Sorry for this. It's not safe for work and not good for the kids. But if you want the people of your state to need a license to walk their dogs, this is for you.
Monday, March 24, 2008
Catron County Barbie
Peculiar has called me out on the New Mexico Barbie meme: what is Catron (Cabron, Cartoon) County Barbie like?
Catron County is a strange one in our strange state-- I have good friends there (next county over from me) who would be unbelievable in fiction. It is high and cold and mountainous, contains a few thousand people in an area as large as Connecticut, and has a certain merrily lawless air-- think of it as our (slightly) milder Sierra Madre. Theoretically, all households are REQUIRED to have guns.
It was formerly almost entirely dependent on cattle ranching, though now has diversified into a provider of big game hunting, real estate, and some murkier products.
There are two versions. Native CC Barbie is much like Clovis Barbie, but she has her own horses and was a barrel racer when she was a kid. Her Ken is a big game guide in order to make enough money to keep the ranch running, and spends August through January guiding fat rich guys from the flatlands after elk, hoping and praying they don't get heart attacks from just walking around at 7500 feet.
We don't know what "new" CC Barbie looks like because she rarely leaves the trailer house in the middle of the ten- acre dirt road "ranchette" lot that is hidden in the trees up on the Continental Divide. The trailer's windows are covered with boards or tinfoil, and strange smells emanate from it. Her Ken is sometimes seen at the cafe in town. Like Old CC Ken, he wears camo, but over T-shirts with death metal themes. He sports a beard like a ZZ top member down to his belly, scratches a lot, and openly carries a cocked and locked 1911 .45. Do not startle him..
Catron County is a strange one in our strange state-- I have good friends there (next county over from me) who would be unbelievable in fiction. It is high and cold and mountainous, contains a few thousand people in an area as large as Connecticut, and has a certain merrily lawless air-- think of it as our (slightly) milder Sierra Madre. Theoretically, all households are REQUIRED to have guns.
It was formerly almost entirely dependent on cattle ranching, though now has diversified into a provider of big game hunting, real estate, and some murkier products.
There are two versions. Native CC Barbie is much like Clovis Barbie, but she has her own horses and was a barrel racer when she was a kid. Her Ken is a big game guide in order to make enough money to keep the ranch running, and spends August through January guiding fat rich guys from the flatlands after elk, hoping and praying they don't get heart attacks from just walking around at 7500 feet.
We don't know what "new" CC Barbie looks like because she rarely leaves the trailer house in the middle of the ten- acre dirt road "ranchette" lot that is hidden in the trees up on the Continental Divide. The trailer's windows are covered with boards or tinfoil, and strange smells emanate from it. Her Ken is sometimes seen at the cafe in town. Like Old CC Ken, he wears camo, but over T-shirts with death metal themes. He sports a beard like a ZZ top member down to his belly, scratches a lot, and openly carries a cocked and locked 1911 .45. Do not startle him..
More Dog Control (and related misunderstandings)
Dog owners in Toronto are no longer allowed to walk bitches in heat or any unaltered males in parks, period, full stop. Canadian saluki breeder Maril Semph sent text from a friend but no link:
"Effective February 01 2008 Toronto did ban all intact male dogs and
females in season, not just from off-leash dog parks but from all
Toronto parks.
It is a nightmare!
"I would have called the CKC but in the original proposal that was
circulated last summer there was no mention of this rule. Then the
city held discussion groups about the proposed changes for all
people who were interested and in one of those groups, one single
person complained of agressive un-neutered males.
"Following that when the rules were finalised it was suddenly
included, based on the complaint of one single person, and no
ability to discuss the rule. We had a matter of days before it went
to council. I and some fellow show dog owners wrote a lot of
letters and asked for an exemption clause for certain dogs
(including show dogs) but it passed with the rule included.
"There is a LARGE fine for violators. If a dog walker is caught with
an intact male they can lose their dogwalking license (they must all
be licensed now and they have a two strikes and you are out
policy)."
DOGWALKING LICENSE??
Matt, we might just have to post the "Harden the fuck up" video.
Meanwhile, Los Alamos NM-- the county not just the town-- has proposed dog and other animal regs that among other things would not allow dogs off lead for anything but work, which does not include hunting-- as a matter of fact they would not allow any dog to pursue any wildlife, period. Dr. Gail Goodman sent me a PDF, which I can send to anyone interested. I wonder if Stingray and Lab Rat can add anything?
In NYC you can now be fined for feeding pigeons in your own back yard. (Incidentally, virtually all claims of pigeon- borne disease are false.) HT Margory Cohen.
An overpopulation of migrating coots offends the residents of a California subdivision. I don't know who is more pathetic-- is it the anti- control housewife who opposes killing any because "I have two small children. What if my dog got out in the yard and they mistook it for some wild animal?"
Or the developers:
"Savaikie recalled that in January, two days after she learned about the possible fate of the coots, a new sculpture was dedicated at a shopping center being built across the street from Bridgeport.
" "The Birds of Valencia" features dozens of silver birds in a celebration of the region's annual migration.
"It will be placed in the middle of a man-made lake."
Finally, an idiot gets called out by Luisa at Lassie Get Help:
"Jon Katz has parlayed inept stockmanship and mismanagement of his dogs into a Slate column, a movie deal, the odd radio appearance and a string of books, and there's a website, too, but I won't link to it.... He is a willfully ignorant, patronizing author who wants you to believe everything he tells you about dogs in general and border collies in particular even though, gosh, he's never claimed to be an expert or anything. And besides, experts are just big old snobs, ha ha ha! He is like that man who wrote The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California back in 1845 with directions to a new route he'd never actually traveled himself and when a group of settlers took his "shortcut," they wound up struggling across the Wasatch Range and the salt flats of western Utah and were trapped in the snows in the High Sierra, where they ran out of food and resorted to cannibalism.
"On second thought, he's much worse than that."
Read it all!
"Effective February 01 2008 Toronto did ban all intact male dogs and
females in season, not just from off-leash dog parks but from all
Toronto parks.
It is a nightmare!
"I would have called the CKC but in the original proposal that was
circulated last summer there was no mention of this rule. Then the
city held discussion groups about the proposed changes for all
people who were interested and in one of those groups, one single
person complained of agressive un-neutered males.
"Following that when the rules were finalised it was suddenly
included, based on the complaint of one single person, and no
ability to discuss the rule. We had a matter of days before it went
to council. I and some fellow show dog owners wrote a lot of
letters and asked for an exemption clause for certain dogs
(including show dogs) but it passed with the rule included.
"There is a LARGE fine for violators. If a dog walker is caught with
an intact male they can lose their dogwalking license (they must all
be licensed now and they have a two strikes and you are out
policy)."
DOGWALKING LICENSE??
Matt, we might just have to post the "Harden the fuck up" video.
Meanwhile, Los Alamos NM-- the county not just the town-- has proposed dog and other animal regs that among other things would not allow dogs off lead for anything but work, which does not include hunting-- as a matter of fact they would not allow any dog to pursue any wildlife, period. Dr. Gail Goodman sent me a PDF, which I can send to anyone interested. I wonder if Stingray and Lab Rat can add anything?
In NYC you can now be fined for feeding pigeons in your own back yard. (Incidentally, virtually all claims of pigeon- borne disease are false.) HT Margory Cohen.
An overpopulation of migrating coots offends the residents of a California subdivision. I don't know who is more pathetic-- is it the anti- control housewife who opposes killing any because "I have two small children. What if my dog got out in the yard and they mistook it for some wild animal?"
Or the developers:
"Savaikie recalled that in January, two days after she learned about the possible fate of the coots, a new sculpture was dedicated at a shopping center being built across the street from Bridgeport.
" "The Birds of Valencia" features dozens of silver birds in a celebration of the region's annual migration.
"It will be placed in the middle of a man-made lake."
Finally, an idiot gets called out by Luisa at Lassie Get Help:
"Jon Katz has parlayed inept stockmanship and mismanagement of his dogs into a Slate column, a movie deal, the odd radio appearance and a string of books, and there's a website, too, but I won't link to it.... He is a willfully ignorant, patronizing author who wants you to believe everything he tells you about dogs in general and border collies in particular even though, gosh, he's never claimed to be an expert or anything. And besides, experts are just big old snobs, ha ha ha! He is like that man who wrote The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California back in 1845 with directions to a new route he'd never actually traveled himself and when a group of settlers took his "shortcut," they wound up struggling across the Wasatch Range and the salt flats of western Utah and were trapped in the snows in the High Sierra, where they ran out of food and resorted to cannibalism.
"On second thought, he's much worse than that."
Read it all!
New Links
Blogging will continue to be a bit light as I am busy, am trying to get outside, and have Chas and Miss M coming tomorrow. But the world keeps producing the fascinating and the maddening...
Science fiction giant Arthur Clarke died this week. John Derbyshire has a good quirky remembrance of him here. I think he has Clarke down, as a writer and as a certain English "type" as well. I was a hopeless SF geek in my teens and can still read it-- Derb gets that too. He is too modest to mention here that Clark once wrote him a fan letter (he showed me a copy) but it may well be here or here somewhere...
SF to science. I have mentioned all- female species like Cnemidiphorus lizards before. Their reproduction is relatively straightforward, with all females giving birth to parthenogenetic clones, whether or not this puts them at an evolutionary disadvantage. But all male species? Believe it or not, there is at least one. The pure males mate with hybrid females: "These males "essentially represent a stable all-male lineage nested within an almost all-female lineage" " Bio geeks should RTWT. This blog, The World we Don't Live In, is excellent-- read it all. Thanks, Darren, for linking.
Darren has a new post up that combines science, speculation, raving lunacy (not his) and a 1984, tongue- in- cheek essay by John McLoughlin, who has appeared here in person so to speak. Did dinosaurs invent the atomic bomb? Who lies sleeping? Was H. P. Lovecraft a lizard? Says Darren: "John's 1984 article describes his contemplation of a new psychiatric disorder he recognises in himself: evolutionary bioparanoia. It is 'an acute, often immobilizing sense of dread generated by fatigue in persons interested in both the current state of world affairs and the evolutionary history of life on Earth'". Read and laugh- or shudder.
Doom. This gun control story can make any lover of freedom shudder: in Washington DC, as the Second Amendment's meaning is being debated before the Supreme Court, the police are going door to door through the city, asking if they may "voluntarily" search for guns . Voluntarily, right-- and I suppose that anybody who doesn't comply would NEVER go on any list. Seems like more than the Second Amendment is being violated here...
More animal related offenses and misunderstandings next post.
Science fiction giant Arthur Clarke died this week. John Derbyshire has a good quirky remembrance of him here. I think he has Clarke down, as a writer and as a certain English "type" as well. I was a hopeless SF geek in my teens and can still read it-- Derb gets that too. He is too modest to mention here that Clark once wrote him a fan letter (he showed me a copy) but it may well be here or here somewhere...
SF to science. I have mentioned all- female species like Cnemidiphorus lizards before. Their reproduction is relatively straightforward, with all females giving birth to parthenogenetic clones, whether or not this puts them at an evolutionary disadvantage. But all male species? Believe it or not, there is at least one. The pure males mate with hybrid females: "These males "essentially represent a stable all-male lineage nested within an almost all-female lineage" " Bio geeks should RTWT. This blog, The World we Don't Live In, is excellent-- read it all. Thanks, Darren, for linking.
Darren has a new post up that combines science, speculation, raving lunacy (not his) and a 1984, tongue- in- cheek essay by John McLoughlin, who has appeared here in person so to speak. Did dinosaurs invent the atomic bomb? Who lies sleeping? Was H. P. Lovecraft a lizard? Says Darren: "John's 1984 article describes his contemplation of a new psychiatric disorder he recognises in himself: evolutionary bioparanoia. It is 'an acute, often immobilizing sense of dread generated by fatigue in persons interested in both the current state of world affairs and the evolutionary history of life on Earth'". Read and laugh- or shudder.
Doom. This gun control story can make any lover of freedom shudder: in Washington DC, as the Second Amendment's meaning is being debated before the Supreme Court, the police are going door to door through the city, asking if they may "voluntarily" search for guns . Voluntarily, right-- and I suppose that anybody who doesn't comply would NEVER go on any list. Seems like more than the Second Amendment is being violated here...
More animal related offenses and misunderstandings next post.
The Virtue of Vices?
From Dan Greenberg at the Chronicle of Higher Education's blog "Brainstorm: Lives of the Mind" comes a recent essay on what science ought to be discovering:
Dan's suggestions include audible (and comprehensible!) public address systems for airports and other public places. A good one for those who must suffer air travel and would like to know where they'll end up. Also in the realm of transportation, Dan hopes someone will build a car that's not impossible to get into, some new method of entry more ergonomically friendly to an aging population of drivers.
He concludes with a call for a scientifically engineered end to the downsides of our favorite vices, smoking, boozing and overeating:
Am I nuts? What could be wrong with a safe beer buzz or tasty food that doesn't make you fat?
It just doesn't sound right to me. What then would humanity have with which to correct itself---to remind itself of its own flaws---if not the occasional hangover, lung cancer or broken marriage?
I don't mean to posit Querencia as a defender of the good old-fashioned vices (although that doesn't sound too bad as I write it); I want even less so to seem in support of human suffering.
But, for example, I was never one to shine to the next generation Star Trek vision of "synthohol," the drink of choice for starship captains who might need to be of clear mind at a moment's notice. Future booze just must not be that good, I figure.
All in all, I prefer my captains flawed. I like them haunted by personal demons and half-insane with blasphemous quests for vengeance. Don't you?
What are we, any of us, without our demons? What would Hemingway say of a life without consequences, without risk, without regrets? I know what Captain James T. Kirk said (or perhaps will say, some centuries hence) to the prospect of such a life: "I need my pain!"
What say you?
"We can all think of blockbuster discoveries that we’d like to see coming from science. Cures for terrible diseases would rank very high on the list. So would abundant supplies of cheap, reliable, and clean energy. . .
". . . Meanwhile, as work proceeds on these prime problems, we might realistically hope for swifter solutions to far-smaller problems. Though of lesser importance and difficulty, their solution would make life a bit nicer, easier, convenient, and congenial."
Dan's suggestions include audible (and comprehensible!) public address systems for airports and other public places. A good one for those who must suffer air travel and would like to know where they'll end up. Also in the realm of transportation, Dan hopes someone will build a car that's not impossible to get into, some new method of entry more ergonomically friendly to an aging population of drivers.
He concludes with a call for a scientifically engineered end to the downsides of our favorite vices, smoking, boozing and overeating:
"Now for a troublesome research goal: Taking the harm out of sinful activities, such as cigarette smoking and excessive alcohol consumption. The quest for a 'safe' cigarette has so far proven futile, as have enormous efforts to deter a still-substantial number of smokers from continuing with the nasty habit. Since prohibition is politically and culturally unattainable, the solution is clear: Create a cigarette that is harmless and satisfying — a formidable objective that would require a mini-Manhattan Project. The costs, however, could be assigned to the cigarette industry, which would reap a fortune from success. While they’re at it, maybe they can clean up pipe tobacco, too. I miss my pipe.I'm not sure how serious Greenberg is. But I have some problems with this premise, vaguely in orbit of C.S. Lewis's concept of pain as a necessary regulator of human action.
"As for alcohol, that’s another tough problem, but, as the saying goes, if we can land a man on the moon, why can’t we — you finish it. The need is to retain the pleasure of imbibing — including the buzz — without the deleterious effects on health and morning-after clarity. Here, too, the industry that will benefit from success can foot the bill, in happy expectation of success producing a bonanza.
"Finally on my list, there’s the problem of weight control in a society glutted with fattening food, available at relatively low prices. Marketed with great ingenuity, this abundance is largely responsible for the obesity epidemic that is now a major public-health concern. The food industry has in the past tinkered with little success with “non-nutritive” food. What’s needed is a major effort to create the taste, feel, and satisfaction of popular foods, minus calories."
Am I nuts? What could be wrong with a safe beer buzz or tasty food that doesn't make you fat?
It just doesn't sound right to me. What then would humanity have with which to correct itself---to remind itself of its own flaws---if not the occasional hangover, lung cancer or broken marriage?
I don't mean to posit Querencia as a defender of the good old-fashioned vices (although that doesn't sound too bad as I write it); I want even less so to seem in support of human suffering.
But, for example, I was never one to shine to the next generation Star Trek vision of "synthohol," the drink of choice for starship captains who might need to be of clear mind at a moment's notice. Future booze just must not be that good, I figure.
All in all, I prefer my captains flawed. I like them haunted by personal demons and half-insane with blasphemous quests for vengeance. Don't you?
What are we, any of us, without our demons? What would Hemingway say of a life without consequences, without risk, without regrets? I know what Captain James T. Kirk said (or perhaps will say, some centuries hence) to the prospect of such a life: "I need my pain!"
What say you?
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Sustainable?
I am not quite sure what I think about the increasing faddishness of some aspects of the local food thing.
I appreciate the effort but there are things that disturb me about this New York Times piece on the "new farmers". Can you trust anything that begins with the (built- in ironic) lead: "The Carhartts are no longer ironic. Now they have real dirt on them."
Will such people last longer than the hippie back- to- the landers of my generation, who mostly didn't? Granted, there are better markets for high- quality food now.
One of the farmers profiled is a former trendie from trendy "Billyburg" (Williamsburg),and another apparently doesn't want to stray too far from a New Yorker's comfort zone: " “If we can find affordable housing, which is a challenge in East Hampton,” said Mr. Piedmont, 28, who spent two years in Italy after graduation, “we’re going to have two interns this summer.” "
And what is this?-- granted perhaps more a typical NYT staffer's ignorance of life outside Manhattan: "Although publications like Small Farmer’s Journal, published since 1976, often present the life of the small farmer in a heartwarmingly “Little House on the Prairie” light, a recent article in Sheep! about the dangers of jackals and one in Backyard Poultry about preventing chickens’ drinking water from freezing, are a reminder of the old-school risks of farming."
WHERE DO THEY FARM??!
A lot of this reminds me of the satirical blog "Stuff White People Like."
Whoops. It is on it.
I'd be curious what Peculiar, who has spent some time on this scene, has to say.
Oh and, re food-- Mike, I'll have more to say soon. Though I don't use mushroom soup, I am no purist. Two things I will use but enhance: canned broth, and mac and cheese.
I appreciate the effort but there are things that disturb me about this New York Times piece on the "new farmers". Can you trust anything that begins with the (built- in ironic) lead: "The Carhartts are no longer ironic. Now they have real dirt on them."
Will such people last longer than the hippie back- to- the landers of my generation, who mostly didn't? Granted, there are better markets for high- quality food now.
One of the farmers profiled is a former trendie from trendy "Billyburg" (Williamsburg),and another apparently doesn't want to stray too far from a New Yorker's comfort zone: " “If we can find affordable housing, which is a challenge in East Hampton,” said Mr. Piedmont, 28, who spent two years in Italy after graduation, “we’re going to have two interns this summer.” "
And what is this?-- granted perhaps more a typical NYT staffer's ignorance of life outside Manhattan: "Although publications like Small Farmer’s Journal, published since 1976, often present the life of the small farmer in a heartwarmingly “Little House on the Prairie” light, a recent article in Sheep! about the dangers of jackals and one in Backyard Poultry about preventing chickens’ drinking water from freezing, are a reminder of the old-school risks of farming."
WHERE DO THEY FARM??!
A lot of this reminds me of the satirical blog "Stuff White People Like."
Whoops. It is on it.
I'd be curious what Peculiar, who has spent some time on this scene, has to say.
Oh and, re food-- Mike, I'll have more to say soon. Though I don't use mushroom soup, I am no purist. Two things I will use but enhance: canned broth, and mac and cheese.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Addiction
Do you ever feel like this? I know I do!
Food blogger Mark Bittman apparently has it even worse.
Time to go work in the garden.
Update: Rod has a more sober take here.
(Steve-- put in by Matt who knows how to insert cartoons.)
Food Stuff
Acouple of weeks ago there was what blogs tend to call a "kerfuffle" over English food writer Delia Smith's calling for using canned and other not- so- natural ingerdients. Thye controversy continues. Reader and commentor R Francis directed me to this hilarious article at the Guardian where a panel of chefs eat a dinner based on her new recipes. They are not kind.
"It is time, though, to taste. Out, first, comes the steaming risotto. "This," remarks Giles kindly, "is like having a pig piss in your throat. It tastes of freezer and plastic. I don't understand. If you can't cook and you can't afford to go out, eat a cheese sandwich." William, and most of the others, are rather kinder: "Perfectly passable," he ventures. "It could be a little better seasoned, but I've eaten far worse." The chicken and leek pies fare less well. "This is inedible," says Sybil. "Like school dinners," says William. "Excuse me," says Samantha, the dinner lady. "I resent that." Giles wonders innocently whether Delia couldn't have specified a rather more expensive cut of rat."
It just gets better, Giles especially-- RTWT.
Elsewhere, Mike links (scroll down) to some interesting sustainable, wild, and delightfully messy food blogs. My favorites so far are this one and this one.
"It is time, though, to taste. Out, first, comes the steaming risotto. "This," remarks Giles kindly, "is like having a pig piss in your throat. It tastes of freezer and plastic. I don't understand. If you can't cook and you can't afford to go out, eat a cheese sandwich." William, and most of the others, are rather kinder: "Perfectly passable," he ventures. "It could be a little better seasoned, but I've eaten far worse." The chicken and leek pies fare less well. "This is inedible," says Sybil. "Like school dinners," says William. "Excuse me," says Samantha, the dinner lady. "I resent that." Giles wonders innocently whether Delia couldn't have specified a rather more expensive cut of rat."
It just gets better, Giles especially-- RTWT.
Elsewhere, Mike links (scroll down) to some interesting sustainable, wild, and delightfully messy food blogs. My favorites so far are this one and this one.
New Mexico Barbies
This is almost too "inside", both bloggish and totally of New Mexico-- but too funny to ignore. Stingray at Atomic Nerds has taken my challenge over at Nature Blog to add a Los Alamos Barbie to the already excellent collection of New Mexico Barbies there. Here is an excerpt.
"..Los Alamos Barbie often comes with the optional child accessory, availible in either the Nervous Wreck Overachiever, or the Chronically Unenthused Slacker variants. Los Alamos Ken looks suspiciously like Taos Ken with his birkenstocks, hiking shorts, and extremely silly hat, but is distinguishable by the addition of socks to the sandals and by wearing a dress shirt in some state of dishevelment rather than a tie-dye tshirt. Those mistaking Los Alamos Ken for Taos Ken frequently find themselves on the receiveing end of a three hour “discussion” on the non-linear equations governing meteorology, string theory, self-balancing binary tree algorithms, and of course nuclear energy no matter what his actual field is.”
"..Los Alamos Barbie often comes with the optional child accessory, availible in either the Nervous Wreck Overachiever, or the Chronically Unenthused Slacker variants. Los Alamos Ken looks suspiciously like Taos Ken with his birkenstocks, hiking shorts, and extremely silly hat, but is distinguishable by the addition of socks to the sandals and by wearing a dress shirt in some state of dishevelment rather than a tie-dye tshirt. Those mistaking Los Alamos Ken for Taos Ken frequently find themselves on the receiveing end of a three hour “discussion” on the non-linear equations governing meteorology, string theory, self-balancing binary tree algorithms, and of course nuclear energy no matter what his actual field is.”
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Art of the Week
When Dan Gauss visited us, he remarked on how much art we have . Often, art becomes invisible through familiarity. Also, we have a lot that doesn't even get hung- some we can't afford to frame, others that just don't fit on the walls of a four- room house. So I am going to start an "art of the week" feature at Q blog-- not that it is likely to be that exact.
I'll start with two pieces of Mongolian folk art. THe first is a common kind, with many figures doing all manner of things. Bawdy sex scenes, felt making, horses, even the supernatural, are all common enough. What is not common is one with the other peoples of Mongolia represented, which is why I got this-- it has a Kazakh with eagle and tazi, a Tuvan shaman, and a Christian cross as well as sex, leering horses, snakes, carrion birds, and horse butchery.
Here is the Kazakh:
The other is an amusing modern caricature of a falconer on his horse.
I'll start with two pieces of Mongolian folk art. THe first is a common kind, with many figures doing all manner of things. Bawdy sex scenes, felt making, horses, even the supernatural, are all common enough. What is not common is one with the other peoples of Mongolia represented, which is why I got this-- it has a Kazakh with eagle and tazi, a Tuvan shaman, and a Christian cross as well as sex, leering horses, snakes, carrion birds, and horse butchery.
Here is the Kazakh:
The other is an amusing modern caricature of a falconer on his horse.
Ink
Stingray has a post at the always- excellent Atomic Nerds, on tattoos and their changing (?) cultural significance:
"...When LabRat and I went to purchase our current truck, we did what most antisocial nerds do and researched the bejesus out of every option available and every configuration, and based on MSRPs made a short list of what was within our range. My parents had recently purchased a vehicle from one particular dealership, and reported an excellent experience with one of their salesmen, so we packed up the checkbook and our pre-printed “we want it this way” sheet and set out. It was mid to late spring and pleasantly warm, so without jackets and in short sleeves we strode in, ready to buy a truck. Finding the salesman in question, pleasantries were exchanged, including the obligatory “we heard you were the one to talk to” bit. During this process, he took a look at our arms, adorned from shoulder to elbow on each of us with solid ink, promptly forgot our names (literally - he started calling me the equivalent of Stringbay) and handed us off to a junior sales associate who was shortly after very surprised when we replied to her inquiries about financing with “Can you take a check?” Sadly, when the dust settled he still wound up with half the commission. We did manage a small moral victory though a month or two later when we met the boss from the same dealership at our cigar club who was very interested in that story when he inquired how we liked the truck so far."
RTWT and comments.
Neither Libby nor I have any tattoos, though we both have thought about it. But more than a few of our inner ring, the "dogfamily" do. Here are naturalist, herper, first- rate falconer, and houndman Nate, and his girl Nan, who owns a cutting- edge clothing store.
Nate and Libby
Nan and Kyran
(Yes, Kyran, prize father of two litters of tazis and one of lurchers, still thinks he is a puppy, hence his nickname of just that.)
Bodie, another falconer and dog man (and psychologist, and martial artist) who often comments here, has Edgar Allen Poe and Nietszche on his arms-- no pix unfortunately!
"...When LabRat and I went to purchase our current truck, we did what most antisocial nerds do and researched the bejesus out of every option available and every configuration, and based on MSRPs made a short list of what was within our range. My parents had recently purchased a vehicle from one particular dealership, and reported an excellent experience with one of their salesmen, so we packed up the checkbook and our pre-printed “we want it this way” sheet and set out. It was mid to late spring and pleasantly warm, so without jackets and in short sleeves we strode in, ready to buy a truck. Finding the salesman in question, pleasantries were exchanged, including the obligatory “we heard you were the one to talk to” bit. During this process, he took a look at our arms, adorned from shoulder to elbow on each of us with solid ink, promptly forgot our names (literally - he started calling me the equivalent of Stringbay) and handed us off to a junior sales associate who was shortly after very surprised when we replied to her inquiries about financing with “Can you take a check?” Sadly, when the dust settled he still wound up with half the commission. We did manage a small moral victory though a month or two later when we met the boss from the same dealership at our cigar club who was very interested in that story when he inquired how we liked the truck so far."
RTWT and comments.
Neither Libby nor I have any tattoos, though we both have thought about it. But more than a few of our inner ring, the "dogfamily" do. Here are naturalist, herper, first- rate falconer, and houndman Nate, and his girl Nan, who owns a cutting- edge clothing store.
Nate and Libby
Nan and Kyran
(Yes, Kyran, prize father of two litters of tazis and one of lurchers, still thinks he is a puppy, hence his nickname of just that.)
Bodie, another falconer and dog man (and psychologist, and martial artist) who often comments here, has Edgar Allen Poe and Nietszche on his arms-- no pix unfortunately!
Unspeakable Allies
ANOTHER "You Can't Make It Up" moment: Ingrid "Holocaust on your plate" and "A rat is a pig is a dog is a boy" Newkirk has bonded with "Hang 'em if they won't fight" dogfighter Michael Vick.
"Vick, demonized by PETA for more than a year, could become the bridge in this divide. Newkirk struck up a relationship with Vick beginning last fall when he visited PETA headquarters in Norfolk, Va. Vick impressed her.
" “We told him that he had to put away his mobile phone for the day; he couldn’t have his bodyguard with him for the day,” she said. “He came here and he was very respectful. He sat the whole day and we showed him videos about who animals are and how sensitive and emotional they are and how, like a child, you can ruin them by abusing them.” "
Jesus.Wept. I'm sure he will consider that in the future, as OJ continues to look for the real killers.
HT Tom McIntyre (I have fiction in that anthology BTW), whose excellent and erudite new book on optics I must review soon.
"Vick, demonized by PETA for more than a year, could become the bridge in this divide. Newkirk struck up a relationship with Vick beginning last fall when he visited PETA headquarters in Norfolk, Va. Vick impressed her.
" “We told him that he had to put away his mobile phone for the day; he couldn’t have his bodyguard with him for the day,” she said. “He came here and he was very respectful. He sat the whole day and we showed him videos about who animals are and how sensitive and emotional they are and how, like a child, you can ruin them by abusing them.” "
Jesus.Wept. I'm sure he will consider that in the future, as OJ continues to look for the real killers.
HT Tom McIntyre (I have fiction in that anthology BTW), whose excellent and erudite new book on optics I must review soon.
Sunday Links
We have all heard the legends of dolphins helping drowning humans. Now one appears to have helped guide stranded whales to safety.
John Wilkins, who posts at the interesting evo- blog Evolving thoughts, went to see Richard Dawkins lecture and had some critical thoughts. I can't resist quoting:
"In particular I was annoyed that those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as "feeling good that someone has religion somewhere". Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us'n'Themism of TGD [The God Delusion-- SB]. We dislike it because no matter what other beliefs an intelligent person may hold, so long as they accept the importance of science and the need for a secular society, we simply do not care if they also like the taste of ear wax, having sex with trees, or believing in a deity or two. Way to go, Richard. Good bit of framing and parodying the opposition. Real rational."
It is a shame that Dawkins wastes so much energy, his and others', on this issue. He used to be the best evolution writer around, hands down. HT John Farrell.
Mike at Sometimes Far Afield has has more thoughts on the Second Amendment, with links. One leads to this very expicit statement by Thomas Jefferson:
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Here is what is probably the best overall take on the Peggy Seltzer literary fraud story (she is the rich white kid, graduate of an Episcopal day school, who wrote a false memoir claiming she was raised as a gang- banger in the 'hood, in ghettoese English, and got a big advance before she was exposed.) Good quote:
" "The audience for this kind of tale is not in the ghetto but in middle-class neighborhoods far removed from it," Martinez observes, while describing Seltzer's fantasy as "an unintentional parody of liberal sympathy." Unintentional? I'm pretty sure Seltzer knew exactly which buttons she was pushing, and crafted her phony narrative accordingly."
Follow the links. She may also be linked to "Eco- Saboteurs". You can't make it up.
From Patrick: Marmot World. Attention Mongolian tourists!
Chas sends us to a link that tells us the Koran thinks of dogs. Luckily, the further east and north you go (the farther from Islam's Arab cultural roots), the less this attitude exists in actual practice, at least so far. But, ominously, Iran has just decided to mount a war on dog ownership. Some of the best tazis around are in Iran's Kurdish areas.
World's smallest working gun-- info here; pic here. It costs over $6000, and is banned in the US! HT Walter Hingley.
Annie D sent this link to a video of a singing lyrebird, introduced by David Attenborough. The lyrebird is an incredible mimic-- listen to his impressions of a motor drive, a car alarm and a chainsaw, among other things. The last in particular is hard to believe.
Dan Gauss of the Hare Brained Express Blog has compiled a virtual tour of Magdalena, from pigeons to hounds and the ranch. Next best thing to being here!
John Wilkins, who posts at the interesting evo- blog Evolving thoughts, went to see Richard Dawkins lecture and had some critical thoughts. I can't resist quoting:
"In particular I was annoyed that those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as "feeling good that someone has religion somewhere". Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us'n'Themism of TGD [The God Delusion-- SB]. We dislike it because no matter what other beliefs an intelligent person may hold, so long as they accept the importance of science and the need for a secular society, we simply do not care if they also like the taste of ear wax, having sex with trees, or believing in a deity or two. Way to go, Richard. Good bit of framing and parodying the opposition. Real rational."
It is a shame that Dawkins wastes so much energy, his and others', on this issue. He used to be the best evolution writer around, hands down. HT John Farrell.
Mike at Sometimes Far Afield has has more thoughts on the Second Amendment, with links. One leads to this very expicit statement by Thomas Jefferson:
"On every question of construction (of the Constitution) let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
Here is what is probably the best overall take on the Peggy Seltzer literary fraud story (she is the rich white kid, graduate of an Episcopal day school, who wrote a false memoir claiming she was raised as a gang- banger in the 'hood, in ghettoese English, and got a big advance before she was exposed.) Good quote:
" "The audience for this kind of tale is not in the ghetto but in middle-class neighborhoods far removed from it," Martinez observes, while describing Seltzer's fantasy as "an unintentional parody of liberal sympathy." Unintentional? I'm pretty sure Seltzer knew exactly which buttons she was pushing, and crafted her phony narrative accordingly."
Follow the links. She may also be linked to "Eco- Saboteurs". You can't make it up.
From Patrick: Marmot World. Attention Mongolian tourists!
Chas sends us to a link that tells us the Koran thinks of dogs. Luckily, the further east and north you go (the farther from Islam's Arab cultural roots), the less this attitude exists in actual practice, at least so far. But, ominously, Iran has just decided to mount a war on dog ownership. Some of the best tazis around are in Iran's Kurdish areas.
World's smallest working gun-- info here; pic here. It costs over $6000, and is banned in the US! HT Walter Hingley.
Annie D sent this link to a video of a singing lyrebird, introduced by David Attenborough. The lyrebird is an incredible mimic-- listen to his impressions of a motor drive, a car alarm and a chainsaw, among other things. The last in particular is hard to believe.
Dan Gauss of the Hare Brained Express Blog has compiled a virtual tour of Magdalena, from pigeons to hounds and the ranch. Next best thing to being here!
Sighthound Trials / Blogger Meet-up
I took the family (Maggie and B above with puppy friends) to Bush, Louisiana, yesterday for an afternoon of lure coursing, and (as it happened) sunburn---Summer is very nearly here. Our whippet's breeders Debbie and Maurice Bahm of DebMar kennels hosted the event on their own property, recently cleared with help from Hurricane Katrina. Although the Bahms lament the loss of their once-shady, canopied acres, the new open space offers a rare chance to follow their sport without driving across the country.
For others, the eclectic group of lure coursing fanatics who troop from meet to meet, it was just another two-day drive for a few seconds' dash around a grassy track. If that sounds crazy, you probably aren't a lure courser. Like hawkers, these dog folks are a group best understood from the inside.
Following the camp you can expect to find at least two regulars: that lady selling slip leads and other sighthound paraphernalia, and Shot on Site Photography. Dan Gauss and Margaret Fairman provide the running dog world with its own one-stop photo shop, piloting their RV and pack of five hounds around the country to various lure and open-field coursing meets. Theirs is not a lifestyle for everyone, but it has its charms. Dan and Margaret's report of whereabouts prior to yesterday's meet was telling. Dan explained, "We went broke in New Mexico so just hung out there and hunted for a couple months." Now that's living!
Check out Shot On Site's visit with the Bodios here. And here. And some highlights from their hunting season here.
I'll post a few pics (NOT Dan's work, mind you--mine, from a distance, with a point and shoot digital) below from the Bush meet:
Borzoi at the starting line.
A short course: False start but still fun for the dogs!
What the heck's wrong with this thing?
Soon the kinks are worked out and the trials begin. Greyhounds in pursuit.
The judges' tent in center of field; note Dan's little scooter-thing.
Dan and Margaret and companions (4 of the 5)
Some fine long-dogs. Safe travels, y'all!
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Those Aggressive Swedes
The New York Times reports that an exhibit entitled "War Booty" at the Royal Armory in Stockholm (including these two beautiful Polish helmets) has roiled nationalist passions in Scandinavia. The NTY expresses astonishment at this development in "peaceable" Sweden. One should reflect that the histories of Swedes who went viking and terrorized Europe in the First Millenium or of the armies of Gustavus Adolphus who stormed through Germany in the 17th Century show the concept of "peaceable Sweden" is a recent one.But according to the article, on some levels the aggression hasn't stopped:
"On Valentine’s Day, a Danish newspaper went so far as to run a front-page headline accusing Ikea, the furniture giant founded by a Swede, which Danes have long loved to hate, of 'bullying Denmark' by giving comfy sofas and shiny tables Swedish and Norwegian place names while assigning Danish names to doormats and rugs.
'I don’t think this can be a coincidence,' a Danish professor is quoted as saying.... He called it 'cultural imperialism.'”
Though they've taken their swords and longships away, perhaps deep down in the souls of some Swedes there's still a barbarian ready to go viking - if only at Ikea.
Ladies, Be Seated
I just wanted to make sure no one missed this news item about a woman in Wichita who spent two years sitting on the toilet in her boyfriend's house. As someone once said, you can't make this stuff up.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Running for Rabbits
I told Steve this might be the quintessential Querencia story. I mean it covers special places, foodways, hunting, paleo-history, culture, more and certainly, worse.
It is a story so politically incorrect that it simply has no political context in which to fit. It is a story out of time. From my point of vantage, locked in an eagerly overcrowding and self-conscious corner of America, it is simply fantastic.
Here's the nutshell: Young men, most of them black, living in a couple small, poor towns in the Florida Everglades, run down rabbits on foot for fun and fitness and a few pounds of fried meat. How did I not know about this? It happens at harvest time, when farmers burn and mow the sugarcane fields, and the marsh rabbits scurry for dwindling cover.
The visual effect is spectacular: cane smoke billows over large mechanical harvesters, while nimble, muscular kids and quick rabbits play a deadly game of tag in the dirt below. In a few minutes of film, perhaps the whole of human evolution is put on display. Here is the human animal as harvester but also as effective predator, a thinking and planning machine, with the physical chops to do the work of any hawk or owl or fox or dog. Watching it makes me proud to know we've still got it, as a specie; we can still do what we were doubtless doing hundreds of thousands of years before the present day. It's a hopeful sight, given that we may someday have to do it again...
So these kids are throwbacks? Some kind of modern primitives? Hardly.
This is a region of Florida known for producing some of the fastest college football players in the nation. A few of these young men are destined for fame and fortune and some of them are already getting a taste of it. Legend has it that their long-established local tradition of running down rabbits at harvest time gives these kids the skills and athleticism necessary for success in the nation's most competitive collegiate football programs. As one local high school coach has it, their rabbit hunting is a kind of recruiting tool: You want to play wide receiver? Go catch some rabbits and we'll talk.
I kid you not.
ESPN produced the footage I saw, so football was the focal point. But there's a lot more of interest here than football. For one, these are modern-day American kids who choose to spend their free time outdoors, hunting rabbits; kids with working field craft, unafraid of getting dirty or working up a sweat; American kids who can still kill, cook and like to eat wild game.
Not one of these young men needs The Dangerous Book for Boys. And what's that about the last child in the woods? There are still a few left in the cane fields!
This story defies all our easy stereotypes. Could you believe a self-sustaining rabbit hunting culture on the outskirts of Miami? A fair-chase, no-weapon contest; a real hunt with strategy and effort, honest pride and a good meal at the end. And no preaching about it. No high-minded, over-educated commentary (unless mine counts!) No rules except those set by the speed of the rabbit, the depth of the soil, and the endurance, good hands and healthy appetites of some rural kids. It just is what it is.
Those of us guilty of making a cult of the past and fearing for the future should remember that the future doesn't come to every place at once. In some places, the good old days are now.
I don't know how long this particular hunting tradition can survive. The publicity it receives from ESPN (and now me and the rest of the modern world) may well kill it. If it does I'll be ashamed, but I couldn't help but share this with you.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3284688&categoryId=2378529
(HT Shelly Mullenix)
It is a story so politically incorrect that it simply has no political context in which to fit. It is a story out of time. From my point of vantage, locked in an eagerly overcrowding and self-conscious corner of America, it is simply fantastic.
Here's the nutshell: Young men, most of them black, living in a couple small, poor towns in the Florida Everglades, run down rabbits on foot for fun and fitness and a few pounds of fried meat. How did I not know about this? It happens at harvest time, when farmers burn and mow the sugarcane fields, and the marsh rabbits scurry for dwindling cover.
The visual effect is spectacular: cane smoke billows over large mechanical harvesters, while nimble, muscular kids and quick rabbits play a deadly game of tag in the dirt below. In a few minutes of film, perhaps the whole of human evolution is put on display. Here is the human animal as harvester but also as effective predator, a thinking and planning machine, with the physical chops to do the work of any hawk or owl or fox or dog. Watching it makes me proud to know we've still got it, as a specie; we can still do what we were doubtless doing hundreds of thousands of years before the present day. It's a hopeful sight, given that we may someday have to do it again...
So these kids are throwbacks? Some kind of modern primitives? Hardly.
This is a region of Florida known for producing some of the fastest college football players in the nation. A few of these young men are destined for fame and fortune and some of them are already getting a taste of it. Legend has it that their long-established local tradition of running down rabbits at harvest time gives these kids the skills and athleticism necessary for success in the nation's most competitive collegiate football programs. As one local high school coach has it, their rabbit hunting is a kind of recruiting tool: You want to play wide receiver? Go catch some rabbits and we'll talk.
I kid you not.
ESPN produced the footage I saw, so football was the focal point. But there's a lot more of interest here than football. For one, these are modern-day American kids who choose to spend their free time outdoors, hunting rabbits; kids with working field craft, unafraid of getting dirty or working up a sweat; American kids who can still kill, cook and like to eat wild game.
Not one of these young men needs The Dangerous Book for Boys. And what's that about the last child in the woods? There are still a few left in the cane fields!
This story defies all our easy stereotypes. Could you believe a self-sustaining rabbit hunting culture on the outskirts of Miami? A fair-chase, no-weapon contest; a real hunt with strategy and effort, honest pride and a good meal at the end. And no preaching about it. No high-minded, over-educated commentary (unless mine counts!) No rules except those set by the speed of the rabbit, the depth of the soil, and the endurance, good hands and healthy appetites of some rural kids. It just is what it is.
Those of us guilty of making a cult of the past and fearing for the future should remember that the future doesn't come to every place at once. In some places, the good old days are now.
I don't know how long this particular hunting tradition can survive. The publicity it receives from ESPN (and now me and the rest of the modern world) may well kill it. If it does I'll be ashamed, but I couldn't help but share this with you.
http://sports.espn.go.com/broadband/video/videopage?videoId=3284688&categoryId=2378529
(HT Shelly Mullenix)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Stuff Falconers Like
Have you seen the recent spate of funny (and distinctly un-PC) blogs featuring "Stuff ____ People Like," where various races and ethnic groups fill in the blanks? 2Blowhards provides a short list here.
This got me thinking about a new meme: Stuff Falconers Like. You could tailor it to any pastime I suppose, although I bet you the most intensive hobbies will provide the best material.
Here are a couple things most falconers like. Can you think of others?
1) Days Off: Everyone likes a day off, but falconers can make one into a miniature safari. Tag it to the start or end of a weekend, and you've got a mini-vacation, worthy of a month's planning and blowing the remainder of the family budget. One day off equals at least two hunts, possibly miles apart and the chance to visit and hunt with friends. A long weekend stretches the possibilities into field-meet territory and pulls in potential hunting spots within a 150-mile radius of home. Which leads to...
2) Road Trips: Not every falconer likes to drive, but almost every one I know loves to leave town. Driving is generally the most practical means, given the gear and animals we bring with us. A "road trip" is usually more than a few hours' drive and for most means travelling out of state and into an entirely different biome. For me that means driving 12 hours from the coastal low country of Louisiana to the high plains of the Texas panhandle. Sharing that drive and cost and fun with a couple close friends (and their animals) is an essential part of the road-trip experience. What do we talk about for 12 hours...?
3) Talking Trash about Other Falconers: This is a favorite ritual between falconer friends. It cements the lifelong bonds between falconers that outlast marriages and dogs and birds and careers. No falconer is safe from this, and even friends with whom you talk trash about another falconer can be fodder for same when circumstances permit. Bad-mouthing the poor husbandry and skills of other falconers and the performance of their birds serves a dual purpose as an affirmation of our own superior practices and as instruction to any young falconers present. Of course, bad-mouthing young falconers is also a cherished pastime and leads the next thing.
4) The Glorious Past: Every falconer lives mostly in his or her head where a larger, wilder, freer land still exists. This is the land of the Past, and it's one of our favorite places. The state of falconry in The Past, which was usually before we had spouses and children and careers and mortgages, was truly exceptional. There was more game and more space and more time to explore it. The quality of the average young falconer (namely, ourselves) was much better than the present crop, which is one reason the present crop needs so much bad-mouthing. Driving around our hometowns and seeing all the places where we used to hunt in The Glorious Past brings to mind another thing falconers like.
5) Complaining About Sprawl: Falconers have a love/hate relationship with sprawl. We hate losing hawking places and green spaces but love exploring new ones cleared and made ready by the endless development. It's an ecological truth that small game thrives in the temporary edge environments that are created (and of course, destroyed) by the process of unplanned, suburban growth. The fact that we have to drive farther from home each season to reach the vanguard territory grates and gives rise to the repetitive complaints our friends and families hear on every trip around town: "I used to hunt there. And over there. Damn, that was a nice spot!" We lose a little bit of our souls when each one goes under the asphalt. But alas, most of us like living in houses.
6) Alcohol: Do I know any falconers who don't drink? I don't think so. We are not typically alcoholics and even more rarely are we addicted to recreational drugs. At some point we need to be able to get up again the next morning and fly the birds, which we need to have fed and cared for the day before. So wild party lifestyles are incompatible with good falconry (no anecdotes to the contrary, please. I'll just bad-mouth you.) The fact remains that falconers like to drink, and generally drink well in terms of quality beers and spirits. Maybe it helps to relive the good flights or maybe it helps us handle the sprawl.
7) Other People's Hawks: We all like to fly nice hawks and generally tend to like the hawk we're flying at present. But hawks we've had in the past and hawks flown now by other people are often the better birds. This is especially true of hawks flown by other people in other countries, hawks we've only seen in photos. Those exotic hawks all catch tons of game and give their falconers no trouble. I wish someone would import some of those.
If you can think up more Stuff, funny or otherwise, please post a comment.
*Photo: Bruce Haak's great home-bred peregrine, Jinx, on recent pheasant kill. Jinx is one of those covetted hawks flown by another person.
This got me thinking about a new meme: Stuff Falconers Like. You could tailor it to any pastime I suppose, although I bet you the most intensive hobbies will provide the best material.Here are a couple things most falconers like. Can you think of others?
1) Days Off: Everyone likes a day off, but falconers can make one into a miniature safari. Tag it to the start or end of a weekend, and you've got a mini-vacation, worthy of a month's planning and blowing the remainder of the family budget. One day off equals at least two hunts, possibly miles apart and the chance to visit and hunt with friends. A long weekend stretches the possibilities into field-meet territory and pulls in potential hunting spots within a 150-mile radius of home. Which leads to...
2) Road Trips: Not every falconer likes to drive, but almost every one I know loves to leave town. Driving is generally the most practical means, given the gear and animals we bring with us. A "road trip" is usually more than a few hours' drive and for most means travelling out of state and into an entirely different biome. For me that means driving 12 hours from the coastal low country of Louisiana to the high plains of the Texas panhandle. Sharing that drive and cost and fun with a couple close friends (and their animals) is an essential part of the road-trip experience. What do we talk about for 12 hours...?
3) Talking Trash about Other Falconers: This is a favorite ritual between falconer friends. It cements the lifelong bonds between falconers that outlast marriages and dogs and birds and careers. No falconer is safe from this, and even friends with whom you talk trash about another falconer can be fodder for same when circumstances permit. Bad-mouthing the poor husbandry and skills of other falconers and the performance of their birds serves a dual purpose as an affirmation of our own superior practices and as instruction to any young falconers present. Of course, bad-mouthing young falconers is also a cherished pastime and leads the next thing.
4) The Glorious Past: Every falconer lives mostly in his or her head where a larger, wilder, freer land still exists. This is the land of the Past, and it's one of our favorite places. The state of falconry in The Past, which was usually before we had spouses and children and careers and mortgages, was truly exceptional. There was more game and more space and more time to explore it. The quality of the average young falconer (namely, ourselves) was much better than the present crop, which is one reason the present crop needs so much bad-mouthing. Driving around our hometowns and seeing all the places where we used to hunt in The Glorious Past brings to mind another thing falconers like.
5) Complaining About Sprawl: Falconers have a love/hate relationship with sprawl. We hate losing hawking places and green spaces but love exploring new ones cleared and made ready by the endless development. It's an ecological truth that small game thrives in the temporary edge environments that are created (and of course, destroyed) by the process of unplanned, suburban growth. The fact that we have to drive farther from home each season to reach the vanguard territory grates and gives rise to the repetitive complaints our friends and families hear on every trip around town: "I used to hunt there. And over there. Damn, that was a nice spot!" We lose a little bit of our souls when each one goes under the asphalt. But alas, most of us like living in houses.
6) Alcohol: Do I know any falconers who don't drink? I don't think so. We are not typically alcoholics and even more rarely are we addicted to recreational drugs. At some point we need to be able to get up again the next morning and fly the birds, which we need to have fed and cared for the day before. So wild party lifestyles are incompatible with good falconry (no anecdotes to the contrary, please. I'll just bad-mouth you.) The fact remains that falconers like to drink, and generally drink well in terms of quality beers and spirits. Maybe it helps to relive the good flights or maybe it helps us handle the sprawl.
7) Other People's Hawks: We all like to fly nice hawks and generally tend to like the hawk we're flying at present. But hawks we've had in the past and hawks flown now by other people are often the better birds. This is especially true of hawks flown by other people in other countries, hawks we've only seen in photos. Those exotic hawks all catch tons of game and give their falconers no trouble. I wish someone would import some of those.
If you can think up more Stuff, funny or otherwise, please post a comment.
*Photo: Bruce Haak's great home-bred peregrine, Jinx, on recent pheasant kill. Jinx is one of those covetted hawks flown by another person.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
Mystery Plant
On his visit last week,Dan showed us these photos of a mysterious plant he photographed in San Diego. I think it is South African but don't really have the botanical chops to ID it. Readers?
Lots of Links
Busy busy busy-- but stuff just keeps coming in. Thanks to all!
We had a good visit from Dan and his hounds last week-- well, good except for that seat belt ticket. The weather was almost too hot to run dogs, but we have had two snowstorms since! He chronicles it all there, with pics.
Darren chronicles the unholy amount of plastic crap in the oceans- I had no idea of the magnitude. Watch his spot next week for something weird, entertaining, and utterly different.
The best and funniest music video of-- the year?
From a commentor at Rod's, a little background:
"The Leningrad Cowboys is a Finnish rock and roll band famous for its humorous songs and concerts featuring the Soviet Red Army Choir.
"Currently, the band has eleven Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as 'vodka', 'tractors', 'rockets', and 'Genghis Khan', as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all with lots of humour.
"The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union's Red Army. The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble. The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music.
"In 1991, The Red Army Choir participated in Roger Waters' The Wall concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. They performed an anti-war song 'Bring the Boys Back Home'."
Bad enough when an inanimate object like a gun is demonised. But now they are going to demolish a building where a shooting happened, to spare students' feelings. I fear for our sanity.
A creepy tale. But how can anyone test the veracity of something that happened in a closed society like the old Soviet Union? (I have seen some strange things there myself, things military people here tell me I couldn't have...)
Andrew Campbell is back from Mongolia-- scroll down for the rest of the trip.
Mike shows the world typical western distances. I live just to the right of those hazy mountains on the left, about 100 miles from where he snapped that photo-- and there is not a lot in between.
Science? Walter Hingley has been busy sending me links. Tuataras have DNA that is changing faster than that of any other creature studied, while keeping their dinosaur- era form., Why?-- perhaps Darren may have some idea.
Feathers in amber shed light on the early evolution of feathers. Nice Luis Rey pic here.
Crows learn to use coins in vending machines. I don't know if that is funny or scary.
Mike Spies sent a copy of the new bill to criminalize killing a migratory bird. Well, OK, but don't these nitwits even know that it is already illegal?, and has been for many years? What is this blind passion to pass laws? (Anyone have a link?)
Speaking of which, Arizona has jumped on the mandatory spay- neuter bandwagon. The proposed law is one of the worst yet-- since I cannot show my perfectly purebred tazis, they would not be up for exemption. I do not understand government's attempts to make more and more outlaws.
Let us turn to less depressing subjects. Patrick is always thought- provoking, but the most amazing thing in his latest "Coffee and Provocation" is that wolves are returning to Massachusetts! I used to live not far from Shelburne, and I find that utterly amazing.
Finally, from Annie D, something as funny as the Leningrad cowboys: Dogs in Elk.
Pix of various subjects & more soon..
We had a good visit from Dan and his hounds last week-- well, good except for that seat belt ticket. The weather was almost too hot to run dogs, but we have had two snowstorms since! He chronicles it all there, with pics.
Darren chronicles the unholy amount of plastic crap in the oceans- I had no idea of the magnitude. Watch his spot next week for something weird, entertaining, and utterly different.
The best and funniest music video of-- the year?
From a commentor at Rod's, a little background:
"The Leningrad Cowboys is a Finnish rock and roll band famous for its humorous songs and concerts featuring the Soviet Red Army Choir.
"Currently, the band has eleven Cowboys and two Leningrad Ladies. The songs, all somewhat influenced by polka and progressive rock, and performed in English, have themes such as 'vodka', 'tractors', 'rockets', and 'Genghis Khan', as well as folkloric Russian songs, rock and roll ballads and covers from bands as diverse as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, and Lynyrd Skynyrd, all with lots of humour.
"The Red Army Choir (Choir Aleksandrov) is a performing ensemble that served as the official army choir of the former Soviet Union's Red Army. The choir consists of a male choir, an orchestra, and a dance ensemble. The songs they perform range from Russian folk tunes to Church hymns, operatic arias and popular music.
"In 1991, The Red Army Choir participated in Roger Waters' The Wall concert celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall. They performed an anti-war song 'Bring the Boys Back Home'."
Bad enough when an inanimate object like a gun is demonised. But now they are going to demolish a building where a shooting happened, to spare students' feelings. I fear for our sanity.
A creepy tale. But how can anyone test the veracity of something that happened in a closed society like the old Soviet Union? (I have seen some strange things there myself, things military people here tell me I couldn't have...)
Andrew Campbell is back from Mongolia-- scroll down for the rest of the trip.
Mike shows the world typical western distances. I live just to the right of those hazy mountains on the left, about 100 miles from where he snapped that photo-- and there is not a lot in between.
Science? Walter Hingley has been busy sending me links. Tuataras have DNA that is changing faster than that of any other creature studied, while keeping their dinosaur- era form., Why?-- perhaps Darren may have some idea.
Feathers in amber shed light on the early evolution of feathers. Nice Luis Rey pic here.
Crows learn to use coins in vending machines. I don't know if that is funny or scary.
Mike Spies sent a copy of the new bill to criminalize killing a migratory bird. Well, OK, but don't these nitwits even know that it is already illegal?, and has been for many years? What is this blind passion to pass laws? (Anyone have a link?)
Speaking of which, Arizona has jumped on the mandatory spay- neuter bandwagon. The proposed law is one of the worst yet-- since I cannot show my perfectly purebred tazis, they would not be up for exemption. I do not understand government's attempts to make more and more outlaws.
Let us turn to less depressing subjects. Patrick is always thought- provoking, but the most amazing thing in his latest "Coffee and Provocation" is that wolves are returning to Massachusetts! I used to live not far from Shelburne, and I find that utterly amazing.
Finally, from Annie D, something as funny as the Leningrad cowboys: Dogs in Elk.
Pix of various subjects & more soon..
Monday, March 03, 2008
You Can't See Me
My crew members from Colorado grinned when they saw this camouflaged cell phone tower in Imperial County.Prehistoric Trails
One of the things I have found fascinating about archaeology here in the Yuha Desert are the prehistoric trails that criss-cross the area. They are quite common and easily distinguishable from trails made by modern vehicles. As with the lithic scatters and pot drops I posted about earlier, it's astonishing how long things can stay intact here. You can plainly see one just below my two crew members in this picture. So many rocks have been kicked over to the side of the trail they almost form kerbs. I suppose if you were walking barefoot or in yucca sandals across the desert pavement you'd be kicking rocks out of the way, too. The trails are the result of hundreds of years of this sort of thing.
This picture shows the trail plainly curving off to the northeast, heading to the old Lake Cahuilla shoreline. My colleague Josh is walking this stretch of the trail with his GPS unit in hand to map the route. When the fieldwork is complete, we'll use the GIS data on the routes along with high-resolution air photos to link the segments up and make a prehistoric road map.
As one would expect, there is evidence of lots of prehistoric activity along these trails. The picture above shows distinct activity areas near this trail by clusters of pin flags marking artifact locations.
It also appears that the trails weren't simply utilitarian facilities, but also served ritualistic purposes. We have found a number of circles near trails, like the one above...
...and this one which has its own small path linking it to the trail in the background. It is likely that these are related to what the local ethnographic literature calls power circles. The power circles were used by travelers along the trail, both during actual travel and "dream travel" (during trances) to pray and meditate to obtain power for the successful completion of the journey.
A recent archaeological project conducted nearby used a Least Cost Digital Elevation Model to plot hypothetical extensions of known trail segments. The reasoning here was that people using the trails would take the shortest and easiest routes between points. Field checks showed that the model was a poor predictor of trail locations - the presumption being that trails were routed to link important ritual locations rather than following the physically easiest route.
Bill
In our younger years, Connie and I spent a fair amount of time around Bill, Wyoming, a bump in the road between Douglas and Gillette. So when the NYT had an article about the place it caught my eye. According to the Times, the business boom there has brought the population all the way up to 11.
A whole generation of archaeologists passed through Bill while working on projects related to the massive coal mines in the Powder River Basin. Caps sporting the "Bill Yacht Club" logo really were a hot commodity back in the early 80s. While working on a vegetation survey for a mine near there, Connie had a mail drop in Bill, which if I remember correctly was "Shoebox #2". That was about the time when the mayor of Bill was an elderly German shepherd named Mayor.
A whole generation of archaeologists passed through Bill while working on projects related to the massive coal mines in the Powder River Basin. Caps sporting the "Bill Yacht Club" logo really were a hot commodity back in the early 80s. While working on a vegetation survey for a mine near there, Connie had a mail drop in Bill, which if I remember correctly was "Shoebox #2". That was about the time when the mayor of Bill was an elderly German shepherd named Mayor.
Sunday, March 02, 2008
That Vienna
Spent a week in Vienna, thankfully away from all those hideous Englishmen (wink wink, just kiddin’ ha ha), saw all manner of good stuff, a Monet to Picasso show that was an education (not to mention awesome and gorgeous and amazingly empty) a Durer exhibition that was sort of religious, a Max Ernst show that was exactly as expected (that is: Great) and a bunch of Richters that were a fillip to the Monet-Picasso show (starring Munch and Bacon(I mean, god was this a hell of a good day)). So this was Vienna. Did I say I got lost about seven times because I said, ‘Okay, Phill, here’s a big gorgeous Austro-Hungarian Palace, when you see it you’re here,’ only to find out that there’re about seven such palaces all around Vienna and that locating oneself thereby is foolhardy at best, and masochistic at even better than best. If you happen to hate your feet.
No hotel because for those preterite who can’t cop a room in the Four Seasons Intercontinental Hilton on short notice downtown Vienna is unique amongst European tourist locals in having no place to stay. So, like any good tourist, I hit bars, and wound up hitting nails into a stump with the claw of a hammer for sport, then staying up hanging out badmouthing the country I love for free drinks until 10 am with one Eurogreasy bartender and three waitresses. It was grand.
Then: Klimt, and [Ed’s note] I’ve always loved Klimt and ikons both, mainly owing to Kleist (Read Kleist!) but holy god! The Belvedere Palace is the palace taken over by, in its lower quarters, Viennese artists of today who're super good, and in its real palatial realm, by Klimts, which are far far beyond good.
I don’t want to go on too much here on Steve n them’s spot, but suffice it to say that the way gold and abstraction resolves into the pure uncluttered beauty of a woman’s face tilted to one side and beyond the world in pure contentment, well, it’s something. Saw Mozart Beethoven shows with headphones on, there's a Museum Quarter that's nice, saw that, but mainly I saw Vienna as a sort of challenge to any greatness that can't back it all up with one thousand years. It was sort of cool.
Saw more, but nothing more worth mentioning.
No hotel because for those preterite who can’t cop a room in the Four Seasons Intercontinental Hilton on short notice downtown Vienna is unique amongst European tourist locals in having no place to stay. So, like any good tourist, I hit bars, and wound up hitting nails into a stump with the claw of a hammer for sport, then staying up hanging out badmouthing the country I love for free drinks until 10 am with one Eurogreasy bartender and three waitresses. It was grand.
Then: Klimt, and [Ed’s note] I’ve always loved Klimt and ikons both, mainly owing to Kleist (Read Kleist!) but holy god! The Belvedere Palace is the palace taken over by, in its lower quarters, Viennese artists of today who're super good, and in its real palatial realm, by Klimts, which are far far beyond good.
I don’t want to go on too much here on Steve n them’s spot, but suffice it to say that the way gold and abstraction resolves into the pure uncluttered beauty of a woman’s face tilted to one side and beyond the world in pure contentment, well, it’s something. Saw Mozart Beethoven shows with headphones on, there's a Museum Quarter that's nice, saw that, but mainly I saw Vienna as a sort of challenge to any greatness that can't back it all up with one thousand years. It was sort of cool.
Saw more, but nothing more worth mentioning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)