The Nature of Things

  A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : A Carolina Chickadee plucks a seed from one of my feeders. *~*~*~* As poorer, hotter parts of the world struggle to adapt to unbearably hot temperatures, scientists warn of the possibility of more deaths from the heat than from all infectious diseases. *~*~*~* The hyped media coverage of Asian giant hornets, so-called "murder hornets," has freaked out the public and threatens to cause persecution of perfectly harmless and even beneficial insects. *~*~*~* Following the example of our own government, Brazil's authoritarian regime is laying waste to the environmental protection laws of the country. The actions are being taken by executive decree. *~*~*~* Using satellite images, scientists have discovered eleven previously unknown Emperor Penguin colonies in Antarctica, which boosts the number of known colonies of the endangered birds by 20%. *~*~*~* Surfers on Sydney's Manly Beach got more thrill tha...

The story begins in 1999 at a luxury hotel in British Columbia. A woman with the unusual (for a woman) name Vincent is the bartender there. She is young and beautiful. Her half-brother Paul also works at the hotel. Paul had been a bit of a loser in life so far and Vincent had interceded to get him the job there.  Fabulously wealthy financier Jonathan Alkaitis owns the hotel. On a day that Alkaitis comes to visit the hotel, a sentence etched in acid appears on its large glass window. The sentence says, "Why don't you swallow broken glass." It isn't clear who wrote the message, but we eventually learn that it was Paul, at the behest of another guest at the hotel. The message was apparently meant for Alkaitis. Alkaitis, who is described as looking a bit like Santa Claus, is smitten with Vincent and he makes her an offer she can't refuse. She is to live and travel with him in the role of his trophy wife. She leaves with him and spends the next several years living a l...

This short book of essays by the wonderful writer, Zadie Smith, is chock full of wisdom and apt observations of the unique time in which we inhabit this planet. The book is only around 100 pages long, but it reads much bigger than that. The essays all appear to have been written in this year of the pandemic, some quite recently. There is one, for example, that references the heinous murder of George Floyd and the resulting social unrest as people have continued to take to the streets in protest. The writer says in her foreword that she has tried to organize some of her feelings and thoughts about events so far (which would have been the first half of the year) in this year that begins to seem more like a decade fraught with so much anxiety and stress.  "These," she writes, "are above all personal essays: small by definition, short by necessity."  I think my favorite of the essays is the one titled "The American Exception," from which I offer this extensive...

I'm not sure why it took me so long to read this book. I think it had something to do with my reaction to the television show based on The Handmaid's Tale . I watched the first season and found it interesting enough, but then as the second season veered away from the book, I couldn't take it anymore and I stopped watching. Thus, my mind just wasn't ready for a sequel to the book, especially if it was going to be anything like the television show. But finally, I guess curiosity got the better of me, so here we are. The Testaments comprises the statements or testimony of three women: Aunt Lydia; a young woman called Agnes Jemima who grew up in the nightmarish misogynistic authoritarian state of Gilead; and another young woman who was born in Gilead but whose mother managed to smuggle her out of the country and into Canada where she has been raised. We eventually learn about the connections between these three women. Aunt Lydia's testament is in the form of a memoir t...

There was a reference to this poem in the book that I am currently reading, and, not being familiar with it, of course, I had to look it up. I'm so glad I did for the poem seems to speak to our time even though it was written over a hundred years ago in 1917, another dark time in the world. It's quite long, much longer than the poems I usually feature here, but take time to read it all the way through and I think you'll find it very relevant to our era of pandemic and political chaos. Pay special attention to that last stanza: The world stands out on either side No wider than the heart is wide; Above the world is stretched the sky,— No higher than the soul is high. The heart can push the sea and land Farther away on either hand; The soul can split the sky in two, And let the face of God shine through. But East and West will pinch the heart That can not keep them pushed apart; And he whose soul is flat—the sky Will cave in on him by and by.   Renascence by Edna St. Vincent M...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : A pair of House Finches share a meal at my feeders. I almost always see these birds in pairs or family groups. *~*~*~* 2019 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists around the world. There were 212 murdered worldwide, sometimes by their governments and most often by those who want to exploit the environment. Colombia, with 64 deaths, and the Philippines, with 43, accounted for more than half of the deaths.  *~*~*~* The Northern California Esselen Tribe has regained at least part of its ancestral lands after 250 years with the purchase of a 1200 acre ranch near Big Sur. The land will be used for educational and cultural purposes. *~*~*~* If an animal or plant relocates into a new area because the warming climate has pushed them there, should that species be considered invasive? Scientists are studying that issue. *~*~*~* The US exiting from the Paris Accords on climate is bad enough in itself, but it...

This is the third in Joe Ide's IQ (Isaiah Quintabe) mysteries. I accidentally read it out of order but it didn't inhibit my enjoyment of the book. In fact, this is my favorite of the IQ books I've read so far. IQ's fame in East Long Beach has grown considerably. He has solved some high profile cases and now he is recognized wherever he goes. But he still takes the small neighborhood mysteries as well and solves them in return for bartered products or services. This does not sit well with his new partner, Dodson, his friend and former sidekick in some less salubrious past activities. Dodson has turned a page in his life. He has a wife and a new baby and he needs to be able to support them and to have the respect of the community. His demand as a partner is to be in charge of finances and to make sure that all cases in the future are accepted on a cash basis. IQ agrees but his heart really isn't in it. People in the neighborhood still expect to be able to barter with ...