starkly divided phenomenon.
While Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has hailed the casino openings as a harbinger of Mississippi's resurgence and developers have proposed more than $1 billion in beachfront condos and hotels for tourists, fewer than one in 10 of the thousands of single-family houses destroyed in Biloxi are being rebuilt, according to city permit records. More than 10,000 displaced families still live in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/24/AR2007112400616.html
More than two years after the storm, the highly touted recovery of the Mississippi coast remains a starkly divided phenomenon.
While Gov. Haley Barbour (R) has hailed the casino openings as a harbinger of Mississippi's resurgence and developers have proposed more than $1 billion in beachfront condos and hotels for tourists, fewer than one in 10 of the thousands of single-family houses destroyed in Biloxi are being rebuilt, according to city permit records. More than 10,000 displaced families still live in trailers provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency
Sunday, November 25, 2007
How I changed my mind about Terry Tempest Williams
If you will only read one book by Terry Tempest Williams, make it An Unspoken Hunger. I was put off by her mythification of the Navajo and the Utah desert in Coyote’s Canyon, because I thought she embellished needlessly and didn’t allow the land and animals to speak for themselves. In An Unspoken Hunger, she uses her powers to make ordinary – OK some extraordinary – people even larger than life. She writes about us and our ineffable connection to the earth – no we can’t really justify or explain our emotional connection to the land ethic in purely rational terms – at least not terms that will satisfy a developer or a bureaucrat. But these words have weight. Some random excerpts:
When James Watt was asked what he feared most about environmentalists, his response was simple: “I fear they are pagans.” He is right to be fearful.
It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas – whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers and bureaucrats – and admit that we are lovers engaged in the erotics of the place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place – there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true.
Edward Abbey writes: “Nature may be indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.”
When James Watt was asked what he feared most about environmentalists, his response was simple: “I fear they are pagans.” He is right to be fearful.
It is time for us to take off our masks, to step out from behind our personas – whatever they might be: educators, activists, biologists, geologists, writers, farmers, ranchers and bureaucrats – and admit that we are lovers engaged in the erotics of the place. Loving the land. Honoring its mysteries. Acknowledging, embracing the spirit of place – there is nothing more legitimate and there is nothing more true.
Edward Abbey writes: “Nature may be indifferent to our love, but never unfaithful.”
Friday, November 23, 2007
For tree-huggers only
Here’s a book that might appeal to a tree-hugger: American Chestnut: The Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree by Susan Freinkel. The book details the chestnut blight that destroyed what some considered America’s most magnificent tree and the century-long fight to bring it back.
Personally, I have never seen a chestnut that I’m aware of, at least partly because their native range was essentially the Eastern seaboard extending to the Western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. One intriguing fact is that one of the last surviving stands of chestnut is in East Salem Wisconsin – probably planted by a Civil War soldier who carried nuts home from the South.
It’s also noteworthy that the same debates are still going on about the emerald ash borer, gypsy moth, etc., and the same – ineffective – methods are still used to fight them. We haven’t learned much in 100 years, apparently.
Unfortunately, the book destroyed more trees than needful – it’s a relatively short story told in too many words for any but a real chest-nut.
Personally, I have never seen a chestnut that I’m aware of, at least partly because their native range was essentially the Eastern seaboard extending to the Western slopes of the Appalachian Mountains. One intriguing fact is that one of the last surviving stands of chestnut is in East Salem Wisconsin – probably planted by a Civil War soldier who carried nuts home from the South.
It’s also noteworthy that the same debates are still going on about the emerald ash borer, gypsy moth, etc., and the same – ineffective – methods are still used to fight them. We haven’t learned much in 100 years, apparently.
Unfortunately, the book destroyed more trees than needful – it’s a relatively short story told in too many words for any but a real chest-nut.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
What we're reading now
On a cold, rainy night, the D&R Society gathered in front of the fire at the Laurel Tavern. In typical independent fashion, since we couldn’t exactly choose a book this month, we read six among the six of us. The Book of Yaak, The Lost Grizzlies and The Ninemile Wolves, all by Rick Bass. Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert; Coyote’s Canyon; and An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field, all by Terry Tempest Williams.
I think we all agreed that Rick Bass has a more consistent voice and one we are all more comfortable with, but a bit too strident, political and polemical when it comes to protecting his beloved Yaak valley. I suppose we would all feel the same way about our own chosen homes. His stories of wolves prompted a story by Harry and David about watching a pack of nine wolves on a kill in Yellowstone – the kind of sight that would have been unheard of anywhere a decade ago, even for skilled naturalists in the wild. This pack had an audience of RV-bound wolf-watchers sitting comfortably in lawn chairs at the side of the road.
It’s harder to say what any of us thought about Terry Tempest Williams. Doug loved the descriptions of the land and recommended his book (Unspoken Hunger?) to daughter Josie. David almost didn’t finish Red and Harry was a bit put off by it also. I thought Coyote’s Canyon lived on the mystical plane – which is OK if you want religious or religio-cultural experiences, but it invites the danger of making the land, animals and even people into mythology and thus separating them from the real things. That’s how we got into our current mess – by objectifying the world and believing that God gave us all these things to do with as we wish. Sure, the Navajo myths don’t have the same outcome, but there’s nothing fundamentally different about the process of objectification that’s going on, is there?
We also lamented that Aldo Leopold remains virtually unknown outside of Wisconsin. I looked him up. Google has 833 individual references, but many of them are closely related. If you search for land ethic, Leopold is the first reference.
Next meeting date Wednesday, Dec. 19. Book TBD.
I think we all agreed that Rick Bass has a more consistent voice and one we are all more comfortable with, but a bit too strident, political and polemical when it comes to protecting his beloved Yaak valley. I suppose we would all feel the same way about our own chosen homes. His stories of wolves prompted a story by Harry and David about watching a pack of nine wolves on a kill in Yellowstone – the kind of sight that would have been unheard of anywhere a decade ago, even for skilled naturalists in the wild. This pack had an audience of RV-bound wolf-watchers sitting comfortably in lawn chairs at the side of the road.
It’s harder to say what any of us thought about Terry Tempest Williams. Doug loved the descriptions of the land and recommended his book (Unspoken Hunger?) to daughter Josie. David almost didn’t finish Red and Harry was a bit put off by it also. I thought Coyote’s Canyon lived on the mystical plane – which is OK if you want religious or religio-cultural experiences, but it invites the danger of making the land, animals and even people into mythology and thus separating them from the real things. That’s how we got into our current mess – by objectifying the world and believing that God gave us all these things to do with as we wish. Sure, the Navajo myths don’t have the same outcome, but there’s nothing fundamentally different about the process of objectification that’s going on, is there?
We also lamented that Aldo Leopold remains virtually unknown outside of Wisconsin. I looked him up. Google has 833 individual references, but many of them are closely related. If you search for land ethic, Leopold is the first reference.
Next meeting date Wednesday, Dec. 19. Book TBD.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Biloxi ain't what it used to be
and it never will be again.
That's just my conclusion, of course, after spending a week working to restore homes that were damaged 2+ years ago by Katrina. There were 50 volunteers in our group from Wisconsin, Illinois and Connecticut. That's a pretty typical week for the Back Bay Mission that we were working with. There are other agencies with volunteers as well. So far, they have barely scratched the surface. It may take 10-15 years for the Gulf coast to recover from Katrina and when it does, it will be totally changed. Before the storm, much of the Gulf coast looked like a (very poor) version of Wisconsin Dells, with 100 miles of homes, restaurants, small hotels and T-shirt shops lining the white sand beach for 100 miles. Now it looks like Atlantic City with a few 30-story casinos standing along the beachfront separated by vast areas of -- nothing. Blocks and blocks of slabs and concrete steps. Debris still hanging 20 feet up in the trees.
Part of the problem is that federal aid is being diverted. (See last week's NY Times story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/16/us/16mississippi.html). Part is FEMA's total incompetence. What you get when you elect politicians who believe government is the problem. Part of it is that Mississippi has so few public service agencies that they can't manage the reconstruction. Part is speculation by landowners who hope to make fat profits selling out to casinos or condo developers. Part is the fact that flood insurance has increased by 2000 percent so homeowners and mom & pop businesses can't afford it. The result is that maybe 100,000 homes are still missing or unlivable.
The people we are helping are incredibly grateful. I never heard so many people say "thank you" in my life. But many are not even on the list to get help yet. They are living in toxic FEMA trailers or with relatives. I don't know what any of this has to do with books about nature - although nature sure asserted herself here. It's just as much about human nature.
In the photo: Pat Tucker, Eagle River; myself; Phil Haslanger and Dave Michaels, Madison.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Western voices
The blog will be silent for the next week while I travel with a group to Biloxi to help rebuild houses damaged by Katrina. In the meantime, here are some thoughts on two of our alternative books for November: The Ninemile Wolves, by Rick Bass and Coyote’s Canyon by Terry Tempest Williams. I can’t imagine how these two could have occupied the same stage at the book festival. Other than sharing a love for the Western landscape, they seem to see with different eyes and speak with different voices.
Rick Bass clearly sees the wolves of Ninemile Valley as his blood brothers, magically able to slip the bonds of civilization like smoke and shadows, yet tragically drawn into the pulsing magnetic field thrown off by the domestic way of life, by ranches and roads, cattle and property lines. The Western dilemma. We can’t live like wolves. In these days and even in this place, even the wolves can’t live like wolves. Yet, he can’t bring himself to shuck his Western mindset enough to come out and actually say right out that he too is trapped like them. Rather, like a professor in a cowboy bar, he adopts a too-gruff tone of voice and reminds us that he too carries a gun and can kill. It’s not persuasive and it’s not meant to be. In fact, his very ambivalence is eloquence and reveals his emotional tie with the land and the wild.
Terry Tempest Williams doesn’t try to disguise anything. Reading her is like listening to an old hippie who has been wandering in the desert since 1969. She sees the spirit in all things, even to the point of not seeing – or willing not to see – the physical and just plain animal side. I was surprised to learn that she is a naturalist because her stories dwell so much in myth and mystical meaning that nature seems like only the pale backdrop for her dramas of the heart.
Listen:
When traveling to southern Utah for the first time, it is fair to ask if the redrocks were cut would they bleed. And when traveling to Utah's desert for the second or third time, it is fair to assume that they do, that the blood of the rocks gives life to the country.
Oral tradition reminds one of community and community in the native American sense encompasses all life forms, people, land and creatures. Landscape shapes culture. Aldo Leopold states, ”the rich diversity of the world’s cultures reflects the corresponding diversity in the wilds that gave them birth.” Perhaps we can begin to find the origins of our cultural inheritance in the land. Not just backward, but forward to understand the profound interconnectedness of all living things. As Gregory Bateson says, if the world be connected, then thinking in terms of stories must be shared by all mind or minds whether ours, or those of redwood forests or sea anemones.
Rick Bass clearly sees the wolves of Ninemile Valley as his blood brothers, magically able to slip the bonds of civilization like smoke and shadows, yet tragically drawn into the pulsing magnetic field thrown off by the domestic way of life, by ranches and roads, cattle and property lines. The Western dilemma. We can’t live like wolves. In these days and even in this place, even the wolves can’t live like wolves. Yet, he can’t bring himself to shuck his Western mindset enough to come out and actually say right out that he too is trapped like them. Rather, like a professor in a cowboy bar, he adopts a too-gruff tone of voice and reminds us that he too carries a gun and can kill. It’s not persuasive and it’s not meant to be. In fact, his very ambivalence is eloquence and reveals his emotional tie with the land and the wild.
Terry Tempest Williams doesn’t try to disguise anything. Reading her is like listening to an old hippie who has been wandering in the desert since 1969. She sees the spirit in all things, even to the point of not seeing – or willing not to see – the physical and just plain animal side. I was surprised to learn that she is a naturalist because her stories dwell so much in myth and mystical meaning that nature seems like only the pale backdrop for her dramas of the heart.
Listen:
When traveling to southern Utah for the first time, it is fair to ask if the redrocks were cut would they bleed. And when traveling to Utah's desert for the second or third time, it is fair to assume that they do, that the blood of the rocks gives life to the country.
Oral tradition reminds one of community and community in the native American sense encompasses all life forms, people, land and creatures. Landscape shapes culture. Aldo Leopold states, ”the rich diversity of the world’s cultures reflects the corresponding diversity in the wilds that gave them birth.” Perhaps we can begin to find the origins of our cultural inheritance in the land. Not just backward, but forward to understand the profound interconnectedness of all living things. As Gregory Bateson says, if the world be connected, then thinking in terms of stories must be shared by all mind or minds whether ours, or those of redwood forests or sea anemones.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Returning the wolf to Yellowstone
Harry sent this review from New West media in Missoula and thought you all would enjoy it. Having just finished The Ninemile Wolves by Rick Bass, this is like the next chapter in the story. There’s a link to New West at the end.
Reviewed by Allen M. Jones, 6-12-05
For all the bad news that comes with living in the Rocky Mountain West (high land values, low wages, xenophobia, myopic county commissioners), the good news still mostly tips the scales down hard.
Hunting and fishing, skiing, a few ranchers for a dollop of local color. For the politically minded, you also have an available portfolio of endless, personal jihads. Running through the issues, you can find a flag to be raised for damn near any political taste. Coalbed-methane? Got you covered. Brucellosis and buffalo? Step right up. Heap-Leach Mining? Walk this way. Then you’ve got your Yellowstone wolves. Mention it in a certain kind of bar and it’s like turning on the propane, striking a match. A hot button, emotionalized topic start to finish, it’s been the western equivalent of stem cell research, abortion rights. Everybody has an opinion, and everybody’s an expert. Since the reintroduction ten years ago, when thirty-one wolves were released into the park (they’ve since burgeoned into a population of around three hundred), at least thirty wolves have been killed illegally.
Only a few weeks ago, a collared wolf was found dead and poisoned in Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness. And yet, take a drive through Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley at dusk and try to count the hundreds of wolf watchers clustered above the highway with spotting scopes and binoculars, each of them hoping for even the briefest glimpse of some vestigial wildness. This is the polarization of the west in microcosm. Stirred into this roiling stew of outfitters versus biologists, locals versus tourists, comes the newest bone, Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone. Co-authored by biologist Douglas W. Smith, current head of the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Project, and award-winning nature writer Gary Ferguson, it is, more than anything else, a soothing, well-considered exercise in scientific moderation and narrative description. Taking us from the first raising of an acclimation pen gate through to the final, wildly successful dispersal of wolves into seventeen distinct packs, there is little in this thoroughly well written, even-handed account for even the harshest critic to take issue with.
Start with the statistics, with the incidental facts and trivia. “People are often surprised to learn that the average age of wolves in Yellowstone at time of death...is only 3.4 years...Their lives unfold against great risk “ from having their skulls kicked in and limbs and teeth broken, to death at the hands of rival packs." The numbers make for great cocktail conversations. “Over the past hundred years in all of North America there have been less than twenty cases of wolves attacking humans, not one of which has resulted in a fatality." (Howard’s note: There was a documented fatal attack in Saskatchewan last year, apparently by wolves who had become acclimated to humans and had previously attacked dogs.)
In introducing the Lamar Valley (a center of wolf activity), the authors write, “It was here that the last wolf disappeared from Yellowstone, killed in 1926. And here that three groups of reintroduced wolves would in 1995 once more walk into the life of the wild, taking their pack names from natural features laid down on maps long before: Crystal Creek, Rose Creek, and Soda Butte."
Later, in one of the “portrait of a wolf" chapters, it’s mentioned that out of the original thirty-one wolves released, only a few played pivotal roles in the success of the project. “Genetic studies done in 1999 showed that 79 percent of all wolves in Yellowstone...were related to the outstanding alpha female Number 9." Separately, both Gary Ferguson and Doug Smith have written on the wolf recovery project, but this is apparently the first time they have worked together. And while Ferguson is listed as a co-author, the narrative is told from the point of view of Doug Smith. Given the depth of Smith’s experience (he was present when the first wolf was released), he has to be considered one of the foremost authorities. It can be assumed, however, that like most scientists, his writing style might lean toward the antiseptic, the dry, failures certainly not shared by Ferguson.
And so it is here, with this pairing of legitimacy and narrative skill, the vivid retelling of anecdote and the near novelistic recapturing of certain crucial moments in the development of the wolf recovery project, that the most obvious value of the book lies. Whether it’s in the descriptions of what it’s like to lean out of a helicopter with a dart gun, or to track a radio collar signal, or to recapture a wolf with nets (“In that face, grizzled and gray with age, was the look of a beautifully fierce and resolute animal. The only wolf skull I have in my office in Mammoth is that of 27 “ a reminder of her incorrigible, incorruptible spirit."), you leave the pages feeling that you’ve been given privileged insight, that you know some sort of secret.
For instance, the moment the recovery project might be said to have truly begun came when Carter Niemeyer, “sent up north to kindle the collaring operation that will eventually land wolves in Yellowstone," tries to win the trust of an independent trapper by participating in a skinning contest, slipping the skin from a previously trapped wolf on the man’s living room carpet. The arguments for wolf reintroduction are manifest. At one point, the authors discuss the surprising benefits to the park's ecology: “[The elk are] moving away from certain feeding areas along park streams and rivers that have poor visibility.
Preliminary research suggests that such movements are allowing willow, cottonwood shoots, and other vegetation to be 'released,' flourishing where they haven’t for decades. With the return of such plants come beaver, and with the construction of beaver dams, a loose toss of...muskrat, amphibians, fish, waterfowl, even songbirds..."
But the strongest argument, at least for my money, comes with the opportunity for unprecedented, observational research. The authors compare releasing the wolves into this unpopulated habitat to astronauts landing on an untouched planet. “This reintroduction has brought with it the prospect of learning how wolves settle landscapes, kill prey, deal with interpack skirmishes, socialize, mate, raise their pups, even fend off grizzly bears...Some researchers claim that what they learn in a given year in this national park would in other places take a decade.” of course, by its very definition, wildness is inaccessible.
Even now, it’s a rare thing to see a Yellowstone wolf. That’s as it should be. Were they readily available, they would certainly no longer be quite what we imagine them to be, what we in some measure need them to be. Fortunately, we have emissaries as talented and conscientious as Smith and Ferguson who are willing to make the trip back from the wilderness to happily describe what they’ve seen.
http://www.newwest.net/book-reviews/
New West is a next-generation media company dedicated to the culture, economy, politics, environment and lifestyle of the Rocky Mountain West. Our core mission is to serve the Rockies with innovative, participatory journalism and to promote conversation that helps us understand and make the most of the dramatic changes sweeping our region. New West Publishing LLC, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, was founded in 2005 by Jonathan Weber.
Reviewed by Allen M. Jones, 6-12-05
For all the bad news that comes with living in the Rocky Mountain West (high land values, low wages, xenophobia, myopic county commissioners), the good news still mostly tips the scales down hard.
Hunting and fishing, skiing, a few ranchers for a dollop of local color. For the politically minded, you also have an available portfolio of endless, personal jihads. Running through the issues, you can find a flag to be raised for damn near any political taste. Coalbed-methane? Got you covered. Brucellosis and buffalo? Step right up. Heap-Leach Mining? Walk this way. Then you’ve got your Yellowstone wolves. Mention it in a certain kind of bar and it’s like turning on the propane, striking a match. A hot button, emotionalized topic start to finish, it’s been the western equivalent of stem cell research, abortion rights. Everybody has an opinion, and everybody’s an expert. Since the reintroduction ten years ago, when thirty-one wolves were released into the park (they’ve since burgeoned into a population of around three hundred), at least thirty wolves have been killed illegally.
Only a few weeks ago, a collared wolf was found dead and poisoned in Idaho’s Frank Church Wilderness. And yet, take a drive through Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley at dusk and try to count the hundreds of wolf watchers clustered above the highway with spotting scopes and binoculars, each of them hoping for even the briefest glimpse of some vestigial wildness. This is the polarization of the west in microcosm. Stirred into this roiling stew of outfitters versus biologists, locals versus tourists, comes the newest bone, Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone. Co-authored by biologist Douglas W. Smith, current head of the Yellowstone Wolf Recovery Project, and award-winning nature writer Gary Ferguson, it is, more than anything else, a soothing, well-considered exercise in scientific moderation and narrative description. Taking us from the first raising of an acclimation pen gate through to the final, wildly successful dispersal of wolves into seventeen distinct packs, there is little in this thoroughly well written, even-handed account for even the harshest critic to take issue with.
Start with the statistics, with the incidental facts and trivia. “People are often surprised to learn that the average age of wolves in Yellowstone at time of death...is only 3.4 years...Their lives unfold against great risk “ from having their skulls kicked in and limbs and teeth broken, to death at the hands of rival packs." The numbers make for great cocktail conversations. “Over the past hundred years in all of North America there have been less than twenty cases of wolves attacking humans, not one of which has resulted in a fatality." (Howard’s note: There was a documented fatal attack in Saskatchewan last year, apparently by wolves who had become acclimated to humans and had previously attacked dogs.)
In introducing the Lamar Valley (a center of wolf activity), the authors write, “It was here that the last wolf disappeared from Yellowstone, killed in 1926. And here that three groups of reintroduced wolves would in 1995 once more walk into the life of the wild, taking their pack names from natural features laid down on maps long before: Crystal Creek, Rose Creek, and Soda Butte."
Later, in one of the “portrait of a wolf" chapters, it’s mentioned that out of the original thirty-one wolves released, only a few played pivotal roles in the success of the project. “Genetic studies done in 1999 showed that 79 percent of all wolves in Yellowstone...were related to the outstanding alpha female Number 9." Separately, both Gary Ferguson and Doug Smith have written on the wolf recovery project, but this is apparently the first time they have worked together. And while Ferguson is listed as a co-author, the narrative is told from the point of view of Doug Smith. Given the depth of Smith’s experience (he was present when the first wolf was released), he has to be considered one of the foremost authorities. It can be assumed, however, that like most scientists, his writing style might lean toward the antiseptic, the dry, failures certainly not shared by Ferguson.
And so it is here, with this pairing of legitimacy and narrative skill, the vivid retelling of anecdote and the near novelistic recapturing of certain crucial moments in the development of the wolf recovery project, that the most obvious value of the book lies. Whether it’s in the descriptions of what it’s like to lean out of a helicopter with a dart gun, or to track a radio collar signal, or to recapture a wolf with nets (“In that face, grizzled and gray with age, was the look of a beautifully fierce and resolute animal. The only wolf skull I have in my office in Mammoth is that of 27 “ a reminder of her incorrigible, incorruptible spirit."), you leave the pages feeling that you’ve been given privileged insight, that you know some sort of secret.
For instance, the moment the recovery project might be said to have truly begun came when Carter Niemeyer, “sent up north to kindle the collaring operation that will eventually land wolves in Yellowstone," tries to win the trust of an independent trapper by participating in a skinning contest, slipping the skin from a previously trapped wolf on the man’s living room carpet. The arguments for wolf reintroduction are manifest. At one point, the authors discuss the surprising benefits to the park's ecology: “[The elk are] moving away from certain feeding areas along park streams and rivers that have poor visibility.
Preliminary research suggests that such movements are allowing willow, cottonwood shoots, and other vegetation to be 'released,' flourishing where they haven’t for decades. With the return of such plants come beaver, and with the construction of beaver dams, a loose toss of...muskrat, amphibians, fish, waterfowl, even songbirds..."
But the strongest argument, at least for my money, comes with the opportunity for unprecedented, observational research. The authors compare releasing the wolves into this unpopulated habitat to astronauts landing on an untouched planet. “This reintroduction has brought with it the prospect of learning how wolves settle landscapes, kill prey, deal with interpack skirmishes, socialize, mate, raise their pups, even fend off grizzly bears...Some researchers claim that what they learn in a given year in this national park would in other places take a decade.” of course, by its very definition, wildness is inaccessible.
Even now, it’s a rare thing to see a Yellowstone wolf. That’s as it should be. Were they readily available, they would certainly no longer be quite what we imagine them to be, what we in some measure need them to be. Fortunately, we have emissaries as talented and conscientious as Smith and Ferguson who are willing to make the trip back from the wilderness to happily describe what they’ve seen.
http://www.newwest.net/book-reviews/
New West is a next-generation media company dedicated to the culture, economy, politics, environment and lifestyle of the Rocky Mountain West. Our core mission is to serve the Rockies with innovative, participatory journalism and to promote conversation that helps us understand and make the most of the dramatic changes sweeping our region. New West Publishing LLC, headquartered in Missoula, Montana, was founded in 2005 by Jonathan Weber.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
A death in the family
We are sad to say that our wonderful Doberman, Aoife, died yesterday from a heart condition. I don’t mean to insult anyone’s pet, but Aoife was the most beautiful dog in the world (and knew it) and she knew more words and grammar than any dog we have ever known. In the Ulster Cycle of Gaelic mythology, Aoife is a warrior princess, but with us she was just our princess. We all miss her terribly.
If you're a fan of Gaelic mythology, you can find the story of Aoife and Cuchulainn at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cúchulainn
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
The 100-mile dilemma
Whole, fresh and local sounded like a good idea at the time.
Our dinner group has been meeting and eating for about 10 years now and is willing to try just about anything. Like the time we had a totally heart-healthy meal because one of the group had just had a multiple by-pass. So what if the cake tasted like cardboard with rubber frosting?
So how hard could it be to produce a gourmet-quality meal entirely from ingredients produced within 100 miles of our rural New Glarus home? That was the challenge and we figured, except for the wine, no problem! It’s harvest time, after all, not January in Wisconsin (yet).
We were inspired by Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver, of course, but also by a 100-mile dinner we had in March at the Raincity Grille in Vancouver. Go to: http://www.dinehere.ca/restaurant.asp?r=117
Let me say up front that the meal was fabulous, the table looked sumptuous and the conversation was, as always, sharp. But it turned out that everybody had a story about getting the food. Pollan and Kingsolver have written books – and made good money – out of the stories behind the food. I’m just writing a blog for free, so don’t expect that level of detail here.
The biggest shock was learning that what we thought should be local, wasn’t. Trader Joe’s cheese is imported. Whole Foods may be whole and fresh, but it’s not local. Brennan’s had local apples and cheese (we bought some award-winning Wisconsin cheddar), but the pears came from Washington, which required a menu change. Even our local metzgerai (Hosley’s meats) informed us that their meat comes from “a distributor” and they couldn’t vouch for its provenance. Thank goodness for the Willy Street Coop and the farmers market.
Dairy, of course, was no problem. Organic Valley, Blue Marble Farm and even Golden Guernsey fall well within the 100-mile compass, so there was plenty of butter and cream from cows that actually eat grass. Our Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) box from Tipi Farm near Evansville provided squash, parsnips, garlic and Brussels sprouts. Swiss chard and basil came from our own garden. Apples, potatoes, peppers, creamy goat cheese and even smoked Southern Wisconsin brook trout came from the farmers market.
Fresh eggs and free-range bacon were easy to find at Paoli Local Foods, which is a true Mecca for those who want to eat local and/or organic, and has the best bacon I’ve ever eaten. A conversation with Nancy Potter convinced us that Potter’s Crackers are made with as many locally sourced ingredients as a cracker could possibly be. To brighten up the table, we cut roses from our own garden, and also ordered a centerpiece from Daffodil Parker made with local flowers.
One of our stories concerned the beef. We are omnivores, after all. We considered using the beef we get from our local cowboy/farrier who raises Texas longhorns, but the tradition of the dinner group demanded something special, so we finally settled on beef tenderloin stuffed with chard, cheese and dried cherries. We stretched the 100-mile rule just a bit to enjoy cherries from Door County.
Getting the tenderloin illustrated the second problem with the local market – actually making the connection between farm and table, even after you’ve found the supplier. We ordered the tenderloin from Pecatonica Valley Farms in Hollandale at the farmers’ market a week before the dinner, but when we went to get it on the day of the event, it wasn’t there. The owner, John Lee, rather sheepishly explained that he had forgotten to put it on the truck that morning. While were still rapidly calculating the logistics of a last-minute menu change in our minds, John suggested that he would deliver the tenderloin direct to our home in plenty of time for dinner. Now that’s local! Thanks, John.
For more on this topic, check out Mary Bergin’s Local farmer, meet local chef in The Capital Times at http://www.madison.com/tct/entertainment/253804.
For the apple cake dessert, we found locally grown organic flour from Brantmeier Family Farm in Monroe. Surprisingly, even the wine didn’t turn out to be the problem we feared. Everyone independently discovered Wollersheim wines made in Prairie du Sac with Wisconsin-grown grapes. Entirely drinkable, as they say.
What wasn’t local? The aforementioned cherries from Door County and maple syrup from Maple Hollow in Merrill were a stretch of the 100-mile rule, but still local to Wisconsin. We couldn’t resist offering New Glarus beer, since it’s made just from over the hill from our home, even though we know the hops come from around the world and even the grain probably isn’t local either.
The hard core of not-local came down the kinds of things that have launched fleets of trading ships for centuries: coffee (fair trade in this case), seasonings and olive oil. If there’s a local source for cooking oil, we didn't find it.
And the people. Our food certainly traveled less than the average 1,500 miles to our table, but that doesn’t mean our carbon footprint was negligible. To get all our guests to the dinner required 150 vehicle-miles. A couple of trips to the farmers market and other venues for us made another 100+. Not counting our guests’ travels in search of ingredients or the
various farmers’ trips to the farmers market. Or, stepping back another layer, not counting the original inputs that went into growing the food to begin with.
So was it some kind of environmental virtue that drove us to this experiment? Not really. In the end it was those primal human urges: the pursuit of good food and good companionship. Both were well satisfied on this particular Saturday night.
Friday, October 26, 2007
Reading list
As far as I can tell, these are the books the Drinking & Reading Society has read since its inception, whenever that was. If you have any additions, or can put dates to the selections, have at it.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard Dec. 08
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard Dec. 08
Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future by Jeff Goodell Oct. 08
The Voyage of The Beagle by Charles Darwin Sept. 08
Jayber Crow by Wendell Berry July 08
What Are People For?: Essays by Wendell Berry June 08
In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan May 08
Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade April 08
The Searunners, Ivan Doig (March 08)
Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wolves to Yellowstone, Smith & Furgeson (Feb. 08)
Tent Life in Siberia, George Kennan (Jan. 08)
The Book of Yaak, The Lost Grizzlies, The Ninemile Wolves, Rick Bass. Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert; Coyote’s Canyon, An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field, Terry Tempest Williams. (Nov. 07)
Of Moths & Men, Judith Hooper OR After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou (Oct. 07) Moths & Men, Judith Hooper (Oct. 07)
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou (Oct. 07)
The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan, Sept. 07
The Land Remembers, Ben Logan July 07
A Natural History of North American Trees, Donald Culross Peattie June 07
Audubon, The Making of an American, Richard Rhodes, May 07
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan, Mar./Apr. 07
My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir, Feb. 07
The Making of the Fittest, Sean B. Carroll, Jan. 07
The Creation, E.O. Wilson, Dec. 06
Great Plains, Ian Frazier, Nov. 06
A Northwoods Companion, John Bates July 06
Our Inner Ape, Frans de Waal June 06
Evolution, Edward Larson May 06
Nature Revealed, Edward O. Wilson, April 06
1491, Michael Carr, March 06
Desert Solitaire. Edward Abbey August 04
The Desert Year. Joseph Wood Krutch (August 04 alternative)
Correction Lines, Curt Meine
River Town, Peter Hassler
The Man from Clear Lake: Sen. Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, Bill Christofferson.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27,1883, Simon Winchester July 04
Sea of Glory, Nathaniel Philbrick
The Death of Environmentalism
The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen
Collapse, Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs & Steel, Jared Diamond
A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan
The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
The Survival of the Bark Canoe, John McPhee
Founding Fish, John McPhee
Young Men and Fire, Norman McLean
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner
My Childhood and Youth, John Muir
Birds of Heaven, Peter Mattiessen
Consilience, E.O. Wilson
Listening Point, Sigurd F. Olson
Winter World, Bernd Heinrich
This House of Sky, Landscapes of a Western Mind, Ivan Doig
The Timber Wolf in Wisconsin by Richard Thiel
The Company of Wolves by Peter Steinhart
The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species by L. David Mech, Dec. 05
Changes in the Land, Bill Cronon
The Last Voyage of Columbus, Martin Dugard
Of Moths & Men, Judith Hooper OR After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou (Oct. 07) Moths & Men, Judith Hooper (Oct. 07)
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou (Oct. 07)
The Worst Hard Time, Timothy Egan, Sept. 07
The Land Remembers, Ben Logan July 07
A Natural History of North American Trees, Donald Culross Peattie June 07
Audubon, The Making of an American, Richard Rhodes, May 07
The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan, Mar./Apr. 07
My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir, Feb. 07
The Making of the Fittest, Sean B. Carroll, Jan. 07
The Creation, E.O. Wilson, Dec. 06
Great Plains, Ian Frazier, Nov. 06
A Northwoods Companion, John Bates July 06
Our Inner Ape, Frans de Waal June 06
Evolution, Edward Larson May 06
Nature Revealed, Edward O. Wilson, April 06
1491, Michael Carr, March 06
Desert Solitaire. Edward Abbey August 04
The Desert Year. Joseph Wood Krutch (August 04 alternative)
Correction Lines, Curt Meine
River Town, Peter Hassler
The Man from Clear Lake: Sen. Gaylord Nelson, founder of Earth Day, Bill Christofferson.
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, by Marc Reisner
A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson
Krakatoa : The Day the World Exploded: August 27,1883, Simon Winchester July 04
Sea of Glory, Nathaniel Philbrick
The Death of Environmentalism
The Song of the Dodo, David Quammen
Collapse, Jared Diamond
Guns, Germs & Steel, Jared Diamond
A Place of My Own, Michael Pollan
The Botany of Desire, Michael Pollan
The Survival of the Bark Canoe, John McPhee
Founding Fish, John McPhee
Young Men and Fire, Norman McLean
Beyond the Hundredth Meridian, Wallace Stegner
My Childhood and Youth, John Muir
Birds of Heaven, Peter Mattiessen
Consilience, E.O. Wilson
Listening Point, Sigurd F. Olson
Winter World, Bernd Heinrich
This House of Sky, Landscapes of a Western Mind, Ivan Doig
The Timber Wolf in Wisconsin by Richard Thiel
The Company of Wolves by Peter Steinhart
The Wolf: The Ecology and Behaviour of an Endangered Species by L. David Mech, Dec. 05
Changes in the Land, Bill Cronon
The Last Voyage of Columbus, Martin Dugard
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Happy Birthday, Earth
9 a.m. October 23, 4004 B.C. as calculated by Bishop James Ussher in 1650.
When Clarence Darrow prepared his famous examination of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial, he chose to focus primarily on a chronology of Biblical events prepared by a seventeenth-century Irish bishop, James Ussher. American fundamentalists in 1925 found—and generally accepted as accurate—Ussher’s careful calculation of dates, going all the way back to Creation, in the margins of their family Bibles. (In fact, until the 1970s, the Bibles placed in nearly every hotel room by the Gideon Society carried his chronology.) The King James Version of the Bible introduced into evidence by the prosecution in Dayton contained Ussher’s famous chronology, and Bryan more than once would be forced to resort to the bishop’s dates as he tried to respond to Darrow’s questions.
The chronology first appeared in The Annals of the Old Testament, a monumental work first published in London in the summer of 1650. In 1654, Ussher added a part two which took his history through Rome’s destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The project, which produced 2,000 pages in Latin, occupied twenty years of Ussher’s life.
Ussher lived through momentous times, having been born during the reign of Elizabeth and dying, in 1656, under Cromwell. He was a talented fast-track scholar who entered Trinity College in Dublin at the early age of thirteen, became an ordained priest by the age of twenty, and a professor at Trinity by twenty-seven. In 1625, Ussher became the head of the Anglo-Irish Church in Ireland.
As a Protestant bishop in a Catholic land, Ussher’s obsession with providing an accurate Biblical history stemmed from a desire to establish the superiority of the scholarship practiced by the clergy of his reformed faith over that of the Jesuits, the resolutely intellectual Roman Catholic order. (Ussher had absolutely nothing good to say about “papists” and their “superstitious” faith and “erroneous” doctrine.) Ussher committed himself to establishing a date for Creation that could withstand any challenge. He located and studied thousands of ancient books and manuscripts, written in many different languages. By the time of his death, he had amassed a library of over 10,000 volumes.
The date forever tied to Bishop Ussher appears in the first paragraph of the first page of The Annals. Ussher wrote: “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.” In the right margin of the page, Ussher computes the date in “Christian” time as 4004 B.C
When Clarence Darrow prepared his famous examination of William Jennings Bryan in the Scopes trial, he chose to focus primarily on a chronology of Biblical events prepared by a seventeenth-century Irish bishop, James Ussher. American fundamentalists in 1925 found—and generally accepted as accurate—Ussher’s careful calculation of dates, going all the way back to Creation, in the margins of their family Bibles. (In fact, until the 1970s, the Bibles placed in nearly every hotel room by the Gideon Society carried his chronology.) The King James Version of the Bible introduced into evidence by the prosecution in Dayton contained Ussher’s famous chronology, and Bryan more than once would be forced to resort to the bishop’s dates as he tried to respond to Darrow’s questions.
The chronology first appeared in The Annals of the Old Testament, a monumental work first published in London in the summer of 1650. In 1654, Ussher added a part two which took his history through Rome’s destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The project, which produced 2,000 pages in Latin, occupied twenty years of Ussher’s life.
Ussher lived through momentous times, having been born during the reign of Elizabeth and dying, in 1656, under Cromwell. He was a talented fast-track scholar who entered Trinity College in Dublin at the early age of thirteen, became an ordained priest by the age of twenty, and a professor at Trinity by twenty-seven. In 1625, Ussher became the head of the Anglo-Irish Church in Ireland.
As a Protestant bishop in a Catholic land, Ussher’s obsession with providing an accurate Biblical history stemmed from a desire to establish the superiority of the scholarship practiced by the clergy of his reformed faith over that of the Jesuits, the resolutely intellectual Roman Catholic order. (Ussher had absolutely nothing good to say about “papists” and their “superstitious” faith and “erroneous” doctrine.) Ussher committed himself to establishing a date for Creation that could withstand any challenge. He located and studied thousands of ancient books and manuscripts, written in many different languages. By the time of his death, he had amassed a library of over 10,000 volumes.
The date forever tied to Bishop Ussher appears in the first paragraph of the first page of The Annals. Ussher wrote: “In the beginning, God created heaven and earth, which beginning of time, according to this chronology, occurred at the beginning of the night which preceded the 23rd of October in the year 710 of the Julian period.” In the right margin of the page, Ussher computes the date in “Christian” time as 4004 B.C
Monday, October 22, 2007
Does the universe have a purpose?
The Templeton Foundation does a much better job of discussing metaphysics that the Drinking and Reading Society, so I thought I should pass along this link to their current project - essays by notable folks addressing a question much like the one we discussed over beers. You probably saw the ads in the NY Times, The Atlantic and other journals of thought.
This is the first in a series of conversations about the “Big Questions” the John Templeton Foundation is conducting among leading scientists and scholars.
A TEMPLETON CONVERSATION
Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
Unlikely. Lawrence M. Krauss, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.
Yes. David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale and a National fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
No. Peter William Atkins, Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford.
Indeed. Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Very Likely. Bruno Guiderdoni, astrophysicist and the Director of the Observatory of Lyon, France.
No. Christian de Duve, biochemist. Winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Not Sure. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and the Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.
Certainly. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace.
To read their essays, go here: http://www.templeton.org/questions/purpose/
This is the first in a series of conversations about the “Big Questions” the John Templeton Foundation is conducting among leading scientists and scholars.
A TEMPLETON CONVERSATION
Does the Universe Have a Purpose?
Unlikely. Lawrence M. Krauss, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Case Western Reserve University.
Yes. David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale and a National fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
No. Peter William Atkins, Fellow and professor of chemistry at Lincoln College, Oxford.
Indeed. Nancey Murphy, Professor of Christian Philosophy at Fuller Theological Seminary.
Very Likely. Bruno Guiderdoni, astrophysicist and the Director of the Observatory of Lyon, France.
No. Christian de Duve, biochemist. Winner of the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine.
Not Sure. Neil deGrasse Tyson, astrophysicist and the Director of New York City's Hayden Planetarium.
Certainly. Jane Goodall, founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace.
To read their essays, go here: http://www.templeton.org/questions/purpose/
Friday, October 19, 2007
Book blogs
Here are couple of other blogs I thought the group might find interesting.
The Nature Writers of Texas - The best nature writing from the newspaper, magazine, blog and book authors of the Lone Star State. http://texasnature.blogspot.com
Rachel Carson Centennial Book Club - Considering the legacy of Rachel Carson's literary and scientific contributions with a different book each month. http://rcbookclub.blogspot.com
The Nature Writers of Texas - The best nature writing from the newspaper, magazine, blog and book authors of the Lone Star State. http://texasnature.blogspot.com
Rachel Carson Centennial Book Club - Considering the legacy of Rachel Carson's literary and scientific contributions with a different book each month. http://rcbookclub.blogspot.com
Sometimes we go to nature
Sometimes nature comes to us. This critter was coiled in the middle of my office floor. You can't tell from the photo, but this one was only about 18 inches long and as thick as my finger. I hope it has returned to the savannah.
The eastern milk snake (Lampropeltis triangulum) is a of the group of constrictors called "king snakes." King snakes get their name because they often kill and eat other species of snakes, including venomous species such as rattlesnakes. The eastern milk snake grows to a length of about three feet.
There is a dietary story behind the common name. Besides its occasional taste for reptilian prey — as well as frogs, fish, birds, and eggs — the milk snake avidly hunts small mammals such as mice and voles. After European settlement, milk snakes found shelter in barns and other farm buildings. Humans imagined that these creatures came to milk the cows, hence the name "milk" snake. Most local herpetologists note a correlation between its scattered populations and remnant oak savanna groves, especially those on gravelly, morainal ridges. These open woodlots are transitional ecosystems lying between the open grasslands and the more closed-canopy forest. Milk snakes are rarely found on wet soils and seem to prefer the gravelly or rocky soil of these low but dry hills. They probably also use the mix of shade and sun found in savannas to regulate body temperature.
Monday, October 15, 2007
A taste of things to come
As strange as it may seem, Tent Camping in Siberia is a fascinatiing book, mostly because Kennan is a terrific writer with all the observational skills of Mark Twain and the intrepid character of John Muir, both of whom were writing at the same time. I'm struck with the similarities between Tent Camping and Muir's First Summer in the Sierra.
The big drawback is that the book has not one map. So I'm offering this sketchy approximation to get you oriented. Petropavlovsk is on the east coast of the Kamchatka peninsula about where the first arrow starts. By the way, a verst is .66 miles.
Tent Camping should be read in January because, no matter how cold, bleak, dark or miserable Wisconsin gets in the winter, Kennan's descriptions of huddling in a cold, lightless, smoke-filled yourt (yurt) or sleeping under the stars at 50 below will make you feel like a wimp for complaining.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
Thrills & chills
To whet your appetite, here is a brief, random excerpt from Tent Camping in Siberia by George F. Kennan.
The winter travel of the Kamtchadals is accomplished entirely upon dog-sledges and in no other pursuit of their lives do they spend more time or exhibit their native skill and ingenuity to greater advantage. They may even be said to have made dogs for themselves in the first place, for the present animal is nothing more than a half-domesticated arctic wolf and still retains all his wolfish instincts and peculiarities . . .
(The sledges) are guided and controlled entirely by the voice and by a lead dog who is especially trained for this purpose. The driver carries no whip, but has instead a thick stick about four feet in length and two in diameter called an oerstel. This is armed at one end with a long iron spike and is used to check the speed of the sledge in descending hills and to stop the dogs when they leave the road, as they frequently do in pursuit of reindeer and foxes. The spiked end is thrust down in front of one of the uprights of the runners and drags in that position through the snow, the upper end being firmly held by the driver . . .
The traveler at first sight imagines that driving a dog-sledge is just as easy as driving a street car . . . After being run away with in the first ten minutes, capsized into a snow drift and his sledge dragged bottom upward a quarter mile from the road the rash experimenter . . . is generally convinced by hard experience that a dog driver, like a poet, is born, not made.
On November first . . .we set out with a train of sixteen sledges, eighteen men, two hundred dogs and forty days provisions for the territory of the wandering Koraks. We were determined to reach Geezhega this time or, as the newspapers, say, perish in the attempt.
Late in the afternoon of November 3rd, just as the long northern twilight was fading into the peculiar steely blue of an arctic night, our dogs toiled slowly up the last summit of the Samanka Mountains, and we looked down from a height of more than two thousand feet upon the dreary expanse of snow which stretched away from the base of the mountains at our feet to the
far horizon. It was the land of the wandering Koraks . . .
The rising moon was just throwing into dark, bold relief the shaggy outlines of the peaks on our right, as we roused up our dogs and plunged into the throat of a dark ravine which led downward to the steppe. The deceptive shadows of night and the masses of rock which choked up the narrow defile made the descent extremely dangerous and it required all the skill of
our practiced drivers to avoid accident. Clouds of snow flew from the spiked poles with which they vainly tried to arrest our downward rush; cries and warning shouts from those in advance multiplied by the mountain echoes, excited our dogs to still greater speed until we seemed as the rock and trees flew past, to be in the jaws of a falling avalanche which was carrying us with breathless rapidity down the dark canyon to certain ruin . . .
Failing to find the (Koraks at the bottom), we were discussing the probability of our having been misdirected when suddenly our leading dogs pricked up their sharp ears, snuffed eagerly at the wind, and with short, excited yelps, made off at a dashing gallop toward a low hill which lay almost at right angles with our previous course. The drivers endeavored in vain to check the sped of the excited dogs; their wolfish instincts were aroused and all discipline was forgotten as the fresh scent came down upon the wind from the herd of reindeer beyond. A moment brought us to the brow of the hill and before us in the clear moonlight stood the conical tents of the Koraks, surrounded by at least four thousand reindeer, whose branching antlers looked like a perfect forest of dry limbs.
The dogs all gave voice simultaneously, like a pack of fox-hounds in view of the game, and dashed tumultuously down the hill, regardless of the shouts of their masters and the menacing cries of three or four dark forms which rose suddenly up from the snow between them and the frightened deer. Above the tumult I could hear Dodd’s voice hurling imprecations in Russian at his yelping dogs, which in spite of his most strenuous efforts, were dragging him and his capsized sledge across the steppe. The vast body of deer wavered a moment and then broke into a wild stampede, with drivers, Korak sentinels and two hundred dogs in full pursuit.
The winter travel of the Kamtchadals is accomplished entirely upon dog-sledges and in no other pursuit of their lives do they spend more time or exhibit their native skill and ingenuity to greater advantage. They may even be said to have made dogs for themselves in the first place, for the present animal is nothing more than a half-domesticated arctic wolf and still retains all his wolfish instincts and peculiarities . . .
(The sledges) are guided and controlled entirely by the voice and by a lead dog who is especially trained for this purpose. The driver carries no whip, but has instead a thick stick about four feet in length and two in diameter called an oerstel. This is armed at one end with a long iron spike and is used to check the speed of the sledge in descending hills and to stop the dogs when they leave the road, as they frequently do in pursuit of reindeer and foxes. The spiked end is thrust down in front of one of the uprights of the runners and drags in that position through the snow, the upper end being firmly held by the driver . . .
The traveler at first sight imagines that driving a dog-sledge is just as easy as driving a street car . . . After being run away with in the first ten minutes, capsized into a snow drift and his sledge dragged bottom upward a quarter mile from the road the rash experimenter . . . is generally convinced by hard experience that a dog driver, like a poet, is born, not made.
On November first . . .we set out with a train of sixteen sledges, eighteen men, two hundred dogs and forty days provisions for the territory of the wandering Koraks. We were determined to reach Geezhega this time or, as the newspapers, say, perish in the attempt.
Late in the afternoon of November 3rd, just as the long northern twilight was fading into the peculiar steely blue of an arctic night, our dogs toiled slowly up the last summit of the Samanka Mountains, and we looked down from a height of more than two thousand feet upon the dreary expanse of snow which stretched away from the base of the mountains at our feet to the
far horizon. It was the land of the wandering Koraks . . .
The rising moon was just throwing into dark, bold relief the shaggy outlines of the peaks on our right, as we roused up our dogs and plunged into the throat of a dark ravine which led downward to the steppe. The deceptive shadows of night and the masses of rock which choked up the narrow defile made the descent extremely dangerous and it required all the skill of
our practiced drivers to avoid accident. Clouds of snow flew from the spiked poles with which they vainly tried to arrest our downward rush; cries and warning shouts from those in advance multiplied by the mountain echoes, excited our dogs to still greater speed until we seemed as the rock and trees flew past, to be in the jaws of a falling avalanche which was carrying us with breathless rapidity down the dark canyon to certain ruin . . .
Failing to find the (Koraks at the bottom), we were discussing the probability of our having been misdirected when suddenly our leading dogs pricked up their sharp ears, snuffed eagerly at the wind, and with short, excited yelps, made off at a dashing gallop toward a low hill which lay almost at right angles with our previous course. The drivers endeavored in vain to check the sped of the excited dogs; their wolfish instincts were aroused and all discipline was forgotten as the fresh scent came down upon the wind from the herd of reindeer beyond. A moment brought us to the brow of the hill and before us in the clear moonlight stood the conical tents of the Koraks, surrounded by at least four thousand reindeer, whose branching antlers looked like a perfect forest of dry limbs.
The dogs all gave voice simultaneously, like a pack of fox-hounds in view of the game, and dashed tumultuously down the hill, regardless of the shouts of their masters and the menacing cries of three or four dark forms which rose suddenly up from the snow between them and the frightened deer. Above the tumult I could hear Dodd’s voice hurling imprecations in Russian at his yelping dogs, which in spite of his most strenuous efforts, were dragging him and his capsized sledge across the steppe. The vast body of deer wavered a moment and then broke into a wild stampede, with drivers, Korak sentinels and two hundred dogs in full pursuit.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Don't know much about history
Here are the answers to the Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s Civic Literacy Test. I sent you the questions by email. Let me know if you didn’t get it (and want to).
The Capital Times
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Graduates Know Even Less About History
The University of Wisconsin-Madison did relatively well in a 50-college test of how much students learned about history and economics during four years of college, but students in Wisconsin and nationally knew little when they came in and not much more when they left.
No college did better than a D-plus on the Civic Literacy Test released Tuesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonpartisan conservative educational organization that stresses the values of a free society. The national average was F.
Overall, 14,000 randomly selected freshmen and seniors scored slightly more than 50 percent on the 60-question exam. That’s 30 correct answers. A kindergartner could have gotten 20 right just by random guessing.
Check your answers. Email me your results and I will post the winner here.
1. D
2. B
3. C
4. A
5. D
6. E
7. B
8. E
9. B
10. E
11. C
12. C
13. B
14. C
15. B
16. D
17. E
18. D
19. C
20. E
21. A
22. A
23. B
24. D
25. B
26. D
27. D
28. D
29. E
30. D
31. A
32. B
33. C
34. B
35. A
36. D
37. C
38. A
39. D
40. B
41. D
42. A
43. A
44. B
45. E
46. B
47. D
48. C
49. B
50. A
51. A
52. C
53. B
54. D
55. E
56. C
57. A
58. B
59. C
60. B
The Capital Times
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Graduates Know Even Less About History
The University of Wisconsin-Madison did relatively well in a 50-college test of how much students learned about history and economics during four years of college, but students in Wisconsin and nationally knew little when they came in and not much more when they left.
No college did better than a D-plus on the Civic Literacy Test released Tuesday by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, a nonpartisan conservative educational organization that stresses the values of a free society. The national average was F.
Overall, 14,000 randomly selected freshmen and seniors scored slightly more than 50 percent on the 60-question exam. That’s 30 correct answers. A kindergartner could have gotten 20 right just by random guessing.
Check your answers. Email me your results and I will post the winner here.
1. D
2. B
3. C
4. A
5. D
6. E
7. B
8. E
9. B
10. E
11. C
12. C
13. B
14. C
15. B
16. D
17. E
18. D
19. C
20. E
21. A
22. A
23. B
24. D
25. B
26. D
27. D
28. D
29. E
30. D
31. A
32. B
33. C
34. B
35. A
36. D
37. C
38. A
39. D
40. B
41. D
42. A
43. A
44. B
45. E
46. B
47. D
48. C
49. B
50. A
51. A
52. C
53. B
54. D
55. E
56. C
57. A
58. B
59. C
60. B
2 much, 3 many
Bring up the subject of evolution and pretty soon we have evolved into a discussion of religion, including the tale of how and why Dan’s Jesuit prof. at Marquette gave him an F in is Marriage and Religion class. And he wasn’t even married. How many book groups talk about that stuff?
We have also transcended another book group custom by reading 3 totally unrelated books for the same month among 5 participants. Of Moths & Men by Judith Hooper, After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou, and Tent Camping in Siberia by George Kennan. Dan was “reading ahead” on that one.
Next month will feature a selection as well. Watch for a list of books by Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams. I promised to post some other stuff as well and that will happen when I get a bit more time over the next few days.
We have also transcended another book group custom by reading 3 totally unrelated books for the same month among 5 participants. Of Moths & Men by Judith Hooper, After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou, and Tent Camping in Siberia by George Kennan. Dan was “reading ahead” on that one.
Next month will feature a selection as well. Watch for a list of books by Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams. I promised to post some other stuff as well and that will happen when I get a bit more time over the next few days.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
2 of Dan's favorite writers
I was elsewhere and didn't attend, but thought I would post this from The Capital Times regarding Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams.
WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL When: Festival runs through Sunday. What: Book discussions, readings, lectures, workshops, spoken word, events for children and youth. Where: Venues throughout the Madison area and beyond. For schedule, see www.wisconsinbookfestival.com
Noted environmental writers Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams kicked off the Wisconsin Book Festival by agreeing that its theme of "domestic tranquility" is elusive in today's United States.
"Domestic tranquility is domestic violence in the American West," Williams told the audience Wednesday night at the Overture's Capitol Theater. "Violence to the land and to each other."
"I don't understand domestic tranquility right now," Bass said. "It eludes me." In particular, he said the Bush administration's "desperate lust for power and control" is the antithesis of tranquility.
Williams, who lives in Utah, and Bass, who lives in the remote Yaak Valley of Montana, both write searingly of threats to wilderness, especially in the western states, and of the fragile but essential link between human nature and wild nature. Williams, a naturalist and vocal free-speech advocate, is an essayist whose best-known work is "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place." Bass, author of novels, nonfiction essays and short-story collections, including "The Hermit's Story," has won the Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Prize.
WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL When: Festival runs through Sunday. What: Book discussions, readings, lectures, workshops, spoken word, events for children and youth. Where: Venues throughout the Madison area and beyond. For schedule, see www.wisconsinbookfestival.com
Noted environmental writers Rick Bass and Terry Tempest Williams kicked off the Wisconsin Book Festival by agreeing that its theme of "domestic tranquility" is elusive in today's United States.
"Domestic tranquility is domestic violence in the American West," Williams told the audience Wednesday night at the Overture's Capitol Theater. "Violence to the land and to each other."
"I don't understand domestic tranquility right now," Bass said. "It eludes me." In particular, he said the Bush administration's "desperate lust for power and control" is the antithesis of tranquility.
Williams, who lives in Utah, and Bass, who lives in the remote Yaak Valley of Montana, both write searingly of threats to wilderness, especially in the western states, and of the fragile but essential link between human nature and wild nature. Williams, a naturalist and vocal free-speech advocate, is an essayist whose best-known work is "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place." Bass, author of novels, nonfiction essays and short-story collections, including "The Hermit's Story," has won the Pushcart Prize and an O. Henry Prize.
Friday, October 5, 2007
Playoff reading
It's baseball playoff time and even though the Brewers blew it cause they couldn't get no relief and the Cubs look destined to live with the curse yet another year, it's still a great time of year. And a great time to read a great book - Clemente by David Maraniss. I don't think I had seen Dave in 30 years, but heard him give a "speech" Thursday at RSVP of Dane County. The remarkable thing is it was just like listening to an old friend talk over a few beers. It was emotional to hear him talk about his baseball years as a teen, when guys would get on their bikes with gloves slung from the handlebars and spend the long summer days on the diamond on their own. no coaches. no schedules. no uniforms. no soccer moms. no little league dads. I guess that doesn't have a lot to do with Roberto Clemente, except to explain why Dave was fascinated by him, but Maraniss creates a loving portrait of one of the guys who gave baseball its style.
Tuesday, October 2, 2007
The beast is back
No doubt now about who ate the fish! I found the heron in the pond this morning and it didn't want to leave. It only flew about 50 feet to a walnut tree right behind the house. I've left the dogs outside to see if they can keep it away, but I think I will have to find a net to cover the pond before we lose the remaining fish - if we haven't already.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Next meeting
The next meeting of the Drinking & Reading Society will be at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, October 11 at the Laurel Tavern. I don't know what you are reading, but I am reading Of Moths & Men by Judith Hooper and After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America by E. C. Pielou.
Monday, September 24, 2007
A little knowledge
Our books for this month richly illustrate the adage that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when it comes to public policy, the media and science. The topics are hot – evolution and global warming. The stakes are high and therefore the arguments get more and more simplistic as each side tries to woo the ignorant, the learning challenged or the merely uninterested public to its side.
So we get the polar bear as the poster child of global warming on the one hand versus the “what’s wrong with playing golf on Christmas?” argument. E.C. Pielou is a believer in the dangers of global warming. Let’s state that up front; she leaves it for the end. But her book does point out that a. constant climate change is normal and cyclical, and b. there’s a continental glacier in your future if nature holds its course. We are well into the next glacial cycle, according to Pielou’s math – which it’s hard to doubt. If you like global warming, or merely own a lot of stock in oil and coal companies, it’s easy to say that your favored industries are the only thing holding the ice at bay.
However, none of us is likely to be around by the time our favorite prairie or woodland turn to tundra. Global warming is operating at a pace at last 10x faster than historic climatic variation – possibly much faster, so even humans are unlikely to be able to adapt to the changes without serious financial loss. Never mind the environmental losses. Historically, hotter means drier and that, along with the northward invasion of really annoying plants and insects, is likely to be the most disruptive affect of the change, rather than bigger hurricanes or rising seas, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in North America.
I haven’t gotten far into Of Moths and Men yet, although “little knowledge” people call this a refutation of Darwinism. In fact, it starts out with the best précis of the early scientific course of evolutionary theory that I have yet seen. How many false starts and wrong notions, even by Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, et al. How close we came to abandoning evolution by the start of the 20th Century.
And a story well told. I don’t think I have yet read a book on evolution and found the words louche and bijoux in the same paragraph.
So we get the polar bear as the poster child of global warming on the one hand versus the “what’s wrong with playing golf on Christmas?” argument. E.C. Pielou is a believer in the dangers of global warming. Let’s state that up front; she leaves it for the end. But her book does point out that a. constant climate change is normal and cyclical, and b. there’s a continental glacier in your future if nature holds its course. We are well into the next glacial cycle, according to Pielou’s math – which it’s hard to doubt. If you like global warming, or merely own a lot of stock in oil and coal companies, it’s easy to say that your favored industries are the only thing holding the ice at bay.
However, none of us is likely to be around by the time our favorite prairie or woodland turn to tundra. Global warming is operating at a pace at last 10x faster than historic climatic variation – possibly much faster, so even humans are unlikely to be able to adapt to the changes without serious financial loss. Never mind the environmental losses. Historically, hotter means drier and that, along with the northward invasion of really annoying plants and insects, is likely to be the most disruptive affect of the change, rather than bigger hurricanes or rising seas, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live in North America.
I haven’t gotten far into Of Moths and Men yet, although “little knowledge” people call this a refutation of Darwinism. In fact, it starts out with the best précis of the early scientific course of evolutionary theory that I have yet seen. How many false starts and wrong notions, even by Darwin, Huxley, Wallace, et al. How close we came to abandoning evolution by the start of the 20th Century.
And a story well told. I don’t think I have yet read a book on evolution and found the words louche and bijoux in the same paragraph.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Would you like ice in your drink?
Dan writes: Either date (Oct. 10 or 11) works for me, would prefer the 10th. I'm a little overdone on evolution at this point so would prefer Pielow with the Siberian book reserved for this winter. Doug says any date and any book.
I have just started reading After the Ice Age, The Return of Life to the Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou, and can report that it's fascinating, but also a little heavy. Lots of graphs of temperature variants over time and a nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- you know, the 105,000 year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit mediated by the 41,000 year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and both mediated by the 21,000 year precession of the equinoxes, which charts the movement of the exquinox as it moves forward through the months. All that and that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. That she blames on continential drift and the relative position of the continents. So, until something big drifts back south, we'll keep having glaciers. And soon, according to Pielou. If the current glacial cycle were a year from glacial peak to glacial peak, we are already in late September and the next glacial winter is coming as sure as Christmas!
I have just started reading After the Ice Age, The Return of Life to the Glaciated North America by E.C. Pielou, and can report that it's fascinating, but also a little heavy. Lots of graphs of temperature variants over time and a nifty explanation of the Milankovich cycle -- you know, the 105,000 year cycle in the shape of the earth's elliptical orbit mediated by the 41,000 year cycle in the tilt of earth's axis known as the obliquity of the ecliptic and both mediated by the 21,000 year precession of the equinoxes, which charts the movement of the exquinox as it moves forward through the months. All that and that's not even what causes the glacial pre-condition. That she blames on continential drift and the relative position of the continents. So, until something big drifts back south, we'll keep having glaciers. And soon, according to Pielou. If the current glacial cycle were a year from glacial peak to glacial peak, we are already in late September and the next glacial winter is coming as sure as Christmas!
Monday, September 17, 2007
Fish; it's what's for dinner
This guy was flying around the yard yesterday afternoon. We thought raccoons got the fish in our pond while we were gone a couple of weeks back, but now a new suspect has appeared.
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Two Books with Cold Titles
The climate may be warming, but the weather is chilling. Here are two alternatives to consider for October reads.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
by E. C. Pielou
Anyone who blithely thinks that the global warming analysis is completed and that we know all the answers needs to read this book and realize just how dynamic climate patterns can be over as little a period as the past 20,000 years. But reading it requires that the reader put away his science as politics mentality and listen thoughtfully to an amazing story.
Gives a wonderful insight into the history of global climate change even though that is not the focus of the book. You will come away understanding the history of species and climate change in North America, and understanding how this information is distorted by current climate change opportunists who want you to believe this is some kind of new phenomenon. This book was written long before climate change was a political issue which is refreshing as it deals in the subject in a purely academic fashion.
This is a great in-depth excursion on a well-travelled topic. The species and disappearance of North American megafauna, glacial cycles and the role of physics in their appearance, the controversy over the 1st peoples of North America are just examples of some of the topics discussed. Focuses primarily on Canadian ecologies for the simple reason that the last ice age didn't penetrate much farther south except at higher elevations. While basic info can be gleaned from any number of websites, to mine the knowledge of someone who is both learned and a lucid writer besides is a fascinating priviledge.
Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival
by George Kennan
This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan (1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until heading north, exploring Eastern Siberia as far as the Berings strait, to Anadyrsk. They navigated rivers, saw the Aurua Borealis in February 1867. In the end the exploration did not lead to the laying of telegraph cable, but nevertheless this account should rank with Twain's `Innocents Abroad' as one of the great pieces of American travel literature of the 19th century.
Kennan has a dry sarcastic whit, like Twain, and he writes on many things, from wildlife to flaura, to the people and the country. Most amazing is to consider the great distances covered by such few people. There are many interesting stories and insights into the hard life of Russians in the far east. There are also descriptions of the many native peoples, including Koraks, Kamchatdals, Chookchees, Yookaghirs, Chooances, Yakoots and Gakouts, to the depth of describing rituals, marriages and the languages.
The greatest, almost unforgivable, oversight in this book, one that is almost crippling, is lack of even one map in an account that begs to have many maps given that it is both a travel narrative and one that mentions many obscure places and tribes that no longer exist in the same form today. The reader is left to imagine the position of the Samanka or Penzhina rivers, the villages of Genul, Okoota or Anadyrsk, or the most obscure villages in north Siberia, such as Geezhega or Shestakova.
After the Ice Age: The Return of Life to Glaciated North America
by E. C. Pielou
Anyone who blithely thinks that the global warming analysis is completed and that we know all the answers needs to read this book and realize just how dynamic climate patterns can be over as little a period as the past 20,000 years. But reading it requires that the reader put away his science as politics mentality and listen thoughtfully to an amazing story.
Gives a wonderful insight into the history of global climate change even though that is not the focus of the book. You will come away understanding the history of species and climate change in North America, and understanding how this information is distorted by current climate change opportunists who want you to believe this is some kind of new phenomenon. This book was written long before climate change was a political issue which is refreshing as it deals in the subject in a purely academic fashion.
This is a great in-depth excursion on a well-travelled topic. The species and disappearance of North American megafauna, glacial cycles and the role of physics in their appearance, the controversy over the 1st peoples of North America are just examples of some of the topics discussed. Focuses primarily on Canadian ecologies for the simple reason that the last ice age didn't penetrate much farther south except at higher elevations. While basic info can be gleaned from any number of websites, to mine the knowledge of someone who is both learned and a lucid writer besides is a fascinating priviledge.
Tent Life in Siberia: An Incredible Account of Siberian Adventure, Travel, and Survival
by George Kennan
This book is the fascinating travel journal of George Kennan (1845-1924) who was employed by the Russo-American Telegraph company to explore Eastern Siberia in 1865. Leaving from San Francisco in July 1865 Mr. Kennan and three other men set out for Petropavlovski in Kamchatka. From there they began a march to the northwest, meeting the Sea of Okhotsk and then detouring West for a while until heading north, exploring Eastern Siberia as far as the Berings strait, to Anadyrsk. They navigated rivers, saw the Aurua Borealis in February 1867. In the end the exploration did not lead to the laying of telegraph cable, but nevertheless this account should rank with Twain's `Innocents Abroad' as one of the great pieces of American travel literature of the 19th century.
Kennan has a dry sarcastic whit, like Twain, and he writes on many things, from wildlife to flaura, to the people and the country. Most amazing is to consider the great distances covered by such few people. There are many interesting stories and insights into the hard life of Russians in the far east. There are also descriptions of the many native peoples, including Koraks, Kamchatdals, Chookchees, Yookaghirs, Chooances, Yakoots and Gakouts, to the depth of describing rituals, marriages and the languages.
The greatest, almost unforgivable, oversight in this book, one that is almost crippling, is lack of even one map in an account that begs to have many maps given that it is both a travel narrative and one that mentions many obscure places and tribes that no longer exist in the same form today. The reader is left to imagine the position of the Samanka or Penzhina rivers, the villages of Genul, Okoota or Anadyrsk, or the most obscure villages in north Siberia, such as Geezhega or Shestakova.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Cheap books
Harry is eager to let everyone know that he got Of Moths and Men from the library with no difficulty. It is also available for $1.98 from Daedalus and for 75 cents from half.com. I think he wants us to read the book!
My favorite is abebooks.com because they have everything and kind of act as a clearinghouse for other sellers. Not necessarily the cheapest though.
We ran into Frank Sandner and Caroline Beckett in Door County this weekend. We were waiting at the paddle shop to pick up our new kayaks and Frank was peddling past. They were working an author visit & book signing by Mary Bergin, the Capital Times writer who also publishes a lot of Wisconsin travel books and guides. Sidetracked in Wisconsin is the book and it details lots of odd places and things to do. It turned out the boat shop didn't have the boat I ordered, even though they had been assuring me all summer that they did, so now I have to wait to get something from the factory in S. Carolina.
My favorite is abebooks.com because they have everything and kind of act as a clearinghouse for other sellers. Not necessarily the cheapest though.
We ran into Frank Sandner and Caroline Beckett in Door County this weekend. We were waiting at the paddle shop to pick up our new kayaks and Frank was peddling past. They were working an author visit & book signing by Mary Bergin, the Capital Times writer who also publishes a lot of Wisconsin travel books and guides. Sidetracked in Wisconsin is the book and it details lots of odd places and things to do. It turned out the boat shop didn't have the boat I ordered, even though they had been assuring me all summer that they did, so now I have to wait to get something from the factory in S. Carolina.
Friday, September 7, 2007
Harry's suggestion
Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale: The Untold Story of Science and the Peppered Moth by Judith Hooper
Hooper offers an engaging account of H.B.D. Kettlewell's famous field experiments on the peppered moth, which were widely known as "Darwin's missing evidence," proof of natural selection in action until 1998, that is, when biologist Michael Majerus showed Kettlewell's findings to be falsified and wrong. Hooper peers into the lives of Kettlewell and his mentor and eventual adversary, the imperious and brilliant E.B. Ford, revealing the human factors that don't get written into the research papers "recriminations, intrigue, jealousy, back-stabbing and shattered dreams."
Ford, a Darwinian zealot hell-bent on proving natural selection, serves as a foil for the broader questions raised here about dogmatism in science. Natural selection had the dubious distinction of being as widely accepted as it was short on evidence, and the moth experiments were greeted as a pivotal victory; indeed, despite evidence to the contrary, many scientists today still embrace Kettlewell's findings, in part because denying them opens the door to "the bogeyman of creationism." As Hooper writes, the peppered moths provided "a damned good story, a narrative so satisfying, so seductive, that no one can bear to let it go. But a story alone is no substitute for truth." Hooper's lively history also traces the extinction of old-school natural history, embodied by Kettlewell, who was very much left behind with the synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, and who died a suicide.
Hooper offers an engaging account of H.B.D. Kettlewell's famous field experiments on the peppered moth, which were widely known as "Darwin's missing evidence," proof of natural selection in action until 1998, that is, when biologist Michael Majerus showed Kettlewell's findings to be falsified and wrong. Hooper peers into the lives of Kettlewell and his mentor and eventual adversary, the imperious and brilliant E.B. Ford, revealing the human factors that don't get written into the research papers "recriminations, intrigue, jealousy, back-stabbing and shattered dreams."
Ford, a Darwinian zealot hell-bent on proving natural selection, serves as a foil for the broader questions raised here about dogmatism in science. Natural selection had the dubious distinction of being as widely accepted as it was short on evidence, and the moth experiments were greeted as a pivotal victory; indeed, despite evidence to the contrary, many scientists today still embrace Kettlewell's findings, in part because denying them opens the door to "the bogeyman of creationism." As Hooper writes, the peppered moths provided "a damned good story, a narrative so satisfying, so seductive, that no one can bear to let it go. But a story alone is no substitute for truth." Hooper's lively history also traces the extinction of old-school natural history, embodied by Kettlewell, who was very much left behind with the synthesis of Darwinism and Mendelian genetics, and who died a suicide.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Hard Times
Annals of the September 5 meeting.
Was it just me or was our waitress not cut out for the profession? No eye contact, no contact at all. Maybe she hoped we'd get really hungry and order lots of food. Which we did, so I guess that was a good strategy.
First the news for those who missed the meeting. Doug's foundation is poured and didn't flood during the rain. Everyone is invited to drive by and see the geothermal system being installed, although there's not much to see right now. Dave's cottage in Todos Santos is still standing after the storm. Actually the storm just brushed Cabo san Lucas and didn't come farther north. Dan's cabin passed inspection!! And better yet, the lake still has water 'cause it's spring-fed, whereas all the seep-fed lakes are turning into marshes all over the north because all the rain hit the south and totally missed the north. The only consolation is there aren't any mosquitos up north.
The Worst Hard Time was a big hit although none of us can figure out how anyone lived through the experience. Just tougher in those days, I guess. Doug grew up in OK and remembers a duster in the '50s on grandpa's farm. Just back from a reunion of sorts in Stillwater, he was amazed to find the main hall named Murry Hall after the racist governor of Hard Time times and his dorm Bennet, after the populist agronomist. He was in school only 30 years after the dust bowl events and had no idea at the time who those people were.
Next Book Next Meeting
What say you all to Wednesday, Oct. 3?
I will post a list of suggested books soon.
Was it just me or was our waitress not cut out for the profession? No eye contact, no contact at all. Maybe she hoped we'd get really hungry and order lots of food. Which we did, so I guess that was a good strategy.
First the news for those who missed the meeting. Doug's foundation is poured and didn't flood during the rain. Everyone is invited to drive by and see the geothermal system being installed, although there's not much to see right now. Dave's cottage in Todos Santos is still standing after the storm. Actually the storm just brushed Cabo san Lucas and didn't come farther north. Dan's cabin passed inspection!! And better yet, the lake still has water 'cause it's spring-fed, whereas all the seep-fed lakes are turning into marshes all over the north because all the rain hit the south and totally missed the north. The only consolation is there aren't any mosquitos up north.
The Worst Hard Time was a big hit although none of us can figure out how anyone lived through the experience. Just tougher in those days, I guess. Doug grew up in OK and remembers a duster in the '50s on grandpa's farm. Just back from a reunion of sorts in Stillwater, he was amazed to find the main hall named Murry Hall after the racist governor of Hard Time times and his dorm Bennet, after the populist agronomist. He was in school only 30 years after the dust bowl events and had no idea at the time who those people were.
Next Book Next Meeting
What say you all to Wednesday, Oct. 3?
I will post a list of suggested books soon.
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Drinking and Reading Society September 2007
The selection for this month's Drinking and Reading Society meeting is The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan. It has been really hard to get everyone together, so I hope to see at least Doug, Dan and Dave drinking at the Laurel on Wednesday September 5.
Howard
Howard
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