I don't usually pass on Internet forwards but this one from Gail Goodman is irresistible for any New Mexican. All true too...
You know you're from New Mexico if. . . .
You've had a school day canceled because there was 2 inches of snow on the ground.
You know what an "arroyo" is.
Your high school's name was a Spanish name (i.e. La Cueva, Eldorado, Sandia, Manzano....).
You believe that bags of sand with a candle in them are perfectly acceptable Christmas decorations.
The name of most restaurants you go to begin with "El", "La", or "Los".
You price-shop for tortillas.
You have an extra freezer just for your red & green chile.
You think six tons of crushed rock makes a beautiful front lawn.
Your swamp cooler got knocked off your roof by a dust devil.
All your out-of-state friends and relatives visit in October.
You know Las Vegas is a town in the northeastern part of New Mexico.
Your 'other vehicle' is also a pick-up truck.
You know the response to the question "red or green?"
You also know what, ?Throw an egg on it? means.
You're relieved when the pavement ends because the dirt roads have fewer pot-holes.
You can correctly pronounce Tesuque, Cerrillos, and Pojoaque.
You have been told by at least one out-of-state vendor or business, they are going to charge you extra for "international shipping".
You can order your "Big Mac" with green chile.
You see nothing odd when, in the conversations of the people in line around you at the grocery store, every third word of each sentence alternates between Spanish and English.
You associate bridges with mud or an arroyo, not the passage of water.
If you travel anywhere, even if just to drive to the gas station, you must bring along a bottle of water, some moisturizer, and sunscreen.
A package of white flour tortillas is the exact same thing as a loaf of bread. You don't need to write it on your shopping list....it's a given.
At ANY gathering, regardless of size, green chile stew, tortillas, and huge mounds of shredded cheese are mandatory.
You also know where Hatch is....AND its significance to the culinary world.
You can spell Albuquerque.
Friday, October 29, 2010
For Rifle Loonies...
John Barsness invented the term "Rifle Loony" long before his new book, Obsessions of a Rifle Loony. It is not necessarily a negative term; the readers of this blog who like guns are extremely likely to fall into the category. This is a book for not- so- rich devotees of good, useful tools who want to know what makes them work rather than just dropping a pile of money.
Barsness's new book celebrates the kind of good guns that Hemingway, or my father, would have liked-- is it too much to say that his writing is democratic in the best sense (meritocratic- democratic?) and is perhaps a healthier antithesis to gun porn? Not that there's anything wrong with that...
He is knowledgeable about both guns and-- perhaps more important-- self- guided hunting; he is my age, was fortunate enough to grow up in Montana, and worked at it. He has probably taken more game in his bountiful home state than any other writer I know of. He and his wife, writer Eileen Clarke, eat only game. He has taught himself to be a fair gunsmith and even rifle maker. Unlike a lot of gunwriter pros, he actually has the experience to compare and contrast.
Which is good, because as a writer he is the anti- cliche, anti- conventional "wisdom" champ, and is unsparing of his fellows or sometimes himself. He starts in swinging in his prologue on "Gunwriterese"-- hilarious if you have read much. "Gunwriterese is distinguished by words and phrases the writer would otherwise never use... 'My Remington slays deer with aplomb'.Yet they would never say their 4- wheel- drive pickup climbs hills with aplomb. This is because they don't know what aplomb means". (Emphasis mine-- I wish I could have hired him when I taught writing). "The list of such phrases is almost endless: pasture poodle (for prairie dog), kills like the hammer of Thor, kicks like a mule, tack driver, shoots like a house afire etc..."
Enough! Safe to say he doesn't just deconstruct language; he tells you some interesting and contrary things too. He reminds the reader that the three most popular bolt actions have three different approaches to containing gasses, and one of the most esteemed and expensive does the least; he finds the bore of a new factory Ruger to be the equal of hand- lapped custom barrels. He says a lot about finding hidden old gems at gun shows and how to evaluate them (we are talking mostly under $400, up to less than 8).
A whole chapter sings the praises of iron sights and gives lessons in the nearly lost art of using them. This interests me a lot-- I have never liked, living in the back country as I do, the modern practice of fitting new factory rifles with either no or vestigial sights, leaving all work to the usually- trustworthy but breakable scope. With my advancing years and failing eyesight most writers tell me I should fall back entirely on scopes, but my own limitations make me prefer light carbines with iron sights, if possible "ghost ring" apertures. Barsness is encouraging. "With the right target [do not try to sight in with targets designed for scopes!- SB], all of my iron- sighted rifles shoot 3- inch groups 2" or smaller at 100 yards. No, that isn't the half- inch so many modern hunters think necessary for hunting deer or even Cape buffalo, but still works." (He then goes on to demonstrate by killing a caribou at a measured- by- rangefinder 350 yards).
He loves old calibers like .257 Roberts, 7 mm Mauser, .30- '06. He turns cliches on their heads-- for Townsend Whelen's "only accurate rifles are interesting", he substitutes "only UNUSUAL rifles are interesting". A premature curmudgeon, he can bite some friendly hands-- on the vaunted superiority of "controlled-round feeding" he growls that before it became a selling point "Nobody cared about the death of CRF, except for a few grumpy millionaires who went to Africa and sat around the mopane fire in the evening, drinking old Scotch,smoking Cuban cigars, and muttering about the high price of lions, pre '64 Model 70's and double rifles".
All in all, quirky, iconoclastic, assured, and deadpan funny-- a good curative for those overwhelmed by "gun porn" and the drumbeat of new, expensive, and buy buy buy. As Barsness (who like all of us probably still has too many guns) knows, it is not about collecting. Read Obsessions of a Rifle Loony, get to a gunshow, find a rifle with some history on it, and go outside.
Obsessions is available from Barsness for $23.50 at www.riflesandrecipes.com or from Deep Creek Press, POB 579, Townsend MT 59644.
Barsness's new book celebrates the kind of good guns that Hemingway, or my father, would have liked-- is it too much to say that his writing is democratic in the best sense (meritocratic- democratic?) and is perhaps a healthier antithesis to gun porn? Not that there's anything wrong with that...
He is knowledgeable about both guns and-- perhaps more important-- self- guided hunting; he is my age, was fortunate enough to grow up in Montana, and worked at it. He has probably taken more game in his bountiful home state than any other writer I know of. He and his wife, writer Eileen Clarke, eat only game. He has taught himself to be a fair gunsmith and even rifle maker. Unlike a lot of gunwriter pros, he actually has the experience to compare and contrast.
Which is good, because as a writer he is the anti- cliche, anti- conventional "wisdom" champ, and is unsparing of his fellows or sometimes himself. He starts in swinging in his prologue on "Gunwriterese"-- hilarious if you have read much. "Gunwriterese is distinguished by words and phrases the writer would otherwise never use... 'My Remington slays deer with aplomb'.Yet they would never say their 4- wheel- drive pickup climbs hills with aplomb. This is because they don't know what aplomb means". (Emphasis mine-- I wish I could have hired him when I taught writing). "The list of such phrases is almost endless: pasture poodle (for prairie dog), kills like the hammer of Thor, kicks like a mule, tack driver, shoots like a house afire etc..."
Enough! Safe to say he doesn't just deconstruct language; he tells you some interesting and contrary things too. He reminds the reader that the three most popular bolt actions have three different approaches to containing gasses, and one of the most esteemed and expensive does the least; he finds the bore of a new factory Ruger to be the equal of hand- lapped custom barrels. He says a lot about finding hidden old gems at gun shows and how to evaluate them (we are talking mostly under $400, up to less than 8).
A whole chapter sings the praises of iron sights and gives lessons in the nearly lost art of using them. This interests me a lot-- I have never liked, living in the back country as I do, the modern practice of fitting new factory rifles with either no or vestigial sights, leaving all work to the usually- trustworthy but breakable scope. With my advancing years and failing eyesight most writers tell me I should fall back entirely on scopes, but my own limitations make me prefer light carbines with iron sights, if possible "ghost ring" apertures. Barsness is encouraging. "With the right target [do not try to sight in with targets designed for scopes!- SB], all of my iron- sighted rifles shoot 3- inch groups 2" or smaller at 100 yards. No, that isn't the half- inch so many modern hunters think necessary for hunting deer or even Cape buffalo, but still works." (He then goes on to demonstrate by killing a caribou at a measured- by- rangefinder 350 yards).
He loves old calibers like .257 Roberts, 7 mm Mauser, .30- '06. He turns cliches on their heads-- for Townsend Whelen's "only accurate rifles are interesting", he substitutes "only UNUSUAL rifles are interesting". A premature curmudgeon, he can bite some friendly hands-- on the vaunted superiority of "controlled-round feeding" he growls that before it became a selling point "Nobody cared about the death of CRF, except for a few grumpy millionaires who went to Africa and sat around the mopane fire in the evening, drinking old Scotch,smoking Cuban cigars, and muttering about the high price of lions, pre '64 Model 70's and double rifles".
All in all, quirky, iconoclastic, assured, and deadpan funny-- a good curative for those overwhelmed by "gun porn" and the drumbeat of new, expensive, and buy buy buy. As Barsness (who like all of us probably still has too many guns) knows, it is not about collecting. Read Obsessions of a Rifle Loony, get to a gunshow, find a rifle with some history on it, and go outside.
Obsessions is available from Barsness for $23.50 at www.riflesandrecipes.com or from Deep Creek Press, POB 579, Townsend MT 59644.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Gun Book Reviews
I have received three good gun books lately, and I think I can almost see a narrative thread between them. They are not, as so many magazine articles seem to be today, advertisements in the form of product reviews. The first, Hemingway's Guns, by Silvio Calabi, Steve Helsey, and Roger Songer, is a scholarly but lively history of the good guns owned by this iconic mid- twentieth century figure; the second, Vic Venters' Gun Craft, is a celebration of what I would call the contemporary "art gun" that soars high above the ground, covering makers of guns so rarefied you will pay over six figures for many; the third, Obsessions of a Rifle Loony by John Barsness, (separate essay) returns us to more earthly precincts while keeping to the ideals of quality and utility-- perhaps a return to the days when Hemingway shot good but plain versions of what the rest of us shoot.
Hemingway's Guns starts in the 1920's and continues to the time of the writer's death in 1961. It is a profusely illustrated and meticulously documented chronicle of a good working armory owned by a man who could soon afford anything he wanted (if you doubt this check out the Hollywood and other luminaries in the photos, from a time when hunting was taken for granted). The thing that might strike a modern shooter with a longing for fine guns is how "normal" most are, and how little some which have become enormously expensive are cost back then, even proportionately. (A double rifle, always a rare, expensive hand- made tool for professionals and rich amateurs, is the exception-- and even they were relatively cheap in the thirties).
A good example is the Winchester Model 21 double barreled shotgun. The Hemingway family owned several; Hemingway was in the habit of buying them for various wives, and son Patrick shot one as a boy. The M 21 was introduced in i931, and cost $59.50, which the text mentions is equivalent to all of $765 in 2010 dollars (to any non gun nuts reading, you cannot buy ANY double this cheap today). But the actual rock bottom price for the all- custom M21 today is $14,000.
Keep your mind on that. Nobody who is not wealthy buys a 21 today; I certainly couldn't. But in the days stretching up- just barely?-- to the seventies, a poor man who was sufficiently motivated could find one he could afford. I have owned three, second hand-- and my father-- photo below ca 1954-- bought a new one after leaving the Army after the war-- sadly, he sold it when duck hunting began to take second place to his career, before I started shooting.
Point being, the rich AND the less than rich who understood quality-- my father was both an engineer and an artist-- shot virtually the same guns in mid- century America.
This is made abundantly clear in Hemingway's Guns. He shot Winchesters, Colt Woodsman pistols, Merkel shotguns, Mausers, Mannlicher- Schoenauer carbines, a Browning 16 gauge auto, a Browning Superposed, a Springfield, a Beretta- I have owned every one of these, admittedly NOT at the same time-- serial ownership has its advantages. What he did not own was extravagant wood or engraving or bespoke London doubles. A legend, dispelled here with little doubt remaining, is that he killed himself with a Boss pigeon gun, which would have been within this group. In fact the fatal firearm was a pigeon gun by W & C Scott-- a good gun but not a London Best (I have owned two).
If you are one of the remaining breed who loves literature, good guns, hunting, and history you will find this book a feast. The authors have balanced an appropriate amount of technicalia with good storytelling and, perhaps, a whiff of nostalgia for a time that was a bit more democratic and quirky, a time when the rich and the poor shared a vision of sport that may now be disappearing. I'm keeping this book, at least in part as a reminder of a time I can still remember.
Vic Venters' Gun Craft: Fine Guns & Gunmakers in the 21st Century documents the high end of the gun trade: "Best" English and Scots contemporary doubles, with a few Italian engravers, American restorers, and Belgians, though the last one isn't really contemporary. This is an unabashedly for- shotgun- nuts- only book, though even a non- gunner can admire the beauty of the firearms displayed here (oddly, not so obviously true of Hemingway's guns). This is what Libby not unkindly calls "gun porn", lovingly photographed, of an almost over- the- top beauty, and often somehow oddly pristine and untouched. In days of old Purdeys and Hollands and Bosses were shot hard, sometimes digesting thousands of cartridges in a season. Will anyone shoot these, or will they only hang on someone's wall like a trophy? I know one world class engraver in Vermont who recoiled in horror at my suggestion that the client for his gold- bedecked Purdey 28 would shoot it and devalue its six figures worth of engraving and inlay.
Which still may be a justification for their existence-- they are canvases for gun designers and engravers and woodworkers, where they can reach a peak of artisanship-- or art if you must. Rulers and wealthy arrivistes alike have traditionally commissioned the best craftsmen of the age to work their magic on "weapons". And such expertise can improve guns at "lower" levels of course, as the methods trickle down.
Though the possible use of computer- controlled machines even by "Best" makers may play more of a part in this transformation than the methods of most makers and artisans featured here, who still work with techniques that may be centuries old. The amount of hand work alone prevents too much of this labor being expended on production arms. Venters (like me-- and you?) is a true nut about how gunmakers achieve their results, from barrel making to hand- regulating chokes to restoration; if you want to know why today's Purdey 410's are better than the old ones, even if you haven't a hope of owning a miniature shotgun more expensive than your house; if in the words of Tom McGuane you have times when you find that "shoptalk is lyrical", you will love this book. I am keeping it too.
I still wonder who buys these guns. Next up: John Barsness and Rifle Loonies, gun nuts who work at another level but still demand quality. EH would have understood.
Both of these books are available at www.shootingsportsman.com. Hemingway's Guns is $40 plus S & H: Gun Craft is $30.
Hemingway's Guns starts in the 1920's and continues to the time of the writer's death in 1961. It is a profusely illustrated and meticulously documented chronicle of a good working armory owned by a man who could soon afford anything he wanted (if you doubt this check out the Hollywood and other luminaries in the photos, from a time when hunting was taken for granted). The thing that might strike a modern shooter with a longing for fine guns is how "normal" most are, and how little some which have become enormously expensive are cost back then, even proportionately. (A double rifle, always a rare, expensive hand- made tool for professionals and rich amateurs, is the exception-- and even they were relatively cheap in the thirties).
A good example is the Winchester Model 21 double barreled shotgun. The Hemingway family owned several; Hemingway was in the habit of buying them for various wives, and son Patrick shot one as a boy. The M 21 was introduced in i931, and cost $59.50, which the text mentions is equivalent to all of $765 in 2010 dollars (to any non gun nuts reading, you cannot buy ANY double this cheap today). But the actual rock bottom price for the all- custom M21 today is $14,000.
Keep your mind on that. Nobody who is not wealthy buys a 21 today; I certainly couldn't. But in the days stretching up- just barely?-- to the seventies, a poor man who was sufficiently motivated could find one he could afford. I have owned three, second hand-- and my father-- photo below ca 1954-- bought a new one after leaving the Army after the war-- sadly, he sold it when duck hunting began to take second place to his career, before I started shooting.
Point being, the rich AND the less than rich who understood quality-- my father was both an engineer and an artist-- shot virtually the same guns in mid- century America.
This is made abundantly clear in Hemingway's Guns. He shot Winchesters, Colt Woodsman pistols, Merkel shotguns, Mausers, Mannlicher- Schoenauer carbines, a Browning 16 gauge auto, a Browning Superposed, a Springfield, a Beretta- I have owned every one of these, admittedly NOT at the same time-- serial ownership has its advantages. What he did not own was extravagant wood or engraving or bespoke London doubles. A legend, dispelled here with little doubt remaining, is that he killed himself with a Boss pigeon gun, which would have been within this group. In fact the fatal firearm was a pigeon gun by W & C Scott-- a good gun but not a London Best (I have owned two).
If you are one of the remaining breed who loves literature, good guns, hunting, and history you will find this book a feast. The authors have balanced an appropriate amount of technicalia with good storytelling and, perhaps, a whiff of nostalgia for a time that was a bit more democratic and quirky, a time when the rich and the poor shared a vision of sport that may now be disappearing. I'm keeping this book, at least in part as a reminder of a time I can still remember.
Vic Venters' Gun Craft: Fine Guns & Gunmakers in the 21st Century documents the high end of the gun trade: "Best" English and Scots contemporary doubles, with a few Italian engravers, American restorers, and Belgians, though the last one isn't really contemporary. This is an unabashedly for- shotgun- nuts- only book, though even a non- gunner can admire the beauty of the firearms displayed here (oddly, not so obviously true of Hemingway's guns). This is what Libby not unkindly calls "gun porn", lovingly photographed, of an almost over- the- top beauty, and often somehow oddly pristine and untouched. In days of old Purdeys and Hollands and Bosses were shot hard, sometimes digesting thousands of cartridges in a season. Will anyone shoot these, or will they only hang on someone's wall like a trophy? I know one world class engraver in Vermont who recoiled in horror at my suggestion that the client for his gold- bedecked Purdey 28 would shoot it and devalue its six figures worth of engraving and inlay.
Which still may be a justification for their existence-- they are canvases for gun designers and engravers and woodworkers, where they can reach a peak of artisanship-- or art if you must. Rulers and wealthy arrivistes alike have traditionally commissioned the best craftsmen of the age to work their magic on "weapons". And such expertise can improve guns at "lower" levels of course, as the methods trickle down.
Though the possible use of computer- controlled machines even by "Best" makers may play more of a part in this transformation than the methods of most makers and artisans featured here, who still work with techniques that may be centuries old. The amount of hand work alone prevents too much of this labor being expended on production arms. Venters (like me-- and you?) is a true nut about how gunmakers achieve their results, from barrel making to hand- regulating chokes to restoration; if you want to know why today's Purdey 410's are better than the old ones, even if you haven't a hope of owning a miniature shotgun more expensive than your house; if in the words of Tom McGuane you have times when you find that "shoptalk is lyrical", you will love this book. I am keeping it too.
I still wonder who buys these guns. Next up: John Barsness and Rifle Loonies, gun nuts who work at another level but still demand quality. EH would have understood.
Both of these books are available at www.shootingsportsman.com. Hemingway's Guns is $40 plus S & H: Gun Craft is $30.
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Progress?
As several readers who communicate outside of the blog know, the redheaded falcon has been extremely wild and difficult. I had decided to send him back to the breeder and was feeding him to repletion every night.
But, as his weight rose, against all expectations he got tamer and tamer. He is now butter- fat, tolerating Ataika 100%, and still coming swiftly to the fist, at least indoors. So we will try a bit longer.
But, as his weight rose, against all expectations he got tamer and tamer. He is now butter- fat, tolerating Ataika 100%, and still coming swiftly to the fist, at least indoors. So we will try a bit longer.
Friday, October 22, 2010
Redtail & Rabbits
From around the same time as the photo below-- maybe 36 years ago (I had the hawk for six years)-- our biggest day, my biggest ever.
Just for Fun
A photo taken on top of the hill in Shutesbury Mass, ca 1974, of me with my redtail tiercel Cinnamon (still one of the best gamehawks I ever had and oddly, like one of the more recent best birds, stolen after years with me), and a friend who is holding my intact rather huge albino male ferret JL. Quite a team when cottontails took to groundhog burrows; we once took eight rabbits with them in one day (in an industrial wasteland). My only excuse for such greed is that there must have been fifty left, and that in those days game was my only meat, even more so than today. I am now looking for that pic.
Thanks to constant reader Lane Batot for making me think about ferrets again.
Oh and: please keep hair remarks to a bearable minimum. Please.
Update: I have found a photo with rabbits-- I'll scan and post later.
Thanks to constant reader Lane Batot for making me think about ferrets again.
Oh and: please keep hair remarks to a bearable minimum. Please.
Update: I have found a photo with rabbits-- I'll scan and post later.
Breeder Issues
No; though there will be fun stuff today, I will not stop beating this drum, because it needs saying/ beating.
Jess from DesertWindhounds, in a comment at Retrieverman's on why "can't we just all get along?"
“Tell you what. When I stop getting harassed by total strangers for my breeding decisions, we’ll all get along. When people stop making false reports to animal control as a way to intimidate and harass breeders they don’t like, we’ll all get along. When small purebred breeders stop supporting legislation that would make it illegal for me to own an intact mixed breed dog, we’ll all get along. When breeders stop ganging up and plotting to get a man’s dogs away from him for no good reason, we’ll all get along.
“When people stop denying that the science does, yes indeed, show that inbreeding, close breeding, and not breeding enough individuals in the population is bad for the population as a whole, we’ll all get along. When purebred breeders stop denying that statistically, mixed breed dogs are healthier, we’ll all get along. When breeders stop denying there’s something wrong with using popular sires, we’ll all get along.
“When breeders stop acting like total idiots (looking at you, Dal club), we’ll all get along. When breeders stop insisting that a crossbreeding would definitely bring in ‘new diseases’ (gosh, can’t you buy healthy, tested stock in other breeds?), we’ll all get along. When breeders stop confusing genetics involving THEIR dogs as opposed to POPULATION genetics, we’ll all get along.”
Grrrrr... shout it from the rooftops.
Jess from DesertWindhounds, in a comment at Retrieverman's on why "can't we just all get along?"
“Tell you what. When I stop getting harassed by total strangers for my breeding decisions, we’ll all get along. When people stop making false reports to animal control as a way to intimidate and harass breeders they don’t like, we’ll all get along. When small purebred breeders stop supporting legislation that would make it illegal for me to own an intact mixed breed dog, we’ll all get along. When breeders stop ganging up and plotting to get a man’s dogs away from him for no good reason, we’ll all get along.
“When people stop denying that the science does, yes indeed, show that inbreeding, close breeding, and not breeding enough individuals in the population is bad for the population as a whole, we’ll all get along. When purebred breeders stop denying that statistically, mixed breed dogs are healthier, we’ll all get along. When breeders stop denying there’s something wrong with using popular sires, we’ll all get along.
“When breeders stop acting like total idiots (looking at you, Dal club), we’ll all get along. When breeders stop insisting that a crossbreeding would definitely bring in ‘new diseases’ (gosh, can’t you buy healthy, tested stock in other breeds?), we’ll all get along. When breeders stop confusing genetics involving THEIR dogs as opposed to POPULATION genetics, we’ll all get along.”
Grrrrr... shout it from the rooftops.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Tiger Reading
John Vaillant did a reading last night at Riverrun Books in Portsmouth, New Hampshire for his wonderful new book on Amur tigers, poachers, and rangers. I had participated in part by reviewing The Tiger here.
I'll let him configure the whole tale for you, but Dr Hypercube was the pivotal figure, and blogged it here. Suffice to say that an amazing crew of nature and travel writers were brought together via the web- the Doctor, Sy Montgomery (who wrote the OTHER great tiger book, The Spell of the Tiger), and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ( The Old Way, among other fine books). I wish I had been there, but the next best thing was when Vaillant , livestreaming his excellent talk, waved at the camera to "Steve Bodio in New Mexico".
L to R: Vaillant, Sy, the Doctor, Liz.
I'll let him configure the whole tale for you, but Dr Hypercube was the pivotal figure, and blogged it here. Suffice to say that an amazing crew of nature and travel writers were brought together via the web- the Doctor, Sy Montgomery (who wrote the OTHER great tiger book, The Spell of the Tiger), and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas ( The Old Way, among other fine books). I wish I had been there, but the next best thing was when Vaillant , livestreaming his excellent talk, waved at the camera to "Steve Bodio in New Mexico".
L to R: Vaillant, Sy, the Doctor, Liz.
Monday, October 18, 2010
New Look
Well we bit the bullet and updated the Q-blog template to the very apropos bookshelf theme you see here. We may make more changes, adding little gadgets and widgets and whatnot, mainly because now we can.
Happy Monday!
Happy Monday!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Eevil Eagles
When I announced Darren's new book (Tetrapod Zoology 1) I mentioned a Darren drawing that contained, among other things, an Australopithecine and a Socorro County calf in mortal danger. Here is the proof, in the form of his 2004 Christmas card (click on it to enlarge):
The hominid is the (documented-- look up recent material on "Taung Baby") victim of a large African eagle, probably the crowned (Stephanoaetus coronatus), which still occasionally attacks them in the form of small children-- at least one incident in Zambia.
The calf? in the seventies, Audubon actually filmed a pair of eagles killing calves on the Tigner ranch, twenty miles south of Magdalena-- the unusually predator- friendly Tigners had invited them. The culprits were trapped and moved, and no other eagles have developed the habit since, although we know an eyrie there (Tigner's is our favorite quail- hunting habitat).
The third is the monstrous New Zealand eagle formerly known as Harpagus moorei-- I think it has been reassigned to Hieratus or Spizaetus, making it a close relative of very fierce smaller eagles used in falconry today. It was HUGE-- up to 45- 50 pounds, more than twice the size of any eagle alive. As shown here, it ate moas (bones have been found with punctures corresponding to the eagle's talons). Apparently, at least according to Maori legend, it ate humans too-- probably all upright bipeds look like food to a flying Velociraptor-- and it only became extinct when the Maori ate all the moas ("...and there ain't no moa"), just before European colonization, if then.
More in Darren's book, on these and other large eagle prey. The subject was the occasion of our first correspondence, which continues...
The hominid is the (documented-- look up recent material on "Taung Baby") victim of a large African eagle, probably the crowned (Stephanoaetus coronatus), which still occasionally attacks them in the form of small children-- at least one incident in Zambia.
The calf? in the seventies, Audubon actually filmed a pair of eagles killing calves on the Tigner ranch, twenty miles south of Magdalena-- the unusually predator- friendly Tigners had invited them. The culprits were trapped and moved, and no other eagles have developed the habit since, although we know an eyrie there (Tigner's is our favorite quail- hunting habitat).
The third is the monstrous New Zealand eagle formerly known as Harpagus moorei-- I think it has been reassigned to Hieratus or Spizaetus, making it a close relative of very fierce smaller eagles used in falconry today. It was HUGE-- up to 45- 50 pounds, more than twice the size of any eagle alive. As shown here, it ate moas (bones have been found with punctures corresponding to the eagle's talons). Apparently, at least according to Maori legend, it ate humans too-- probably all upright bipeds look like food to a flying Velociraptor-- and it only became extinct when the Maori ate all the moas ("...and there ain't no moa"), just before European colonization, if then.
More in Darren's book, on these and other large eagle prey. The subject was the occasion of our first correspondence, which continues...
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Autumn Poems
An exchange between blogger- neighbor Anna Lear and me (go to her Laughing Raven for exquisite photos of our country, often focused on the small rather than the large), starting with her reaction to the photo below, prompted me to reprint my favorite Autumn poems.
Campbell's was written when he lived in Provence near Marseilles in the twenties. But (trivia time); though he was English, Hughes wrote October Dawn in Northampton, Mass in the fifties when he was living there with his then wife Sylvia Plath. As a sometimes UMass Amherst student I did a lot of hawking and grouse and woodcock shooting within 20 miles of there in the seventies...
Autumn
by Roy Campbell (1901-1957)
I love to see, when leaves depart,
The clear anatomy arrive,
Winter, the paragon of art,
That kills all forms of life and feeling
Save what is pure and will survive.
Already now the clanging chains
Of geese are harnessed to the moon:
Stripped are the great sun-clouding planes:
And the dark pines, their own revealing,
Let in the needles of the noon.
Strained by the gale the olives whiten
Like hoary wrestlers bent with toil
And, with the vines, their branches lighten
To brim our vats where summer lingers
In the red froth and sun-gold oil.
Soon on our hearth's reviving pyre
Their rotted stems will crumble up:
And like a ruby, panting fire,
The grape will redden on your fingers
Through the lit crystal of the cup.
October Dawn
By Ted Hughes
October is marigold, and yet
A glass half full of wine left out
To the dark heaven all night, by dawn
Has dreamed a premonition
Of ice across its eye as if
The ice-age had begun to heave.
The lawn overtrodden and strewn
From the night before, and the whistling green
Shrubbery are doomed. Ice
Has got its spearhead into place.
First a skin, delicately here
Restraining a ripple from the air;
Soon plate and rivet on pond and brook;
Then tons of chain and massive lock
To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight
Will Mammoth and Saber-tooth celebrate
Reunion while a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,
Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start.
Update. Jackson Frishman illustrates the poem here.
Campbell's was written when he lived in Provence near Marseilles in the twenties. But (trivia time); though he was English, Hughes wrote October Dawn in Northampton, Mass in the fifties when he was living there with his then wife Sylvia Plath. As a sometimes UMass Amherst student I did a lot of hawking and grouse and woodcock shooting within 20 miles of there in the seventies...
Autumn
by Roy Campbell (1901-1957)
I love to see, when leaves depart,
The clear anatomy arrive,
Winter, the paragon of art,
That kills all forms of life and feeling
Save what is pure and will survive.
Already now the clanging chains
Of geese are harnessed to the moon:
Stripped are the great sun-clouding planes:
And the dark pines, their own revealing,
Let in the needles of the noon.
Strained by the gale the olives whiten
Like hoary wrestlers bent with toil
And, with the vines, their branches lighten
To brim our vats where summer lingers
In the red froth and sun-gold oil.
Soon on our hearth's reviving pyre
Their rotted stems will crumble up:
And like a ruby, panting fire,
The grape will redden on your fingers
Through the lit crystal of the cup.
October Dawn
By Ted Hughes
October is marigold, and yet
A glass half full of wine left out
To the dark heaven all night, by dawn
Has dreamed a premonition
Of ice across its eye as if
The ice-age had begun to heave.
The lawn overtrodden and strewn
From the night before, and the whistling green
Shrubbery are doomed. Ice
Has got its spearhead into place.
First a skin, delicately here
Restraining a ripple from the air;
Soon plate and rivet on pond and brook;
Then tons of chain and massive lock
To hold rivers. Then, sound by sight
Will Mammoth and Saber-tooth celebrate
Reunion while a fist of cold
Squeezes the fire at the core of the world,
Squeezes the fire at the core of the heart,
And now it is about to start.
Update. Jackson Frishman illustrates the poem here.
Friday, October 08, 2010
Why I miss New England in the fall...
Ruffed grouse and woodcock, in the oven as well as in the field, or rather woods. We have no substitute for the second west of the Mississippi...
Photo by Tim Gallagher, on opening day-- really near Ithaca NY but I bet it smells and feels the same...
Photo by Tim Gallagher, on opening day-- really near Ithaca NY but I bet it smells and feels the same...
Two quick links
Tim Gallagher just sent this link to a new study of passenger pigeon genetics.It is NOT a big mourning dove, and is closer despite its long tail to New World Columba like the bandtail. This might give more weight to some of my speculations in A Feathered Tempest (developed more succinctly in my recent Living Bird link).
And Darren Naish has just published the first "Tet Zoo" collection! Darren is not just the best zoology blogger on the Internet-- I think of him as Blogfamily since we corresponded on his very first blog post, on eagles (I will write more about the book when I get it, and with his permission print a very funny Christmas card by him that features eagles, an Australopithecine, and a doomed, very local calf-- really!)
And Darren Naish has just published the first "Tet Zoo" collection! Darren is not just the best zoology blogger on the Internet-- I think of him as Blogfamily since we corresponded on his very first blog post, on eagles (I will write more about the book when I get it, and with his permission print a very funny Christmas card by him that features eagles, an Australopithecine, and a doomed, very local calf-- really!)
A journey to Portugal
Porto was rainy and beautiful, an ancient coastal city home to the port industry and 270,000 residents. Just as we had dreamed, Porto felt both historic and comfortable. Stone buildings lined the brick and cobble streets, with balconies overflowing with plants and flowers. It seemed every home on each narrow street had a backyard vineyard, with chickens on their roofs, and pigeons cooing from holes in every rock wall and steeple. We stayed in the old downtown, within the area designated as a World Heritage Site.
Our ancient hotel had tiny rooms, with a deep narrow tub that I nearly fell out of trying to take a shower. It had been storming, so the darkened streets were damp and luscious, and we went for an evening stroll through the hilly city. We found museums and plazas, with plenty of public art projects and lush vegetation lovingly maintained. We were tiring and headed back toward our hotel when we saw light coming through a window on a side street. As we approached to read the signs posted there, a Portugese restaurant owner came out and grabbed us off the street, ushering us into his small café for a most delicious meal of fish and chicken, warming our bellies with excellent port and warm bread. No one spoke English, but it didn’t matter in the slightest. We smiled and thanked the man for the wonderful dinner, and waddled back to our hotel, falling into a deep sleep before getting an early start the next day. We called a taxi to take us to the bus stop, and with the help of an English-speaking Italian student, managed to get on the correct bus to head for the northern portion of Portugal, the most remote region of the country.
As we climbed up and out of Porto, we saw Eucalyptus trees and palm trees, but the vegetation changed the higher we climbed and moved inland away from the Atlantic Ocean. The public transportation system in Europe is amazingly cheap and efficient, and some of the buses we rode were nicer than some of the airplanes we had flown. We saw oxen carts parked in fields where work had ended the day before, and it’s true that it seemed that we’d entered a land that time had forgotten.
We rode the bus to the end of the line, and then hired a taxi to take us to our hotel, about a half-an-hour from the nearest town: A Lagosta Perdida, inside Montesinho natural park. The hotel, an ancient stone house, offers four rooms for stays, with a fabulous dinner and a light breakfast as part of the price. Our room was huge and overlooked the countryside.
Walking the streets and roads of the natural park, we met up with our first guardian dogs, of two native breeds. There is a program in place to distribute the Transmontano mastiff to cattle and sheep grazers in the park to protect their herds from wolf depredation. The park maintains a registry of mastiff litters and makes these dogs available to producers. Since the program’s inception in 1994, the result has been a decrease in depredations on both sheep and cattle.
In Europe, natural parks include towns and farms, hunting and livestock grazing, etc. A natural park is a protected area that includes "natural, semi-natural and humanized landscapes, of natural interest, representing harmonious integration of human activity with Nature."
(The photo above shows one of the most beautiful homes in the small town we stayed - love the stone house, rock walls and slate roof - this is traditional architecture. The photo below shows the town we stayed (yes, very very small, amid wolf range.)
The Transmontano mastiff originated in a pastoral livestock system where stock are grazed in uncultivated areas away from villages, with the continuous presence of wolves leading to its functional body structure of massiveness with long head and limbs, which enable it to travel with the herds. Ninety-five percent of the northern Transmontano dog population is reportedly still used to protect extensive sheep flocks from wolf predation. An aggressive program to reduce wolf predation on sheep and cattle herds in Portugal’s Montesinho Natural Park was begun in 1994, placing Transmontano Mastiff LPD pups with herdsmen. Transmontano mastiffs are quite reserved and docile, while not being highly aggressive. Work is being done to gain international recognition for this breed.
We also encountered a few Estrela mountain livestock protection dogs. The Estrela is probably the most widespread native breed of dog in Portugal. A traditional dog used to guard sheep high in the mountains, because of its beauty, the breed is widespread and often used as pets.
It was interesting to see both dog breeds, and it was notable that we heard concern about the working lineages of these dogs being overtaken by the pet/show lines.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Bird Nerd Review Post
Heavy (bird) science warning!
John Burchard asked me recently about the current evolutionary status of New World Vultures, and I realized my answer “reviewed” a book I had been meaning to. So consider the following to be my semi- official review of the amazing book The Inner Bird by Gary Kaiser.
The very latest-- this year's?-- dope takes them [ N W Vultures] away from storks & such, where they were allocated by Sibley and Alquist's pioneering , more- right- than - wrong, but limited- by- lack- of- data studies about 20 (?) years ago. They apparently have some morphological affinities with storks, but these may be due to parallel evolution. Now some people want to hook them up with the birds of prey again, but actually they're just floating loose.
Bird evolution is really just getting sorted. Paleognaths (ratites, tinamous), a single group including both Galliformes and Anseriformes (!) and two other groups (Metaves and Coronaves) all apparently existed before the K-T event. The last two groups are incredibly confusing because each contains birds that are morphologically virtually identical but evolutionarily and genetically distinct, which have traditionally been grouped into families by appearance and habit. As an easy for instance, loons are not remotely related to grebes, but there are worse and weirder ones! I'd be happy to sort this out more for you when I am less exhausted. But as a teaser -- Metaves (the older of the two as their name implies) MAY consist of the only the Hoatzin, frogmouths, nightjars, owlet nightjars, swifts, hummingbirds, pigeons, sand grouse, mesites, flamingos, sun bitterns, grebes, and the kagu. Coronaves would then consist of everything else that is not so to speak a chicken, a duck, or an ostrich!
And they were all Dino contemporaries-- well, maybe not Passerines, late Coronaves-- but they all may have emerged after the asteroid strike from a refugium in Gondwanaland where all the fossils are now buried beneath the Antarctic ice, far from Xixclub's impact... (you know there may be a few post K-T Dino fossils in NZ?!)
The book to get, already three years out of date but better than anything else on Bird Science existing, is The Inner Bird: Anatomy and Evolution, by Gary Kaiser. (Good to also have old S & Al as a reference, but it has no anatomy or illos as Kaiser does abundantly, just shitloads of cladograms). It not only covers all we know (surprisingly little) and all we don't about avian anatomy and then evolution; at the end it gives amazing examples from Kaiser's own lifelong field studies of the pelagic birds of the Pacific Northwest, some of whom nest miles inland high in rain forest trees, fly out to sea at night at about 90 mph, dive deep into the ocean to feed, and return by dawn! By the time you get to this part, he will have shown you what an improbable feat of engineering this all is.
I also have a ten page friendly online critique of it by Darren Naish, with just as friendly a response & update from Kaiser. The damn paperback costs over $30, which still beats the impossible $85 for the hardback that made me wait to read it until this year. The thing is, it is really not for graduate students-- it is written in recognizable and vivid* if occasionally recondite English-- OR for normal, un- bird- obsessed casual readers. It's for thee and me and Darren and Jonathan Kingdon and my blogger friend LabRat, demanding of a certain amount of knowledge. I can't imagine who exactly they thought would read it, but I am damned glad they took the chance!
I wonder why I care about all this but I do...
[* For instance: he says that the over- muscled, strong boned, airborne- for- two- years swifts, in the hand are made of "lead not feathers"-- because they fly so much.]
John Burchard asked me recently about the current evolutionary status of New World Vultures, and I realized my answer “reviewed” a book I had been meaning to. So consider the following to be my semi- official review of the amazing book The Inner Bird by Gary Kaiser.
The very latest-- this year's?-- dope takes them [ N W Vultures] away from storks & such, where they were allocated by Sibley and Alquist's pioneering , more- right- than - wrong, but limited- by- lack- of- data studies about 20 (?) years ago. They apparently have some morphological affinities with storks, but these may be due to parallel evolution. Now some people want to hook them up with the birds of prey again, but actually they're just floating loose.
Bird evolution is really just getting sorted. Paleognaths (ratites, tinamous), a single group including both Galliformes and Anseriformes (!) and two other groups (Metaves and Coronaves) all apparently existed before the K-T event. The last two groups are incredibly confusing because each contains birds that are morphologically virtually identical but evolutionarily and genetically distinct, which have traditionally been grouped into families by appearance and habit. As an easy for instance, loons are not remotely related to grebes, but there are worse and weirder ones! I'd be happy to sort this out more for you when I am less exhausted. But as a teaser -- Metaves (the older of the two as their name implies) MAY consist of the only the Hoatzin, frogmouths, nightjars, owlet nightjars, swifts, hummingbirds, pigeons, sand grouse, mesites, flamingos, sun bitterns, grebes, and the kagu. Coronaves would then consist of everything else that is not so to speak a chicken, a duck, or an ostrich!
And they were all Dino contemporaries-- well, maybe not Passerines, late Coronaves-- but they all may have emerged after the asteroid strike from a refugium in Gondwanaland where all the fossils are now buried beneath the Antarctic ice, far from Xixclub's impact... (you know there may be a few post K-T Dino fossils in NZ?!)
The book to get, already three years out of date but better than anything else on Bird Science existing, is The Inner Bird: Anatomy and Evolution, by Gary Kaiser. (Good to also have old S & Al as a reference, but it has no anatomy or illos as Kaiser does abundantly, just shitloads of cladograms). It not only covers all we know (surprisingly little) and all we don't about avian anatomy and then evolution; at the end it gives amazing examples from Kaiser's own lifelong field studies of the pelagic birds of the Pacific Northwest, some of whom nest miles inland high in rain forest trees, fly out to sea at night at about 90 mph, dive deep into the ocean to feed, and return by dawn! By the time you get to this part, he will have shown you what an improbable feat of engineering this all is.
I also have a ten page friendly online critique of it by Darren Naish, with just as friendly a response & update from Kaiser. The damn paperback costs over $30, which still beats the impossible $85 for the hardback that made me wait to read it until this year. The thing is, it is really not for graduate students-- it is written in recognizable and vivid* if occasionally recondite English-- OR for normal, un- bird- obsessed casual readers. It's for thee and me and Darren and Jonathan Kingdon and my blogger friend LabRat, demanding of a certain amount of knowledge. I can't imagine who exactly they thought would read it, but I am damned glad they took the chance!
I wonder why I care about all this but I do...
[* For instance: he says that the over- muscled, strong boned, airborne- for- two- years swifts, in the hand are made of "lead not feathers"-- because they fly so much.]
Miss Tig
Often photos here are either my point- and- shoots or pro- level stuff by the likes of Cat, Daniela, or Alpaugh saluki maven Herb Wells. But this recent one by John Burchard of his ("our") Tigger and friend racing straight away from the camera after a jack is what it usually looks like.
Links at Last
I have had to drop some as not timely-- but finally a feast of the good, the bad, and the strange.
Good: first, and rather belatedly considering how long I have been following these people's work (one has even bent an elbow at the Spur): three blogs by poets plus. First in line and I think newest is by New Formalist poet, writer of novels in the form of epics and a thriller in the form of a short poem collection, philosopher of biology and religion, martial artist, professor, and rare polymath Frederick Turner of Dallas.
Second is the blog, literary at least as much as musical, and website of border and all- round American (NOT just cowboy!) singer- storyteller Tom Russell, perhaps my favorite popular singer alive.
Third, the website of by- no- means- only cowboy poet Paul Zarzyski, among other things another half- Italian Catholic schoolboy like me. He may be best known for his haunting poem "All This Way for the Short ride" or its slightly different ballad version sung by Russell, but he has written on everything from a Midwestern boyhood to South Africa. Need I urge you to buy all these peoples' books and CDs?
More good? Daniela sent this link to a NYT article on hybridization that gives some credence to my arguments in the "Big Black Nemesis" post on Gyrfalcons and Sakers a while back.
And Anne Price of the Raptor Education Foundation, one of our honorary "Russians", sent one to this extraordinary archive of pre- Revolution Russian color photos.
Good at least in my book, if only for the sake of burying the hatchet and getting on with science: Richard Dawkins, our best evo writer and an outspoken atheist, has publicly signed a statement that he has no quarrel with religious people who accept evolution. Of course this act of charity and reason has made him an instant object of attack from whack jobs on both sides, especially atheist fundamentalists who denounce him as an "accomodationist". (The book mentioned, The Greatest Show on Earth, is excellent).
Bad? How about cannibalism, very early (with a somewhat sensational title), and relatively recent.
(Chas says further:
"Nothing new here–a Park Service archaeologist at Chaco Canyon said all these things to me about 1980, describing kivas full of tumbled skeletons that had been excavated in the 1940s.
"Funny thing, though — he would not discuss this topic in his office but only if I came to his house. “The walls have ears.”
"Back then, no one wanted to disturb the idea of the early Puebloans as peaceful, corn-growing ceremonialists. The Park Service still does not."
I have been told of deliberate re- burials, by federal employees, in confidence!)
More bad: "PETA" video. It is a spoof but full of real amazing idiot dogma. Did you know it is wrong to wear imitation leather because it mimics animal torture? That one must eschew medicine because it is tested on animals?--!!
Worse: "funny" video showing kids being blown up because they didn't want to do enough to reduce their carbon footprint. THAT'LL win hearts and minds. It has been yanked but the "apologies" seem more of the "sorry you didn't get it" variety.
Finally, what would we do without just plain WEIRD? Here are radioactive wild boars (HT Peculiar), and an extremely strong (55% alcohol), extremely expensive ale made with nettles and juniper and bottled in roadkill. (HT JDZ).
I think I need a drink.
Good: first, and rather belatedly considering how long I have been following these people's work (one has even bent an elbow at the Spur): three blogs by poets plus. First in line and I think newest is by New Formalist poet, writer of novels in the form of epics and a thriller in the form of a short poem collection, philosopher of biology and religion, martial artist, professor, and rare polymath Frederick Turner of Dallas.
Second is the blog, literary at least as much as musical, and website of border and all- round American (NOT just cowboy!) singer- storyteller Tom Russell, perhaps my favorite popular singer alive.
Third, the website of by- no- means- only cowboy poet Paul Zarzyski, among other things another half- Italian Catholic schoolboy like me. He may be best known for his haunting poem "All This Way for the Short ride" or its slightly different ballad version sung by Russell, but he has written on everything from a Midwestern boyhood to South Africa. Need I urge you to buy all these peoples' books and CDs?
More good? Daniela sent this link to a NYT article on hybridization that gives some credence to my arguments in the "Big Black Nemesis" post on Gyrfalcons and Sakers a while back.
And Anne Price of the Raptor Education Foundation, one of our honorary "Russians", sent one to this extraordinary archive of pre- Revolution Russian color photos.
Good at least in my book, if only for the sake of burying the hatchet and getting on with science: Richard Dawkins, our best evo writer and an outspoken atheist, has publicly signed a statement that he has no quarrel with religious people who accept evolution. Of course this act of charity and reason has made him an instant object of attack from whack jobs on both sides, especially atheist fundamentalists who denounce him as an "accomodationist". (The book mentioned, The Greatest Show on Earth, is excellent).
Bad? How about cannibalism, very early (with a somewhat sensational title), and relatively recent.
(Chas says further:
"Nothing new here–a Park Service archaeologist at Chaco Canyon said all these things to me about 1980, describing kivas full of tumbled skeletons that had been excavated in the 1940s.
"Funny thing, though — he would not discuss this topic in his office but only if I came to his house. “The walls have ears.”
"Back then, no one wanted to disturb the idea of the early Puebloans as peaceful, corn-growing ceremonialists. The Park Service still does not."
I have been told of deliberate re- burials, by federal employees, in confidence!)
More bad: "PETA" video. It is a spoof but full of real amazing idiot dogma. Did you know it is wrong to wear imitation leather because it mimics animal torture? That one must eschew medicine because it is tested on animals?--!!
Worse: "funny" video showing kids being blown up because they didn't want to do enough to reduce their carbon footprint. THAT'LL win hearts and minds. It has been yanked but the "apologies" seem more of the "sorry you didn't get it" variety.
Finally, what would we do without just plain WEIRD? Here are radioactive wild boars (HT Peculiar), and an extremely strong (55% alcohol), extremely expensive ale made with nettles and juniper and bottled in roadkill. (HT JDZ).
I think I need a drink.
Monday, October 04, 2010
Bad State Fossils
I am obviously busy, but with enough time to quote rather than link. In that spirit let me excerpt a HILARIOUS rant, also from Locavore Hunter, on Bad State Fossils. What were these people (with the possible exception of the ones who picked the Utah Allosaurus) SMOKING?
"I'm picturing the Kentucky state legislature being on a 12 month bender in 1986. It was time to name the state fossil and someone blurted out 'brachiopods!' and scrawled it onto a bourbon-stained napkin which was passed as legislation in a voice vote before anyone got sober enough to realize what they had done."
(Snip)
"Utah went balls-out and claimed the allosaurus. If I was Utah I would be putting that shit on the state quarters and the flag and pass a bill that requires the Utah Jazz to be re-named 'the Utah Allosaurus.'
"There must have been a contest in special ed classrooms in Vermont to come up with their state fossil because they seem to think its the beluga whale. Which is not even extinct. This is like it might as well be 'hamsters' or 'peanut butter.' Try harder."
(Snip)
"North Dakota must have looked south and thought 'we cannot even compete with this.' They went with 'shipworm-bored petrified wood.' Its like they thought about Arizona and asked, 'how can we be even lamer than petrified wood? What if worms put holes in it?' Choosing 'ship-bored petrified wood' may well have been an act of what amounts to hipster irony."
RTWT of course.
"I'm picturing the Kentucky state legislature being on a 12 month bender in 1986. It was time to name the state fossil and someone blurted out 'brachiopods!' and scrawled it onto a bourbon-stained napkin which was passed as legislation in a voice vote before anyone got sober enough to realize what they had done."
(Snip)
"Utah went balls-out and claimed the allosaurus. If I was Utah I would be putting that shit on the state quarters and the flag and pass a bill that requires the Utah Jazz to be re-named 'the Utah Allosaurus.'
"There must have been a contest in special ed classrooms in Vermont to come up with their state fossil because they seem to think its the beluga whale. Which is not even extinct. This is like it might as well be 'hamsters' or 'peanut butter.' Try harder."
(Snip)
"North Dakota must have looked south and thought 'we cannot even compete with this.' They went with 'shipworm-bored petrified wood.' Its like they thought about Arizona and asked, 'how can we be even lamer than petrified wood? What if worms put holes in it?' Choosing 'ship-bored petrified wood' may well have been an act of what amounts to hipster irony."
RTWT of course.
The Elegant ".275"
Locavore Hunter, in a post on teaching new hunters to build their own rifles, has a nice quote on my favorite cartridge, perhaps more commonly called the 7 X 57:
"The 7mm Mauser has a fascinating history that I won't get into just now, but suffice to say that the sort of person who favors a 7mm Mauser will find approving nods from the right sort of people. Its like driving a car powered by a straight six engine or listening to Dave Brubeck albums on vinyl."
My choice of cars (a Morgan?) or albums (Zevon, also on vinyl-- think I still have one or two) might be different, but I like the concept. Reading Vance Bourjaily 1st eds?
Hint: the post title points to a couple of examples of interesting history.
"The 7mm Mauser has a fascinating history that I won't get into just now, but suffice to say that the sort of person who favors a 7mm Mauser will find approving nods from the right sort of people. Its like driving a car powered by a straight six engine or listening to Dave Brubeck albums on vinyl."
My choice of cars (a Morgan?) or albums (Zevon, also on vinyl-- think I still have one or two) might be different, but I like the concept. Reading Vance Bourjaily 1st eds?
Hint: the post title points to a couple of examples of interesting history.
Beating the Drum Again...
Arguments in the saluki- tazi world again (and implicitly in the whole dog world) on closed studbooks, "invalid colors", the usual. And as always, sane and scientific counsel from John Burchard:
"I think we have to remember that the breed subdivisions within the "oriental
sighthound" group are to some considerable extent a Western artifact which does
not accurately reflect the reality on the ground. On the ground there are
several regional populations, each with a considerable range of phenotypic
variation, grading more or less insensibly into one another. The extent of gene
exchange among them is probably considerable but thanks to "breed politics"
(also a Western invention) I fear we are unlikely ever to get honest and
accurate sampling that would permit DNA analysis of the situation. Almost
everyone involved has some kind of agenda and most of those agendas are either
Western-inspired or based on a desire to have a "national" breed. Most of these
dogs are called "saluqi" in regions of Arabic speech and some variant of "tazi"
elsewhere. To me it appears that the phenotypic "fault lines" - to the extent
that such actually exist, which is far from obvious - do not particularly
coincide with the linguistic ones - nor, alas, with the "breed political" ones.
Introducing the Western "purebred" model, derived from 19th century notions of
human racial "purity", into this situation has IMHO not been beneficial.
"In other words, when we speak of "different breeds" here, it is probably a good
idea to use quotation marks."
"I think we have to remember that the breed subdivisions within the "oriental
sighthound" group are to some considerable extent a Western artifact which does
not accurately reflect the reality on the ground. On the ground there are
several regional populations, each with a considerable range of phenotypic
variation, grading more or less insensibly into one another. The extent of gene
exchange among them is probably considerable but thanks to "breed politics"
(also a Western invention) I fear we are unlikely ever to get honest and
accurate sampling that would permit DNA analysis of the situation. Almost
everyone involved has some kind of agenda and most of those agendas are either
Western-inspired or based on a desire to have a "national" breed. Most of these
dogs are called "saluqi" in regions of Arabic speech and some variant of "tazi"
elsewhere. To me it appears that the phenotypic "fault lines" - to the extent
that such actually exist, which is far from obvious - do not particularly
coincide with the linguistic ones - nor, alas, with the "breed political" ones.
Introducing the Western "purebred" model, derived from 19th century notions of
human racial "purity", into this situation has IMHO not been beneficial.
"In other words, when we speak of "different breeds" here, it is probably a good
idea to use quotation marks."
Quote of the Week
Heard on network TV no less, but still worth it;
"Better to write for yourself and have no readers than to write for your audience and have no self".
Credited to Cyril Connolly which rings true, and sounds like Enemies of Promise, but I can't find my copy. Readers?
"Better to write for yourself and have no readers than to write for your audience and have no self".
Credited to Cyril Connolly which rings true, and sounds like Enemies of Promise, but I can't find my copy. Readers?
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