Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

Now I’m Really Confused

I could have sworn there were Ken Cuccinelli campaign signs floating around my neighborhood. But… he wasn’t running for anything this time around, was he?

I think maybe I confused him with someone else — Connaughton maybe.

All those long names beginning with “C”, you know…

I screwed up. You may mock me.

BUT, I know there were zillions of Ken Cuccinelli signs polluting my neighborhood…uh…last time. Whenever that was. Last fall, maybe.

So. He’s still not getting my vote. Erm…whenever he next actually maybe needs it.

I think I need to lay down for a while. I’ve been sick. Did I mention that?

Say NO to Drilling in the Arctic Refuge

Seeing Is Believing: An Arctic Refuge Webcam – Sierra Club: “During the summer months, life explodes in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. In the first weeks of June, 40,000 caribous calves will be born on the Refuge’s coastal plain, which is is covered in wildflowers. The Refuge provides unspoiled habitat for hundreds of species of fish, mammals, and birds.”

There are two main reasons why drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a bad idea.

The first reason is the warm and fuzzy one. Starting tomorrow, the Sierra Club will be hosting a live webcam feed showing cute little caribou calves frolicking through the meadows and you can see all the warm fuzzy stuff you’d ever want. Just click on the link above.

The second reason is at least as compelling, though. Drilling in the Arctic Refuge — doing anything that perpetuates our dependence on fossil fuels — is economic and political stupidity of the first degree.

It’s stupid because it’s dirty. It’s stupid because there’s only a finite supply. It’s stupid because it gets us into political relationships that are bad for our country — and bad for the other countries, too. Do I need to go on? I’m sure most of you could come up with all sorts of other reasons for why it’s stupid to keep using fossil fuels.

The only energy policy that makes sense is one that commits BIG money to development of home-grown, clean, renewable energy. It’s not enough to say, “Well… that’ll all be really great — later on in the future when we really need it.” We need it RIGHT NOW. We can’t continue to put clean energy research on the back burner.

Say NO to drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

Say YES to our government committing serious money to developing clean and renewable energy here at home.

Baby, It’s Warm Outside — and Getting Warmer

Speaking of global warming…

I just finished reading Bill McKibben’s new book Wandering Home. The book’s subtitle tells you a lot of what it’s about: “A Long Walk Across America’s Most Hopeful Landscape: Vermont’s Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondacks.”

It’s a hopeful landscape because, unlike so many parts of the country where wildnerness is being lost to human developments, much of the Vermont Lake Champlain Valley and the New York side of the lake are actually returning to wilderness after having been used for farming, mining, and timber operations for the past couple hundred years.

Before I go on, let me just quickly explain about global warming and Bill McKibben. McKibben is also the author of an apparently well-known book about global warming titled The End of Nature. I’ve never read that book. As far as I can tell, I’ve never read any of Bill McKibben’s other books but, damnedest thing, his name is so familiar to me! I could just about swear I’d read something of his before or maybe even met him at some point… his picture even looks familiar to me. Hm. Anyway. So, Bill knows a thing or two about global warming.

This is a good little book — only 157 pages, so a nice quick read — and much of what McKibben has to say is thought-provoking.

His message: It’s not as simple as just prohibiting human activity of any kind and letting nature take its course. So many plant and animal species have been introduced into new environments and are thriving, sometimes forcing out the older, native species…. It’s hard anymore to say for certain what’s really “natural” at all! But isn’t that always the way of it? The non-native apple trees that are growing on the abandoned farmstead now feed deer. When do you let things go their own way and when do you actively intervene? McKibben advocates a trade-off between responsible land use (small famility farms, for example) and wild areas. It’s a wonderful idea — and if it’s really working that way around Lake Champlain, wow! Fantastic! I’m having a hard time imagining that sort of thing elsewhere, though.

Here’s a little taste of what’s in the book:

A Very Special Message for Ken Cuccinelli, Virginia State Senate Candidate

Dear Ken,

Since today is election day here in sunny Virginia, I want to take this opportunity to tell you that I won’t be voting for you.

There are several reasons why you’re not on my short list, Ken, but I want to share with you the one that’s been most consistently on my mind.

It’s your campaign signs. They’re a blight upon the landscape, Ken. They’re obnoxious. I remember quite well how during the last election — it seems like only yesterday — your huge campaign signs polluted the greenway along Fairfax County Parkway near my home. And now, here they are again.

You’re certainly not the only offender in this regard, Ken. Yours are somehow just more irritating. (And, honest, I thought this even before I knew about you being a Republican.)

See… the way I figure it, a person who has so little regard for me that they’d come into my neighborhood and junk it up with all of these campaign signs is NOT a person who I feel I could trust to really represent my interests.

I’ve been to your web site and, from your picture, you look like a nice enough guy.

You’ve got a dark side, though, don’t you?

You’re a serial litterer.

While I was visiting your site, I saw this nice quote:

I’m doing my part, Ken. Next election, you do yours. Quit trashing my neighborhood.

[Update a few days later: I'm a complete goofball. It's okay. You can call me that. I mixed up Cuccinelli signs and Connaughton signs. I stand by my "serial litterer" charge, though.]

Way Hot

It’s really not so much the heat…

(wait for it!)

It’s the humidity.

Really. It’s both. Today it’s supposed to get up around 95 degrees Fahrenheit and the humidity is at about 95%.

I’m trying to recover from a surprise upper respiratory infection and every time I go outside my lungs immediately fill up with goo and I feel like I’m drowning. Just now a short trip outside to fetch the recycling bin has left me gasping and wheezing. The whole thing is most unpleasant and the timing couldn’t be much worse.

I began feeling sick on Wednesday night. Thursday morning I performed a couple of special children’s concerts with Flutonic, feeling a bit feverish the whole time. Then, on Sunday, I played the Gounod Sanctus with a large choir and tenor soloist at the very lovely Trinity Episcopal Church in Manassas, Virginia. Thank the heavens (and a few hearty slugs of cough medicine), my lungs held out and everything went off without a hitch. The tenor soloist, by the way, was Michael Tucker and if you ever get a chance to hear him sing, do take advantage of it. He sings like an angel.

My focus now is in getting well before we leave on our vacation this Sunday. Towards this end, I’m staying inside and calm. It seems to be working.

Here’s the scoop on our vacation. We’re spending two weeks in God’s Own Vacationland. That’s right, we’re headed for northern Minnesota!

You betcha!

We’ll be visiting with friends and family in Wayzata (on Lake Minnetonka, west of Minneapolis) the first day, then heading up to Duluth for a couple days. From Duluth, we’ll go further north and west up to around Ely, where we’re going to do the Bear-Moose Course with Lynn Rogers at the Wildlife Research Institute. (Lynn still has a few spaces open for his regular Black Bear Courses this summer, by the way, so if you’re interested be sure to sign up quick-like.) After the Bear-Moose Course, we’re heading back towards Lake Superior to spend a few days at Bob’s Cabins in Two Harbors. We’ve vacationed at Bob’s Cabins once before — five or six years ago — and really enjoyed the peace and quiet. From Bob’s Cabins it’s back to Duluth for a few days and then home to Virginia.

Sounds pretty idyllic, doesn’t it?

Yeah, we think so, too. Besides our scheduled activities, we hope to do a fair amount of hiking while we’re up in the northland and maybe also a bit of canoeing. I’ve got old friends in Duluth and Ely that we’ll try to catch up with, too.

My plan is to post the best of the vacation photos to my site here. So, stay tuned for those.

Fish Gotta Swim. Bird Gotta Fly.

Minnesota Power Falcon Cam
This morning it appears we are short one young falcon! Yes, it does indeed appear that one of the youngsters has fledged. There are only two birds on the nesting platform — and they’e both doing a LOT of enthusiastic wing flapping. It’s taking that first hop off into space — that first big leap of faith — that’s the hardest.

I wouldn’t be surprised if these remaining two fly at some point during the day too.

In the second photo below I’ve placed a red box to hilight where a falcon is sitting on the long perch off the nesting platform. Whether this is the fledged chick or one of the adults… who knows.

[addendum: Just as I was about to publish this, I saw a falcon land back on the nesting platform and -- from the condition of her feathers -- it looks like it is one of the chicks. So, that confirms it, I think: One of the chicks has fledged.]

India’s Version of the “New Deal”

This Washington Post article by Rama Lakshmi describes a “right to work” program the Indian government is experimenting with. People who can’t find any other jobs are paid by the government to build roads, canals, and water-harvesting structures in rural areas.

This whole thing sounds very much like what FDR organized during the Great Depression here in the US. People who couldn’t find any other job were employed on “public works” type projects. They didn’t get rich on these jobs, but they didn’t starve either and, in the end, the rural communities were better off because of the work that was done.

I won’t even pretend to be an expert on India. I don’t know anything about the economic reform program that was begun in 1991. It seems to me, though, that India today is not all that different in some ways from the United States of the 1930s.

The “New Deal” helped turn things around in our country and I think it could probably be of help in India, too, but only if the program has strong oversight.

With Cancel My Uterine Unprompted

Has Rebecca gone complete bonkers? No. (Well, maybe, but in a less obvious way than this.) This is the subject line and “invisible” text from a spam email I received today.

It’s kind of compelling, isn’t it?

HGTV Makes The World A Better Place

HGTV is “Home and Garden Television” — a cable TV network featuring shows on home improvement and cooking and such. I often watch it for a couple hours on weekend mornings.

In the past year or so, I’ve been noticing HGTV airing shows that must drive James Dobson of “Focus on the Family” infamy absolutely crazy. I’m talking about shows featuring gay couples living plain old normal lives — fixing up their houses, making dinner together, you know… just living?

This morning I’ve seen a couple of shows of this sort. On New Spaces, a gay couple re-did their kitchen. On Ground Breakers, a gay couple is overhauling their backyard.

I love seeing these kinds of shows. I think the more people see gay folks in everyday sorts of settings, living everyday kinds of lives, the less alien homosexuality will seem to people.

With familiarity comes comfort.

With comfort comes acceptance.

The world becomes a better place, despite the efforts of Dobson and his ilk.

More Of Our Dirty Little Secret Exposed

I hadn’t even thought about it before, but the Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson is absolutely right. Why didn’t I notice before now? I’m white. Maybe that explains it to a certain degree. I doubt that it’s enough to qualify as an excuse, though.

I grew up in a semi-rural part of Minnesota. I never even met a black person until I was in my 20s. We had a Jewish family in our town but they were rich and sent their kids to private schools in Minneapolis so I never got to know them. When I was in my last year or two of high school a new family moved into the area and they were “culturally” Jewish (whatever that means) but they didn’t actually go to a Synagogue or anything.

So, essentially, I never knew anyone who wasn’t a white Christian until I was well into my twenties. I’d have said I didn’t know anyone who wasn’t a white Christian of Scandinavian or German descent except there were one or two families of Italian descent in our town. The Italian families were shorter and darker-skinned and had curly brown hair. This made them quite exotic to my eyes.

One of the things I really love about living in the Washington DC area is the cultural diversity. People are so interesting! Their languages, their cultures, their foods… But, when I examine my own attitudes, I find that I rarely think about the many African Americans who live in the DC area as being a part of that whole “cultural diversity” thing.

Why is that?

I don’t think I’m a bigoted person. I hope the reason I don’t think of African Americans in any special way is because I think of them as just being…you know…Americans. Like me. Just regular old Americans. I hope to god it’s not because they’ve somehow become invisible to me.

I think this is the sort of thing all of us need to do a little personal inventory on every now and then. Why didn’t I notice before how white all of those “damsels in distress” are? What does that say about me? What does that say about our country?