Stephen Bodio's Querencia

Actually, this interesting NY Times story on a cat DNA study says that it appears cats domesticated themselves somewhere in the Middle East about 10,000 years ago. But anyone who has ever been owned by a cat knows the truth.

A request: go to this site, whatever your politics, to sign a petition to save small-circulation intellectual journals from death by new postal rates cynically engineered between Big Media and the PO. Journals from Mother Jones and The Nation on the left, to liberal American Prospect, to National Review and American Conservative on the right are all united (!) against this threat to diversity of opinion.

A quote, from The Lady With Big Black Dogs:

"By default, the idea that it is possible to cover every contingency and nuance of daily living with written legislation is absurd on the face of it and draconian at the bottom line."

Another pic, from Annie D, which she sent with the following caption: "Carolyn could never figure out why she didn't quite fit in amongst the Goth crowd."


More to come-- though it will probably take three tries to send this one...

Steve

PS: one hangup...

Today's LA Times tells the story of Clyde Friend, who has discovered a forest of petrified trees on his property in an undisclosed location near Yakima, Washington. The standing trees were apparently engulfed by a lava flow about 15 million years ago, and now are preserved in a basalt hill covering an area of about 2 acres. The fact that the trees are still in a life-like vertical orientation is astounding. So far trees as tall as 24 feet and as thick as 24 inches have been observed.

Mr. Friend has done the right thing by alerting professional paleontologists who have studied this deposit. Apparently one mystery is why no tree roots are preserved in this ancient forest of hickory, elm, maple and sweet gum. But Friend seems obsessed by the notion of digging the whole thing out and destroying it. The trunks fall apart as they are freed from the basalt matrix.

One line in the story raised my hackles:

"He uses his heavy machines to break away large chunks of rock, and then drops to his knees with a hammer and chisel to chip around the trees, like an archeologist unearthing dinosaur bones."

Archaeologists don't excavate dinosaur bones - paleontologists do.

Isn't that just beautiful? It's a 35,000 year-old figurine of a mammoth carved from mammoth ivory. Der Speigel reports that it was recovered from the site of Vogelherd Cave in southwestern Germany along with several other ivory carvings, including one of a lion. Click the link to see more pictures, including other views of this little mammoth.

What I find fascinating about this story is that Vogelherd Cave was excavated in 1931. The researchers saved several thousand bags of the excavated deposit and these carvings were found recently as the bags of soil were being reprocessed. That's thinking ahead.

UPDATE

Steve really has some good ideas sometimes. Yesterday when I posted this he sent me an e-mail, “Reid – make sure you send that link to Laura Niven, she may have more to tell us.” Laura Niven is an archaeologist friend of Steve’s (and now a virtual acquaintance of mine) who specializes in European Paleolithic and works at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

Well she did have more to tell us in a couple of e-mails today. It turns out her dissertation was on the faunal assemblage from Vogelherd Cave and she knew all about this project and these figurines.

I will digress for a moment on how archaeologists work to provide some context for her remarks. When archaeologists excavate, they work in regular, rectilinear units (horizontally) and dig in regular, controlled levels so they can record the horizontal and verticle locations of artifacts and features that they find. Without this control it is impossible to understand the depositional history of the site and make accurate interpretations of age and association. As dirt is excavated from a unit and level, it is sifted through a screen to recover small artifacts and other remains that the excavator can’t see as he is digging. The excavated soil is called backdirt, and if you are lucky you have it piled in a location where you won’t have to dig later.

In the 1930’s when Vogelherd Cave was excavated, it wasn’t standard practice to screen backdirt and as a result many small artifacts were missed. I misinterpreted the Der Speigel article to mean that the original excavators had saved their backdirt, but Laura tells me that is not the case here. According to her, the University of Tubingen researchers relocated the 1931 backdirt piles at the cave a couple of years ago, put the dirt into bags and carried them back to their laboratory. There they waterscreened the backdirt, presumably through very small-meshed screens, and recovered the figurines. Reexamining old backdirt piles isn’t a practice that I’ve heard of before.

This puts the interpretations that are advanced about the age (35,000 years BP) and cultural affiliation (Aurignacian) of the figurines in question, as they have been recovered “out of context” as we say, in the jumbled backdirt piles. You can’t tell if they came from six inches or six feet down in the site. Laura tells me the upper (younger) levels of the site date as late as 5,000 BP. More from Laura:

“Chances are, the mammoth is Aurignacian, but none of the figurines from Vogelherd were ever directly dated. Apparently, ivory doesn't retain collagen, so the chances of getting a good [radiocarbon] date are very slim. The previous ones were found mostly in the Aurignacian find horizons (one was actually found in the backdirt back in 1931). The finds are about 90% Aurignacian overall at the site, and although there are a few dates suggesting a Gravettian occupation [more recent 28,000 – 22,000 BP], there aren't any Gravettian artifacts, so despite stylistic similarities with Gravettian figurines, they consider them Aurignacian.”

Thank you, Laura! So now you have the rest of the story. The age of the figurines is an estimate. That doesn’t keep that mammoth from being beautiful, though.

Steve’s friend Ted Kerasote, winner of the National Outdoor Book Award, has a new one at B&N I could not resist. Merle’s Door, Lessons from a Freethinking Dog, is parts memoir, polemic and canine biography. It is also an unapologetic love story and, I admit, a tear-jerker there toward the end.

Merle is a mostly-lab mixed breed who sniffs Ted out on a camping trip and makes a remarkable connection with this man, who, against twinges of better judgment, adopts him on the spot. As Merle says, in translation by Ted,” You need a dog, and I’m it.”

This translation business is a hallmark of the book. Blurbs on the back alluded to the feature, calling it the best human/dog translation in print. I’m not an expert here, but I can attest that as a tool for character development, Kerasote’s dog dialog is dead on. I feel I know Merle now pretty well.

Merle’s many opinions as expressed by his companion person help to develop the book’s central argument, which is that dogs given the freedom to roam and make choices become complex thinking beings, in fact tantamount to people. It’s clear from early in the story that Kerasote views this dog as possessing the full range of emotion, cognition and willingness to comment he would give any human person.

Indeed, he extends this view liberally along the way, granting the same by analogy to wolves, coyotes, cats, crows and of course, other dogs.

I am sympathetic to this view. Like Kerasote, I’ve been blessed with the company of dogs from birth to death and never doubted what goes on behind their eyes. Likewise, I grant my hawks tremendous powers of memory, forethought and opinion—assumptions I feel are necessary to successfully training and hunting with them.

So why am I on edge?

I think it was the guilt trip, layered on pretty thick by Kerasote, against those of us who do not live in a small village in the middle of a National Forest, and thus cannot set our captive dogs to roaming. It is arguable, and Kerasote concedes this, that even in his and Merle’s idyllic setting, the dangers of open range to domestic dogs are considerable. The author notes neighbors' dogs being shot, run over and eaten, and recounts many close calls with Merle.

Yet Kerasote’s conscience with regard to his freethinking dog is unassailable: Merle is a person, therefore Merle must be free. To his credit, Kerasote seems the most doting of dog companions, and spares nothing (save confinement) to see that Merle is safe. In point of fact, Merle lives a very long time and has, by this accounting, a rich and wonderful life.

My small annoyance with Kerasote’s disapproval of “normal” suburban life for dogs did not prevent me from enjoying this book. I read it fast and cried real tears at the end.

But I have to wonder if personhood for dogs—and this book accepts nothing less—is the best thing we can give them? How many of us are ready to release our dogs unto their own recognizance? How many of our dogs are ready for that?

Hat tip to Arthur Wilderson for this story, a write-up about a remarkably similar phenomenon in England to what we've been discussing over here lately: nostalgia for free-range children who spend their days outdoors. Good title, too: Rearing Children in Captivity

At the school gates of Birchington Primary School, on the Kent coast, a group of mothers chat about their childhood.

'I used to go to the woods and build a den,' said one.

'I would always go to the park on my own, just so long as I was back before dark,' said a second.

The other mums nodded.

All remembered the adventures of their youth - long days spent out of sight of their parents. 'Happy days,' they said.

So do they let their own children enjoy the same freedoms?

'That would be irresponsible,' replied one. The rest agreed....

I'm going to break a small confidence and relate a thing Steve said to me in the privacy of his kitchen.

I was going on about Helen MacDonald, drunk after our detour to the Golden Spur and full of good meat from the Bodio larder. A point at which, in other words, I was babbling.

Steve leveled his gaze and said, "Don't gush."

I am a serial gusher. Hop over to Fretmarks and read more like this:

"And as the sun rose and broke the fog, the flat expanses of reeds stretched and glowed into the distance. The air was full of a host of marsh harriers. Everywhere you looked, they sailed over the flat planes of reed, wings set in a characteristic half-raised plane, like a self-willed paper aircraft."

A thunderstorm just before sunset Monday night gave us this big double rainbow as seen from our deck. It and the pyrotechnics of the storm provided dinnertime entertainment for us and Mr. & Mrs. Peculiar (Jackson and Nikki) who we were delighted to have as house guests.

The sunset wasn't too bad, either.

The Denver Post ran this oddball local story today. In the small town of Nederland in the mountains west of Boulder, Bredo Morstoel, who died in 1989, lies frozen in a metal coffin, awaiting the day when medical science has advanced enough to revive him and fix the heart ailment that killed him. Morstoel's grandson in Norway sends money every month to a man in Longmont who keeps the coffin packed in dry ice.

Nederland has done its best to capitalize on this strange situation by holding an annual "Frozen Dead Guy Days" festival featuring coffin races. Money line from the article:

"In a town that has become increasingly awash in ordinary battles over stoplights or chain stores, Grandpa Bredo keeps Nederland weird."

I might just have to make it up to Frozen Dead Guy Days.

Well, I guess it's my turn.

It may sound a little strange, but at least to some extent I blog because I was invited. Though I had read blogs and commented on them for ages, I really had no idea of doing it myself until Steve asked me to post here. Now it’s hard to imagine not blogging. I guess I have always had a faint itch to write, but it was never strong enough to drive me into print the way it did Steve and Matt. Blogging has lowered that barrier to entry and gives me the writing outlet that I always needed and never had. I find it satisfying, especially when a post "clicks" and people want to comment.

After blogging for a while I found that I was sort of pre-adapted for it. I’ve always been something of a data hound and for years I have kept files of newspaper and magazine articles that interested me. Those of you on the receiving end of e-mailed articles I’ve sent know that I’m still at it and that they serve as the basis for lots of posts here. It’s nice to make use of something I had begun to consider an obsessive habit.

One of the things I have come to enjoy about blogging is the way it changes how I look at things. In the past I would encounter issues or articles that I would find mildly interesting, consider them, and pass on. Now I see them and think, “That would make a great post!” That forces me to think more clearly and critically about them and often to do more background research to put a decent post together. That’s a good thing.

As Matt mentioned in his post, the community aspect of blogging is wonderful. It’s a privilege and a joy to collaborate with people as intelligent and wise and funny as Steve and Matt. Also I would never have believed that I would meet so many smart and fascinating people from all over the world who comment here and post on our brother and sister blogs. They are always bringing in ideas I haven’t considered and making connections I would never have made. The first time I log on each day, it’s with a sense of anticipation as I look forward to seeing what’s happened in the neighborhood while I’ve been away.

We have so been outdone.

Darren Naish pricked us with the latest self-replicating blogger bug: Why blog? So I'll start our reply (a brief one in my case) and let Reid and Steve follow up.

First, this question is worthy of a real essay. Mary's was wonderful from a few months back, though I couldn't find it to link (Mary?). So are others I've read around the blogroll. Many have given this some good thought.

My own reasons are obvious and unflattering and best kept short.

I blog to make comment in a public space, albeit one generally tolerant of my views.

I blog to be in company with two very smart guys I admire.

I blog to clear my head and my arguments, using the imagined reaction of you readers to help trim the fat.

I blog for the elusive feeling of having said what I meant to say, at least once in the course of my day.

The larger value of blogging to me is the community of interesting, often brilliant and surprising people who come to share our orbit. Knowing that with a click or two I can get as much of the culture, biology, politics, instruction, humor, paranoia and poetry I'm likely to need on my coffee break is a great comfort. And a great extender of coffee breaks.

...Guys?

During my father's tour of duty at the Pentagon, a two-plus year rotation in which we lived in civilian housing and I attended public school, I got a rare taste of American pie. Prior to this, and afterwards until Dad retired, I knew only the cloistered and comfortable life of a military brat on bases stateside and overseas.

Dad commuted into D.C. from our Fairfax County suburban neighborhood. I walked to school often, just a few blocks away to King's Glen Elementary. Along the route I passed the long, sloping power cut on which my friends and I spent winter afternoons sledding and summer days building forts. I saw the spot recently on Google Earth and was happy to find it still a kid-friendly no-man's land and bordered on all sides by the woods I remember.

Not much has changed? Maybe not from the perspective of a satellite.

On the ground, Fairfax County seems to have moved well into the 21st Century. See this story ("watch the whole thing," I guess we'd say) from CNN about one Fairfax County school that has taken the trend away from "rough play" in schools to its ultimate conclusion: A strict 'no touching' policy.

That's right: No shaking hands. No hugs. No bumps, backrubs, pokes, tickles, chivalrous taking of arms or good natured pats on the head. "Even high fives can get out of hand," says the spokesperson for the School Board. The rest of her statement, describing just how such a thing could go terribly, terribly wrong had me laughing... almost.

It is really terrifying. With justifications including potential injury, gang activity, multi-cultural insensitivity and general anarchy in an overcrowded school, the leaders of this community have decided that punishing every observed instance of human contact is the only possible solution.

In the middle of the fray is young Hal Beaulieu, an honors student sent to detention for briefly putting an arm around his girlfriend in the lunchroom. Watch and wonder...

Here's the view south across the lake.

As it is direct snow melt, believe me, that water is cold. Maggie put her front feet in once while getting a drink and after that would have none of getting in the lake.

People wandered in the snow field, many tourists drawn by the novelty of snow in June.

Also saw this skier. I was hoping he would stop and strap on his skiis so I could catch him coming downhill. But he just kept trudging on up the whole time we were there.
Sadie and Maggie found the snow refreshing. It was a warm day.

Here's Connie and Sadie on our way back down the hill. Nice way to spend Father's Day.

Gloom and doom about the growth of nanny-state policies in Great Britain has been an ongoing theme here as regular readers know. Here is one more installment in our continuing series that comes from The Times. Gerard Baker uses the refusal of the British Advertising Standards Authority to allow some egg commercials to run on TV (after all, eggs are bad for you!) as his hook to expound on the vicious circle of expanding state power and increasing individual dependency. I was struck by this quote:

"Leviathan is now so large that, outside London, half the population is dependent – either through public sector jobs or benefits – on taxes. Its power is so large that it has bent us all into submission. It has produced a culture in which no one needs to take responsibility for anything because someone else is always there to back us up."

As they say, RTWT

Steve got worked up over this piece in yesterday's NY Times on Freegans, a movement I had not heard of. As he is very busy, he asked one of us to take it on. From the article:

"The site, which provides information and listings for the small but growing subculture of anticonsumerists who call themselves freegans — the term derives from vegans, the vegetarians who forsake all animal products, as many freegans also do — is the closest thing their movement has to an official voice. And for those like Ms. Elia and Ms. Kalish, it serves as a guide to negotiating life, and making a home, in a world they see as hostile to their values.

Freegans are scavengers of the developed world, living off consumer waste in an effort to minimize their support of corporations and their impact on the planet, and to distance themselves from what they see as out-of-control consumerism. They forage through supermarket trash and eat the slightly bruised produce or just-expired canned goods that are routinely thrown out, and negotiate gifts of surplus food from sympathetic stores and restaurants.

They dress in castoff clothes and furnish their homes with items found on the street; at freecycle.org, where users post unwanted items; and at so-called freemeets, flea markets where no money is exchanged. Some claim to hold themselves to rigorous standards. “If a person chooses to live an ethical lifestyle it’s not enough to be vegan, they need to absent themselves from capitalism,” said Adam Weissman, 29, who started freegan.info four years ago and is the movement’s de facto spokesman."

I guess I am as skeptical of mindless consumerism as anyone, but each of us has our own definition of what "mindless" is, don't we? I'll quote from the article on the nature of the internal contradictions in freeganism that drove Steve crazy:

"Not buying any new manufactured products while living in the United States is, of course, basically impossible, as is avoiding everything that requires natural resources to create, distribute or operate. Don’t freegans use gas or electricity to cook, for example, or commercial products to brush their teeth?"

snip

"These contradictions and others have led some people to suggest that freegans are hypocritical, making use of the capitalist system even as they rail against it. And even Mr. Weissman, who is often doctrinaire about the movement, acknowledges when pushed that absolute freeganism is an impossible dream."

If you want to make your living by dumpster diving, that's fine - please spare us the holier than thou moralizing.

The NY Times and LA Times both carried pieces on a gunshot wound found in an Incan burial near Lima, Peru that dates to the 1530s, the period of the Spanish conquest. According to them, it is the earliest documented gunshot wound found in the New World, likely administered by one of the conquistadores.

These are both very interesting pieces about an interesting find and I urge you to read them, but the "earliest gunshot wound" aspect of the stories is really a public relations ploy, in this case presumably by the National Geographic Society. I'm sure finding the earliest gunshot wound hasn't been a research goal of any archaeologist working in Peru. Also, this most assuredly isn't the earliest gunshot wound in the New World. Francisco Pizzaro conquered Peru in 1531 - 1536, twenty years after Hernan Cortes conquered Mexico in 1519 - 1521. I would imagine that if some Mexican archaeologists were motivated to review their late Aztec collections they could likely find an earlier example. If they can't, it's probably just a matter of time before they do. And that doesn't even take into account people Columbus or others might have shot prior to the conquest of Mexico.

In one of my early archaeology jobs, I worked on the excavation of the King Site in northwest Georgia. It is a proto-historic Creek village, now generally believed to be one of the villages visited by Hernando de Soto, a veteran of the conquest of Peru, during his entrada in the Southeast in 1539 - 1542. We were excavating burials that showed pretty clear evidence of cut and stab wounds by steel edged weapons - physical anthropologist Robert Blakely described them in an article in American Antiquity in 1990. Alas, we had no gunshot wounds. But I don't think it would have occurred to Dave Hally and Pat Garrow, who were running the project, to go to the papers to claim they had the "earliest metal edged weapons wounds" in North America. I guess we lacked the publicity gene.

Finally, I found it interesting that the LA Times piece goes off into some conquistador bashing:

" The records maintain that a few hundred conquistadors, led by Francisco Pizarro, used their superior weaponry and their horses to repel an attack by tens of thousands of Incas led by Manco Yupanqui. After breaking the siege, the Spaniards tracked down and killed many of the Incas who had attacked, including the group at Puruchuco.

But the evidence casts the conquistadors in a less heroic light, Cock found. The archeological evidence makes it clear that the Spaniards were accompanied by a large group of Indians who were fighting the Incas to escape subjugation.

Although as many as three of the Inca warriors were clearly shot and others had injuries apparently made by the Spaniards' metallic weapons, most of the 72 victims apparently were bludgeoned with more primitive stone weapons wielded by other Indians."

Anyone with more than a nodding acquaintance with the history of the Mexican and Peruvian conquests knows that these were really rebellions of subject peoples of the Aztec and Incan empires, led by small numbers of Spanish troops. For example, when Cortes attacked the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan in 1521, his army consisted of 900 Spaniards and 50,000 Indians. And the Spanish accounts make this very clear.

The New West Net, an online news service dedicated to coverage of the Rocky Mountain states, recently had an opinion piece by Christian Probasco on the effect that nanny-state legislation in California may have on neighboring states in the West. What concerns the author is that California is a trendsetter. From the article:

"California is a trendsetter state. Much like the weather, every Californian fad eventually makes its way over the Sierras and diffuses into the intermountain West. That’s wonderful, and it’s frightening, because there are some pretty disturbing things going on in the Golden State right now.

O.K., I’ll admit: disturbing to people who take their civil liberties seriously. But I’m one of them."

He provides a list of some pending legislation, some of which we have previously discussed here:

".....there’s a few nanny-state laws lately considered by the State Legislature, as related by San Diegan Adam Summers an economist and policy analyst for the Reason Foundation:

• AB 722—Would “phase out” the sale of incandescent light bulbs in favor of more energy-efficient fluorescent bulbs (despite the fact that harmful levels of mercury from fluorescent bulbs can add up in landfills, contaminating the soil and making their way into the food supply). This bill has been amended so that now, instead of banning bulbs outright, it would have the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission set a minimum energy efficiency for bulbs. A nice P.R. move that would, in practice, essentially ban incandescent bulbs.

• SB 7—Would ban smoking in a vehicle--moving or stationary--in which there is a minor.

• AB 86/AB 90/AB 97/SB 490—Would restrict the use of trans fats in restaurants and school cafeterias.

• SB 120/SB 180—Would require caloric, trans fat, saturated fat, and sodium content information to be printed on restaurant menus.

• AB 1634—Would require dog and cat owners to spay or neuter their animals by four months of age."

Probasoco asks, "What happened to California?"

“Nothing,” says Ron Getty, “Other than year-round politicians who feel that to look good they have to show how tough they are on (fill in the blank) or show how caring they are on behalf of (fill in the blank). The majority of (the nanny laws were) introduced in basic essence by legislators who are at heart control freaks.”

RTWT

My old friend John McLoughlin, zoologist, evolutionist, novelist, and artist, came down to visit from his hideout in the northern mountains to visit Magdalena (always referred to as "Down Among the Wild Men") for the first time in 23 years. He brought his three daughters and his grandson, and a fine time was had by all.

Labels: Art, Dogs, Evolution, Random Weirdness, Writing

The NY Times brings us the sad news of the death of Don Herbert, early television's "Mr. Wizard." The geek in me is proud to admit that "Watch Mr. Wizard" was one of my favorite shows as a kid. In my book it ranked right up there with "Sky King" and "Rin Tin Tin."

Around the web. Darren reports on a new giant Oviraptor-- basically your near- Tyrranosaur- sized bird. And yes, it was probably feathered.

Carel gives us some welcome news about the return of the Aplomado falcon, with a gorgeous painting of a falcon "working" a fire as well. The Armendariz Ranch is in the southern part of my home ecosystem (i.e., within 50 miles) and I'll be looking. It's nice to know Ted Turner is good for something. I have a theory about the bird's historical decline-- actually Libby's idea-- in the comments.

Paul Boutin in Slate is lucky enough to own a classic Studebaker Avanti, and thinks, despite such luck, that "All old cars suck"--!

"To begin with, they're hard to start in the morning. The Avanti doesn't have computer-controlled injectors to squirt the exact amount of gasoline into each cylinder of its engine at the precise moment. It doesn't have computer-controlled anything. Instead, it's got a carburetor, a comparatively crude device that passively mists fuel into the engine's air intake."

Wow. I grew up with such primitive devices, and my only working vehicle, a nearly twenty year old truck, still has one.

It has almost 300,000 miles on it. Our newer car is not running because the (good) local mechanic can't debug the !@#$%^&&* computer that runs the fuel injection.

He is also afraid because it doesn't have airbags. Neither does my truck-- see mileage above.

Paul, we'd give it a home. And not worry about its breaking down, virtually unrepairable, when its non- existent computer dies twenty miles from the nearest town.

But I guess you don't have to worry about that in the Bay Area-- just... endless... expenses....

Mary, Patrick, Matt, and Reid all tipped me to this fascinating NYT science piece on so- called "bully whippets". Thses stout over- muscled dogs are what happens when you inbreed too much seeking a single character, in this case speed. When the whippets are heterozygous for a certain gene they are fast, but when they have two copies they are rather monstrous.

This stirred up me (and Matt, and Dr. Hypercube) into some off- web discussion. It hit two of my pet peeves: that such pursuits as racing and lure coursing are as good for dogs as hunting, and that pure "blood" and closed studbooks are somehow desirable (Patrick always has plenty to say about this too).

Matt stated the first problem clearly: "... what it takes to catch a rabbit with a dog is not ONLY speed, but brains and stamina and much else besides. So never before in the sighthounds has there been an attempt to breed for speed alone as an abstract trait, and as measured by a mechanical device. That's new, and maybe that's what lead us to this problem."

As for the second, look at the article:

"When mutant, muscle-bound puppies started showing up in litters of champion racing whippets, the breeders of the normally sleek dogs invited scientists to take DNA samples at race meets here and across the country. They hoped to find a genetic cause for the condition and a way to purge it from the breed.

"It worked. “Bully whippets,” as the heavyset dogs are known, turn out to have a genetic mutation that enhances muscle development. And breeders may not want to eliminate the “bully” gene after all. The scientists found that the same mutation that pumps up some whippets makes others among the fastest dogs on the track.

"With a DNA screening test on the way, “We’re going to keep the speed and lose the bullies,” Helena James, a a whippet breeder in Vancouver, British Columbia, said."

(Snip)

"It was not exactly news to breeders that speed is an inherited trait: whippets were developed in the late 1800s specifically for racing. But knowing that one of her dogs was sired by a carrier of the gene, said Jen Jensen, a whippet owner in Fair Oaks, Calif., makes its championships seem “less earned.” Ms. Jensen’s suggestion that a DNA test be required for all dogs and that the fastest ones without the mutation be judged and raced separately, however, has not gone over well.

"At a recent race here in southern New Jersey, some whippet owners wanted the mutation eliminated altogether, even if that meant fewer fast dogs. But as the dogs pounded after a lure at 35 miles per hour, several owners allowed that they would prefer a whippet with the gene for speed.

"“It’s more fun having fast dogs than slow dogs,” said Libby Kirchner, of Glassboro, N.J."

But such "purity" comes at a steep cost: reduced genetic diversity. Also, genes do not exist and act in a vacuum; their effects are intimately linked. I think that is what this fellow is getting at, though the reporter didn't elucidate his exact reasons:

"Many breeders hope this new effort to corral nature will weed out the numerous recessive diseases that plague purebred dogs after generations of human-imposed inbreeding. But some question the wisdom of escalating intervention. Mark Derr, an author who has written about the history of dog breeding, urges everyone to reconsider the goal of genetic purity.

“I always use dogs as the example of why we don’t want to be mucking around with our own genome,” Mr. Derr said. “These people are trying to use DNA tests to solve problems of their own making.” "

My take on both questions, as related to Dr. H. (slightly edited as I do go on in early AM emails!):

"Racing and lure coursing are ersatz tests-- hunting is the real thing. Even competitive open field coursing introduces an element of artificiality. Hunting selects for intelligence and intangibles.

"All working breeds AT LEAST should have ways of bringing in new genes. Ideally I'd like to see it like pigeons where the result in appearance or performance is all that matters and breeding is irrelevant.

"This will never happen. Purebred dogs and shows started in Victorian times and picked up a lot of baggage there. Breed people buy in to all sorts of mysticism about it (show saluki people with their pure Arab breed myths are among the worst-- see below) and make up absurd creation myths. Also the AKC pedigree machine is Big Business and we all know what that means.

"The saluki type is what John Burchard calls a "landrace" and behaves rather like a species, maintaining itself with plenty of genetic buffering and little need for pedigrees. The west split off one small Arab population, mostly from Iraq, and called it saluki, and took an even smaller group from Afghanistan and made of it the absurd modern show Afghan. The Russians, extending our idiocy, now count those two plus taigan, aboriginal Afghan, tazi, and even a longer- coated tazi variant called Khalag tazi. In "nature", all blend into one another and keep plenty of diversity. You can see all types plus smooths in Afghanistan, and John tells me you could see all but the heaviest - coated in the Arabian peninsula 20 years ago.

"Pedigree dogs have diminishing genetic pools and they are getting worse all the time, aided and abetted by the AKC. The saluki is the ONLY AKC breed with a mechanism for bringing in new "blood" and even that is cumbersome, partially because of Arabist romanticism and the myth of the "pure" (hurr) Bedu, saluki, Arab horse, and saker. The Arabs certainly hold a higher place for salukis than "dogs" (or at least did until the recent rise in rabid Salafism, which also affects the Afghans) but the dogs still came down from Asia. Don’t know yet when my dogs will be officially accepted. Not that they care."

Labels: Animal Breeding, Dogs, Genetics

Henry Chappell, Chas Clifton, Darren Naish and Rebecca O'Connor fall into our cunning trap!

Last Saturday I was finally able to meet Chas Clifton face to face at a book signing here in Denver for his new work, Her Hidden Children. Chas of course, lives just down the road in Pueblo, and is an estimable member blogger of our community here.

After the event we were able to duck out for a quick beer and delightful, stimulating talk on Colorado archaeology, oggam inscriptions, local fishing, the Alta Mira Press, archaeoastronomy, and the academic life. To my great regret, our conversation was curtailed by a prior social committment I had, but I look forward to many more talks with Chas now that we are living in the same neighborhood.

In one of the first posts I did here I talked about the Black Cherokee, descendents of slaves owned by the Cherokee prior to the Civil War. After they were freed, they stayed affiliated with the tribe in Oklahoma and many were accepted onto tribal rolls. Today's NY Times has an editorial titled "The Shame of the Cherokee" that reports the tribe has voted to revoke the tribal citizenship of 2,800 Black Cherokee and calls for Federal sanctions against the tribe. In my earlier post I pointed out that many tribes in California were expelling members to increase the the casino money shares of the remaining members. This would appear to be another sad story of that type, more unintended consequences of Indian gaming.

The first William Greener started an English gunmaking dynasty that still lives on. (English guns at least have not yet declined and fallen, though affording a new one can be difficult).

I own one of Greener's products, a 10- bore Damascus duck gun from the 1880's, still in service. (I got it from the vaults of Kirby Hoyt's Vintage Guns).

It has far finer engraving than most wildfowl guns, on the distinctive sculpted "Facile Princeps" Greener action.


The first William wrote the first of several gun books that his family created , one of which is still in print.

The first edition was called "Greener on Gunnery" and came out in 1831.


A couple of years ago my friend Jeff Nicoll, physicist, arms negotiator, Virginia gentleman, and all- round scholar, conceived of the odd idea that we should have an entry for a word in the Oxford English Dictionary. He thought the proper term "Best Gun", as in London Best, should be that word, and asked me to find an early reference. I did, in the original Greener. Jeff decided to get a copy, and when we were done, he gave it to me.

But being as it was Jeff, it was no "ordinary" copy. For one thing, it had the bookplate of the legendary cricketer W. R. Grace.

But Jeff also knows my Russophily, so I guess he figured the inscription from the first William to "The Emperor of all the Russias" might please me too.


I don't think I ever had as moving a gift-- scholarship, guns, books, and history. Thanks, Jeff!

Labels: Books, Guns, Russia

Chas, at his Hardscrabble Creek Blog, has tagged me with the "Thinking Blogger" meme. Ouch! I read many (too many) blogs and have many friends among them. I don't know that all make me THINK in the sense of change my perception-- some just delight me-- but some do. More than five though...

Chas himself at Hardscrabble. A teacher of writing and comparative religion who is also a hunter, dog man, gun nut, and practicing Pagan?

Darren. I have learned more new evo- bio and taxonomy from him than anyone but Jonathan Kingdon.

Pluvialis. LANGUAGE!

Mary. Can there be such thing as a wise female curmudgeon?

Rod: A Green Orthodox anti- war conservative. And he's still a relative kid!

Patrick: another curmudgeon. Tough love for hunters.

Doc. Letters from the cyber edge, plus art, hawks, dogs & frogs.

A new one: Clio: Canadian Catholic pop (and high) culture muse.

That'll do for this week...

Labels: Blogs

.. is what Libby and I call Cnemidiphorus neomexicanus and her relatives. We are not being rude, but literal. Neomexicanus is described on page 319 of the newest edition of the Peterson Guide to Western Reptiles and Amphibians as being "ALL FEMALE".

Patrick explains:

"For example, believe it or not, there are no male Whiptail Lizards; all Whiptail Lizards are female, and all are natural clones.

"What happens here is that two female Whiptail Lizards will engage in "pseudocopulation" in which one female gets on top of another and grinds away like a male, and then they reverse their respective roles. This activity stimulates egg production in both lizards, which then lay fertile eggs."

From an evolutionary viewpoint this can be a problem-- virgin births= parthenogenesis= clones= no variation. From a practical point of view, at least in this environment, it appears to mean little-- I could go into the side yard and find one in a minute flat. Maybe I'll get a photo later.

Labels: Evolution

A .600 Nitro revolver. Not a hoax. It is hand- made and costs approximately $16,000.

I have two shotguns that weigh less.

HT Keith Ealy who says "This is nothing short of insane..."

But rather cool. There will be an outcry to ban it of course.

Labels: Guns

Exactly what Steve Browne says.

Tom McIntyre sends this great Yoruba poem (song?) on Cape Buffalo.

The buffalo is the death
that makes a child climb a thorn tree.
When the buffalo dies in the forest
the head of the household is hiding in the roof.
When the hunter meets the buffalo
he promises never to hunt again.
He will cry out: "I only borrowed the gun!
I only look after it for my friend!"
Little he cares about your hunting medicines:
he carries two knives on his head,
little he cares about your danegun,
he wears the thickest skin.
He is the butterfly of the savannah:
he flies along without touching the grass,
When you hear the thunder without rain˜
it is the buffalo approaching.

"Dane Gun"? A friend of his checked it out:

"It would appear that the danegun was part of the slave trade, perhaps made in Denmark and then carried to Africa to be traded for human cargo, and subsequently put to use to round up more Africans for the plantations of the West Indies and North America (the Danes had an island or two out there). These guns are still around--I found contemporary uses of the word without definitions, including one about a juju to create "poison" gunpowder which would ruin the Danegun. Flints for the Brown Bess are still being manufactured in India to accommodate all of the muskets still floating around, so it wouldnt be too much to assume that Daneguns are still in the hands of folks in Yoruba land.

Labels: Adventure, Africa, Hunting

England is having a bad week. First, from The Daily Mail (HT Maggie's Farm): omnipresent video cameras:

"Britain has more than 4 million closed-circuit security cameras, more than any other Western democracy.

"Police say the average Briton is on as many as 300 cameras every day, usually unaware.

"The density of surveillance is significantly higher than in any other Western democracy, says Jen Corlew, spokeswoman for Liberty, a London-based human rights group."

(Snip)

" "We appreciate that the cameras and some of the other measures are seen as invasive, but only people who really have something to worry about should be concerned," David Morgan, a Metropolitan Police Chief Superintendent, said on a tour of the bunker.

"As he spoke, a series of seemingly private moments unfolded - ranging from a young couple stepping into the shadows for a kiss to a driver sneaking into a restricted bus lane."

Dr Hypercube has some interesting observations on life in an information- rich environment (please Read The Whole Thing):

"All this is fine as I wander around documenting what I want to document, writing what I feel like writing. But (there’s always a but), here comes Monty! Who is Monty, you ask? He is the cat in the window. A new feature of Google Maps provides street level zooms for select urban areas - the Google folks have vehicles driving around cities taking pictures. When the Google car came by, Monty was sitting in his normal perch. Later, when Google rolled out the new feature, Monty’s owner took a look at her neighborhood, saw her cat in her window, and got a little - understandably in my book - freaked."

And then there is the matter of park bench height.

"Did you see that Park benches across the UK will have to be replaced at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds - because they are too low? Under new "health and safety" laws, benches must be more than 17.75 inches high so the elderly and disabled can get off them easily. The new rules came to light after Bramcote Crematorium in Nottinghamshire was told by officials from the local Broxtowe council to replace 40 memorial benches costing £400 each.

"An inspector found that the benches were 14.75in high - 3in lower than the "allowed minimum" height and 5in lower than the "optimum" height. The crematorium has also been ordered to pay a further £200,000 for lighting, because, under the same legislation, the new benches must be lit at night."

And just maybe, a creeping vegan cabal (this one sounds like it comes from the Onion but....)

And of course, the lords and masters don't want us drinking wine anymore ("We want to target older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening,” a Whitehall source said. “They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease. We are not talking here about the traditional wino.”)

Or letting flyers put pinups on bombers.

I read the first volume of Manchester's "Last Lion" bio of Churchill last week. When tasked with "living in the past" Churchill replied that he would rather live in the past than the future as the future "looked to be not much fun". Hmmm...

On the other hand and as a small ray of hope, someone in PC Canada has revolted against their intrusive gun questions.

"My friend, noted Quebec academic and author Pierre Lemieux, submitted his firearms licence-renewal application directly to the Prime Minister's office this week. "Mr. Prime Minister," he wrote in a covering letter enclosing his Form 979, "I would like to suggest that you should enforce your own "laws" yourself. You will note that, as a proud descendant of the disobedient French Canadian coureurs de bois, I have not answered one of the form's indiscreet and obscene questions. I answered that my love affairs are none of your business." (Form 979 asks, among other things, about recently ended romantic relationships.)"

The writer goes on to say-- in Canada!--:

"The problem is that gun control in any form practical in a free society -- certainly in any form currently proposed or practised in Canada or the U.S., such as demanding details about Professor Lemieux's love life -- doesn't keep guns away from criminals. It only keeps guns away from law-abiding citizens. Interfering with the rights of law-abiding citizens to own and carry arms does nothing to reduce violence in the street.

"Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens pose little danger to public safety. (Less danger, to be statistically precise, than unattended swimming pools.)"

The spirit of churchill may yet be alive in the Anglosphere, if not in the UK.

Update re pinups: "Officials admitted they had no record of any complaints from the 5,400 women in the RAF."

Labels: Doom, Nanny State

It just occurred to me that today is the second anniversary of this blog.

I couldn't pass up this piece in the NY Times on the city of Chattanooga's use of goats to control kudzu, that invasive vine that grows a foot a day and that covers large areas of the South. Us native Southerners have kudzu as part of our heritage, along with grits and barbecue.

The NY Times and LA Times and all the wire services are carrying the story today of chicken bones recovered from an archaeological site in Chile that have been radiocarbon dated to between 1304 and 1424. DNA analysis shows that the chickens come from a breed common in Polynesian islands, which indicates they were brought to South America by Polynesian sailors prior to arrival of the Spanish.

This is a great discovery, but for some time most archaeologists have accepted that there was Precolumbian contact of this type as South American sweet potatoes were seen throughout Polynesia by the first European explorers to reach there. Polynesians were some of the world's greatest sailors and were certainly technically capable of these voyages. This discovery is direct proof rather than inferred, shows that the exchange of food types was reciprocal and gives the first firm Precolumbian dates.

The LA Times hypes the resistence of scholars to this theory. It also quotes Terry Jones, an archaeologist from Cal Poly - SLO, who says this supports his theory that Chumash Indians in California learned plank canoe construction techniques from Polynesians, the subject of my very first post here. That theory has taken quite a whacking in a couple of subsequent articles in American Antiquity that I'll address in another post.

Also check out John Hawks Anthropology Weblog where he has some sensible and interesting comments on the discovery.

I've been avoiding the book stand photo for sheer embarrassment. I'm the token short-bus rider at the Querencia School for Bibliophiles.

For a long time I had no stack at all. I read one book at a time, and that one slowly.

Lately I've been a more productive reader as measured in "books taken down from the shelf and placed on the reading table," but my actual word-per-day rate has not appreciably changed.




And some of these are not even books. Witness last month's Vanity Fair and no fewer than three National Geos, all lightly skimmed on day received and destined for the tasteful white caddy by the toilet.

I am managing to read Michael Pollan's "Second Nature" in small blocks of text and enjoying what I've read so far. I just finished his "Omnivore's Dilemma" and found it tasty.

One smooth essay at a time, I'm moving through "To Know a River: A Haig-Brown Reader" and Annie Dillard's "For the Time Being."

I started "The Weight of Glory" (CS Lewis) a couple months ago but ground to a halt on this good gift from my brother. About the same progress made on Eudora Welty's "On Writing," a gift from Mom.

My family, bless them, keeps working on me.

Dad left me "Outgrowing the Earth" on his last visit, a chewy-looking text by Lester Brown that is probably good and right down my alley. But I admit I haven't even read the blurbs.

Finally, for quietest moments when it is just possible to imagine September, "The Working Retrievers," a beautiful text with dazzling illustrations all by Tom Quinn. Foreword by Stephen Bodio.

As I said in an earlier post, as the season progresses, we are learning more about the denizens of our garden. Like this columbine on the south side of the house.

A short-lived but very intense thunderstorm hit us yesterday afternoon, dropping hail that you can see all over our deck here.

Garden and trees all seem to have come through pretty well and the cars were in the garage. Half an hour after I took this picture the sky was clear, the sun was shining and the deck nearly dry.

Increasingly I have been arguing with public- health and some conservative friends re the bans on DDT and other chlorinated hydrocarbons. They seem to think that it is responsible for the increase in malaria in Africa.

They mean well, but they are wrong. If DDt is used properly it is no threat-- if it is not, it is another kind of threat. Carel Brest van Kempen explains the whole matter in a birthday tribute to Rachel Carson:

"There's even a widespread misconception that the worldwide DDT ban has increased the danger of malaria in the tropics. Actually, the worldwide DDT ban prohibits only agricultural application. It is still commonly and effectively applied to indoor walls and bednets to deter Anopheles mosquitos, which in general are less resistant to the chemical than they would have been without the ban."

Proper use of such poisons is no threat to the environment. IMPROPER use makes mosquito populations resistant to pesticides-- which means they aren't affected by wall applications either. Evolution...

Now we just have to educate the governments, which find it much easier to simply dump chemicals...

Labels: Environment, Evolution, Insects

I mentioned that Darren has been busy but I would hardly have imagined his news: an announcement of not just one or two but many "new" large mammal species from Amazonia.

All are the discoveries of Marc van Roosmalen, and appear at Tetrapod Zoology with his permission. Marc's new website, full of material, is here.

This is the first in a series at Darren's. I'll try to get some pics. Darren covers peccaries and tapirs in the first, and announces:

"More in part II: more peccaries, new brockets, dwarf manatee, dwarf boto, black giant otter and others. Part III will cover lots of new monkeys, and part IV the new giant anteater and the onça-canguçú, a new big cat. Oh yes."

Oh, YESSS!!

"Life has not stopped and the world is not really a museum, yet"-- Ted Hughes

Labels: Adventure, Mammals, Taxonomy

It already has draconian gun- buying rules, a ban on calibers of over .50 (not one example of which has ever been used in a crime); bans on guns that look "bad". It wants regulation mandating non- existent technology to mark bullets on ("evil" semiauto only, because only they can kill I guess) handguns.

It is so insanely expensive that half of the nouveau idiots that dominate our local subdivisions are people my age who have moved here to live forever on the proceeds of selling a single house there.

This year, it intends to ban incandescent light bulbs and neuter all your dogs. Last year, it narrowly missed banning hunting with dogs. Its Game Department has publicly said that raptors are "theirs" and that they resent falconers having access to them.

Educated "Anglo" residents are fleeing for the first time, even as it fills up with Mexican and Central American peasants who want to vote without benefit of citizenship, as a right.

And now Reid tells me that Southern Cal wants to ban fireplaces and burning wood.

"Carney said there are "pretty obvious adverse impacts of wood smoke on pollution. If you stand close to a wood fire and breathe, you can feel it in your throat and in your lungs."

"Carney said that while she would listen to comments from the public and the building industry, attractive alternatives to wood fireplaces are available.

" "Let me tell you, the natural gas logs are wonderful," she said.

[Nice sense of the environment there, lady--SB]

"Carney also said she would consider even tougher measures to clean up fireplace pollution, such as a complete regional wintertime ban on wood fires."

Why does anyone stay there?!

Of course, escaping Californians, who at least here seem to want to immediately burden us with the nannying they escaped, may yet drive me to Eastern Montana, North Dakota, or Minnesota-- game and dwindling populations. Or, conversely south to Honduras-- anarchy in a good climate for old bones, and cheap (no, I wouldn't tell my new neighbors how to live).

And no, Reid isn't an escaping Californian-- he is a Southern expat gentleman ...

Labels: Nanny State