The Nature of Things

  A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : A Black-bellied Whistling Duck stands as sentinel on a rotting stump in Brazos Bend State Park. They are among the most numerous ducks in this area year-round. Every evening just after sunset, hundreds of them pass over my yard on the way to their nighttime roost. And, yes, they really do whistle as they fly. *~*~*~* Here are seven environmental takeaways from the 2020 election season. *~*~*~* This was the week that the United States officially left the Paris climate agreement , making it the only country in the world to back out of the agreement. Vice-president Biden has pledged to rejoin the pact if he is confirmed as the next president. *~*~*~* Here's how Jeff Bezos is spending his $10 billion Earth Fund. *~*~*~* The irruptions of winter finches in the boreal forests southward are driven by a phenomenon called "mast seeding." Simply stated, it refers to evergreen trees that depend upon the wind for p...

  This is only the second of Fredrik Backman's novels that I have read, but I'm getting the definite impression that he writes character-driven stories. Never more so than in this case. His Anxious People are eight random people who are brought together in a would-be hostage situation in a small town in Sweden after a hilariously botched bank robbery and the two police officers, father and son, who are sent to deal with the situation. Each of these flawed characters has his or her unique way of viewing the world and Backman's genius is that, even if we don't agree with those views, he makes us understand that character's perspective and how it was formed. He does it insidiously, bit by bit so that we scarcely even notice what is happening, but in the end, we are able to understand a world-view that may not be our own, but that is legitimate within its own context. That is not a small thing. One of his tools in accomplishing this remarkable feat is humor. Regardless ...

  Inspector Rebus is long retired now from the Scottish police force. Suffering from COPD, he can no longer easily manage the stairs to his apartment and so he and his dog, Brillo, are moving into a ground floor apartment that has recently become available. Assisting him with the move is his longtime colleague and friend (and surrogate daughter) DI Siobhan Clarke.  In the midst of the move, his real daughter Samantha frantically calls her father to say that her partner, Keith, has been missing for a couple of days and she doesn't know what to do. She also admits to her father that she had been having an affair with a resident of a local commune and that Keith knew about it. Samantha, Keith, and their school-aged daughter live in a remote part of northern Scotland. Rebus, fearing the worst and knowing his daughter will be a suspect if something has happened to Keith, packs his bags, leaves Brillo in Siobhan's care, and prepares to head north. Meanwhile, Siobhan has been assigne...

 I have cataract surgery scheduled for tomorrow. I expect to be absent from the blogosphere for a few days.

This poem rattled around in my head all last week. I think it was all those pictures of lines of people around the country waiting patiently, or impatiently, but waiting to vote. Millions of them. More than nine million in Texas alone. Nothing is more hopeful than the sight of people exercising their constitutional right to select their leaders. That's not exactly what Maya Angelou was talking about in this poem; she was referencing the history of Black people and racism in this country. But the words seem to fit our current situation as a nation. Decency and honor have been trodden into the dirt over the past four years, but they still exist. And now it is time for them to rise and assert themselves.   Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave... Still I Rise by Maya Angelou You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, ...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment :  The first of the winter's Eastern Phoebes have arrived. I heard the first ones of the season calling this week. That's always a welcome sound. *~*~*~* At last, we are nearing the end of the election season. If Biden should win, it offers the United States the chance to once again join the community of nations in the Paris Accord and pledge to fight climate change . *~*~*~* The damage that has been done to the environment by the current administration's "meat cleaver" assault on wilderness areas is almost impossible to overstate. *~*~*~* Though many journalists seem to believe otherwise, Joe Biden's climate policy which emphasizes a transition away from the use of fossil fuels is actually quite popular with the public. *~*~*~* The current administration is taking action to strip protections from Alaska's Tongass National Forest and allow logging there even though the move is very unpopular...

  When we first meet Edie she is an assistant book editor at a publishing house in New York. She is a 23-year-old Black woman whose main focus in regard to her workplace seems to be sleeping with as many of her male colleagues as possible rather than actually engaging in doing the work. Not that these sexual adventures appear to provide her with any pleasure; instead it is evident that she seeks them out as a way of escaping from self.  It is interesting to read the descriptions of corporate life as seen through Edie's eyes. At one point, we get her take on the "diversity" offerings of her publishing house: These include "a slave narrative about a mixed-race house girl fighting for a piece of her father's estate; a slave narrative about a runaway's friendship with the white schoolteacher who selflessly teachers her how to read; a slave narrative about a tragic mulatto who raises the dead with her magic chitlin pies; a domestic drama about a Black maid who, li...