Words Like Locusts Flew From Her Fingers

On Fall Lake in Ely, Minnesota

The Ely, Minnesota web site has links to several web cams, including this one apparently set up in someone’s house. These folks put food out for the deer and when I happened to check the cam this morning there were a bunch of deer in their yard as night was lifting. The first capture shows the deer in the yard. In the second capture, you can see some of the deer heading back across the ice to the other side of the lake.

Here’s the link to this web cam, by the way, if you want to check it out yourself: Ely Minnesota – Fall Lake

Cats Ear

It’s a big morning for squirrel-o-vision out the back door here so I took a bunch of pictures of Steve, Eddie, and Stella screwing around. Just click on any of the thumbnails to get a bigger version.

This first picture I’ve blown up so you can see the veins in Eddie’s ear. Eddie is a really light-skinned, light-furred cat and when the sun shines through his ears, his circulatory system is put on display.

Blood For Oil

A Crude Case for War? – washingtonpost.com
Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, plenty of people believe that the war was waged chiefly to secure U.S. petroleum supplies and to make Iraq safe — and lucrative — for the U.S. oil industry.

“Plenty of people”? Make that “Everyone with at least half a brain who’s given it even the smallest amount of thought.” The ironic part is that Bush and his cronies, in their amazing incompetence, have rendered Iraq even less safe than it was before the invasion.

Way to go, Bushie!

What a fuckwit. God, how I hate that man. Truly, my disgust with Bush — and with the politicians who have preceded him back to when it was first shown that our petroleum-based culture is killing our planet — my disgust, it knows no bounds. The older I get, the angrier I get. The best thing that could happen for this planet would be if all the humans went away. Maybe that’s why I enjoy apocalyptic science fiction so much… it gives me pleasant daydreams where it’s just me, a handful of intelligent and kind companions, and a big vegetable garden.

The movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes was on yesterday. I love that movie. Sure, the gorillas are kind of thuggish but, overall, they apes seem to have it figured out pretty well.

Anyway. In this Washington Post article, Steven Mufson presents the argument made by some scholars that the Iraq war was really less about oil than about America securing a position of power in the Middle East. But why bother with the Middle East except because of its oil?

No matter which way you cut, the reason for the war is oil.

The Bee’s Knees

Starting your own habitat garden. – By Constance Casey – Slate Magazine
Another fear some homeowners have is that by welcoming birds and butterflies, they might also be inviting caterpillars and beetles and garden snakes. The conservative gardener might think, “I just want to avoid being a disgrace to the neighborhood; I didn’t sign up to be part of the ecosystem.” Face it, we were all signed up at birth. The preferred organic strategy is to invite everyone (except deer) in and let the birds and the insects and the spiders and the (nonvenomous) snakes fight it out among themselves.

Well, I think you should invite the deer in too. It’s not their fault there are so many of them. It’s just because we’ve eliminated their natural predators (no, not assholes with guns or bows) and have removed most of their natural habitat. Let the deer in, I say. But also invite our friends the wolves. Not only would the deer population get back into balance, but that problem with your neighbor’s yappy little dog would very likely be solved too. (And maybe, if you’re lucky, the problem with your neighbor’s obnoxious child.)

Anyway. This is a very nice article on slate.com about starting your own small garden dedicated to native and/or wild-animal-supporting plants. One of the plants they mention in the sidebar is anise-scented hyssop, which I can tell you from personal experience is a true bee magnet. Here’s a picture I took a few years ago of a bee on the hyssop I grow in my own backyard garden. Look at the pollen baskets on gal’s legs! Ooo baby! Click on the photo for a larger version.

Feminism Is Stupid

Come Together? Yes, We Can. – washingtonpost.com
Women are bound to disagree. Feminism itself remains one of the most dynamic movements — the most debated, fought over, fought for, blamed and reclaimed — of the past 40 years, in part because so much is at stake.

Last week the Washington Post published a (kind of dumb) editorial by Charlotte Allen wherein she goes on at length about all the ways women are stupid. Oh, my! The outrage! Over a thousand angry comments were quckly posted. Within days at least two answering editorials had been published (here and here) and Allen appeared live online at the Post’s web site to (not very successfully) defend herself.

Maybe you’re already starting to feel a little outrage of your own over my claim that feminism is stupid — and I really do think it is — but just hold your horses for a bit. I’ll get to that. First I want to briefly explain why Charlotte Allen’s essay was dumb.

When she’s not simply providing useless anecdotes to back up her argument (that women are “dumb”), Allen cites studies showing that men have a fairly small statistical advantage over women in terms of their ability to imagine three-dimensional objects. Also, men get in fewer (but more severe) car accidents than women. That’s all very interesting, but Allen neglects to mention that — statistically — the differences between individuals of any sex are greater than the differences between the sexes.

Put simply, when it comes to overall ability, the kind of person you are as a complete individual is a lot more significant than what your sex is.

Taking all that into account, it is entirely true that women have been denied equal access to the opportunities to which their essentially equal abilities ought to have entitled them. So why is feminism not a good thing?

Well, I’ll tell you. Because that’s why I’m here.

Feminism is stupid as a tactic for obtaining equal opportunity because it’s divisive.

Bear with me. This isn’t the argument you might be thinking it is.

The problem isn’t women’s rights. The problem is human rights. By focusing our energy on our own group (women), we unnecessarily confuse and complicate the problem. We create opportunities for people like Charlotte Allen to distract attention from the essentially universal problem of creating equal opportunity for ALL people — regardless of their sex, their race, their religion, their whatever — and make it easier for people to dismiss us.

This is not to say that feminism and movements dedicated to equal rights for particular groups haven’t been effective. Of course, they have. The problem is that they haven’t done much for groups who lack the numbers necessary to force people to listen to them. Gay people in this country are still waiting for the basic right to marry, for Pete’s sake.

Fragmentation into “women’s rights”, “black people’s rights”, “disabled people’s rights”, and so on, has really slowed down the attainment of universally recognized rights for ALL people.

And that’s why I think feminism is stupid.

A New Age?

E.J. Dionne Jr. – Culture Wars? How 2004. – washingtonpost.com
The era of the religious right is over. Even absent the rise of urgent new problems, Americans had already reached a point of exhaustion with a religious style of politics that was dogmatic, partisan and ideological.

I certainly hope so.

It would be especially good if this new era also includes a flourishing of American technological and scientific thought. Perhaps something on the order of what began during the 1960s during Kennedy’s presidency.

I’d like to hear President Obama give a speech similar to the one Kennedy gave in 1961, only instead of launching a race to the moon it would signal the beginning of the end of our dependence on polluting energy sources.

“I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of completely ending our reliance on fossil fuels.”

Now that would be thrilling.

Robins Singing

It’s been usually warm here — up in the 70s! — and I’ve had the kitchen windows open all day. Tonight, for the first time this spring, I can hear the robins singing as dusk turns to dark.

The forecast for this evening is a thunderstorm. I hope they’re right. I love a good spring thunderstorm.

At times like this, listening to the birds, I’m reminded of how really nice it will be when we’re out of Fairfax. I’ve never quite learned how to block out the sound of the traffic on Fairfax County Parkway.

Last night was clear and I could see stars as I left my quartet rehearsal. How much brighter the stars will be when there’s not so much ambient light! How many more birds I’ll hear singing!

Free Rice

I’ve confirmed with snopes.com that this is legitimate. Test your vocabulary and donate rice to really poor people: FreeRice!

Fun on every level.

Musicophilia

Oliver Sacks has a new book out, Musicophilia, that looks really interesting. I had heard before that sometimes people who are unable to speak after having had a stroke or other kind of brain injury will be able to communicate if they sing the words. The same thing is true for many people who stutter or stammer. Music uses a different part of the brain from other kinds of communication.

Anyway, they’ve got four short videos on the Amazon web site with Sacks talking about music and neurology. It’s fascinating stuff.

North American Bear Center

The North American Bear Center has really updated and expanded their web site. It’s well worth a visit. There are lots of photos and a live “bearcam” that will be much more interesting when the bears come out of hibernation this spring. There’s also information on becoming a member — which is something I strongly recommend.

The Bear Center is up in Ely, Minnesota. The people who run it are really committed to understanding and protecting bears and they’ve been doing amazing research for years — long before the actual Bear Center was ever even conceived. Besides hunting, one of the biggest problems bears run into is humans who are unnecessarily afraid of them. Black bears truly aren’t at all the scary killers of the forest a lot of people take them for. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a tree-hugger. I’ve actually met wild black bears and have touched them and spoken to them. In lots of ways, black bears remind me of squirrels — in their behavior and what they eat. Really BIG squirrels.

Anyway, you can learn more for yourself by visiting the Bear Center’s web site (link above). In the meanwhile, check out this really great video from the site.