The Nature of Things

    A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment : White Ibises  in flight photographed off South Padre Island, Texas. *~*~*~* An Environmental Protection Agency report that was delayed for years by the previous administration was released on Wednesday and the news is not good. The report documents the changes that are a signal that  climate change caused at least partly by human activity is intensifying  and negatively affecting public health and the environment. *~*~*~* In other EPA action this week, the agency  ordered a controversial refinery  on St. Croix in the Virgin Island to be shut for 60 days because it poses an imminent threat to human health. The refinery had been permitted to open by the previous administration. Since February, it had showered oil on local residents twice, spewed sulfuric gases into the surrounding area, and released hydrocarbons into the air.  *~*~*~* New research indicates that a third of  global ...

  Christopher Fowler's Peculiar Crimes Unit (PCU) series is a favorite with my husband who has read about half of them. (There are twenty books in the series so far.) Periodically, he recommends the reading of them to me and I say that I will get to them. As a matter of fact, I have read two of them; the first one, Full Dark House , I read in 2014 and the second one, The Water Room , I read in 2017. Now it's four years later and I decided it was probably time for number three. So on to Seventy-seven Clocks . The chief detectives of the PCU are two elderly men, John May and Arthur Bryant. May is the dapper, organized one who follows clues where they lead. Bryant is the disheveled, instinctive, aging hippie type. Their skills complement each other and together they are a formidable team. The events of this book take place in 1973 and the idea of the narrative is that the events are being relayed to a reporter by Bryant at a later date. The plot of the novel involves a large, unru...

First of all, it must be admitted that not everyone has the blessing of an admirable mother. In fact, there are and have been some pretty awful mothers in the world and to the children of those mothers, all I can say is I'm sorry.  I did have an admirable mother and I learned many things from her, mostly from her actions rather than her words.  I think perhaps the most important thing I learned from her was empathy, caring for others. She spent her life caring for others. She had had a lot of tragedy in her life. The first one was losing her mother when she was only ten years old. She was a devoutly religious woman and I can still remember as a child hearing her pray that God would allow her to live until she could see me grown up. Of course, I did not then understand the source of the grief that led her to make such a prayer.  Because she had suffered loss, she understood the loss suffered by others and she always made a special effort to be there for them, to offer what...

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment :  A Clapper Rail with one of her chicks. There were four altogether, but I could never get them all to cooperate and pose for a picture. They were photographed at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge on the Texas coast. *~*~*~* The previous administration in Washington had seriously weakened the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which is the main legal protection for migratory birds in North America. Now the Biden administration has proposed its new rule that will revoke that change and restore the protections originally provided by the 102-year-old law.  *~*~*~* Last Friday was Arbor Day which has been marked by Americans for 149 years. The emphasis of the day is planting trees but it is just as important to protect and preserve the ones that we have . *~*~*~* The Biden administration has canceled all construction of the southern border wall that had been financed with funds from the Defense Department's budget. It is not cle...

  Libertie is the daughter of an African-American homeopathic practitioner in pre-Civil War New York.  Her father had died years before and her mother was left with the full responsibility for supporting herself and her daughter and raising the daughter alone. Her mother's fondest dream for Libertie is that she should go to medical school and that the two of them should practice the healing arts together. Both mother and daughter are freeborn, but the mother is so light-skinned that she could pass as White and this works to her advantage later when she is able to treat both White and Black women at her clinic. Libertie, in contrast, has very dark skin like her father.  The mother is active in helping the enslaved reach freedom. One of those she helps is a man known as Ben Daisy who arrives at her clinic in a coffin. Libertie becomes fascinated with Ben Daisy and his pet name for her is "Black Gal." But he is a very troubled man who is haunted by the loss of the woman he l...

  Writers writing about writers writing is a popular theme with today's novelists. It feels like every second book I pick up to read has a writer as the protagonist. And here we go again with Jen Silverman's We Play Ourselves . Her book is about a struggling playwright named Cass, now thirty years old, who has labored in New York for years trying to get her plays staged. We meet her at what might be her breakthrough moment. She has been named co-winner of a prestigious literary prize and her play will be produced with a talented director in charge. The only fly in the ointment is her co-winner, Tara-Jean, a college student playwright barely out of her teens. Her play is to be produced also. On the opening night of Cass's play, she can hardly contain her excitement and nervousness. She feels that the performance goes well and at the after-party, she anxiously waits for the publication of the reviews. The most important one, the Times review lands with a thud. The reviewer m...

According to the calendar, we are now well into spring in the northern hemisphere and headed toward summer, even though some parts of the northernmost hemisphere hardly seem to have advanced beyond winter yet. But Emily Dickinson assures us that summer is indeed coming. In my part of the world, it usually comes sooner than we would wish and lingers long after its welcome has worn thin. In Emily's world, it seems the most perfect of seasons. It will be Summer - eventually by Emily Dickinson It will be Summer — eventually. Ladies — with parasols — Sauntering Gentlemen — with Canes And little Girls — with Dolls — Will tint the pallid landscape — As ’twere a bright Bouquet — Tho’ drifted deep, in Parian — The Village lies — today — The Lilacs — bending many a year — Will sway with purple load — The Bees — will not despise the tune — Their Forefathers — have hummed — The Wild Rose — redden in the Bog — The Aster — on the Hill Her everlasting fashion — set — And Covenant Gentians — frill...