Wednesday, September 28. 2005
We have two species of Scaup in North
America, but they look very similar, and
90% of them are Lesser Scaup. Unlike the Teal, featured last week, Scaup are divers, feeding on crustaceans (especially amphipods), mollusks, insects, minnows, and some plant material. They are long-time favorites of duck hunters (despite their anchovy-like flavor which I enjoy), with historically abundant populations along the Atlantic coast during migration, but their population has been unaccountably declining over the past decade. You can see their flocks resting in fresh or salt water, or wheeling in the sky like schools of fish, between October and February, with most birds wintering in the southern US and Central America. Their main breeding grounds are the northern boreal forests. More on scaup here. Does hunting have a measurable effect on duck populations? No. As with most critters, habitat is everything. We will bag a few bluebills next week, in Canada. And eat them, too, cooked rare. Never cook duck anything more than rare. And never with anything with an orange flavor - overpowers the duck. Cooked pears or figs are far better with duck.
The Scorsese Documentary I found it to be not very revealing, but a fun thing with great music clips, which I guess was the point. A good introduction to Dylan for those needing one. Man, did he look drugged out sometimes, but still produced on stage. I thought the best parts were the interviews from today.
 Melville
Call me Bird Dog. I would have to confess to being a Melville fan, having read everything he wrote that is extant, including Billy Budd a few times and Moby Dick more than a few. Far from being a daunting book, Moby Dick is pure fun, a rambling, shambling mythic tale decorated with all sorts of information and local color; truly a book as big as an ocean and as unruly. If Moby Dick is the ocean, then Billy Budd is a pearl in an oyster at the bottom of the ocean. Like all wonderful writers, Melville couldn't write on one dimension if he tried. But Melville was almost forgotten and lost until the 1920s. From Dirda's review of Delbanco's new biography: The life and afterlife of Herman Melville (1819-1891) present the greatest illustration in American literature, perhaps in world literature, of the Psalm "The same stone which the builders refused is become the head-stone." After the popular success of Typee: A Peep at Polynesian Life (1846), which led to the young Melville being dubbed "the man who lived among cannibals," he embarked on a literary career that went gradually, then precipitously, downhill. By the time he was 40 he had essentially abandoned fiction altogether, tried publishing poetry with comparable success (i.e., none), and finally resigned himself -- he was, after all, married, with four children and debts -- to spending the rest of his life as a customs inspector for the city of New York. When he died, the newspaper obituary misprinted his name as "Henry Melville."
 What is "transgender"?
The question came up at dinner with friends Saturday night. Lots of the wives were Smithies (in their 60s+, dare I say?) and they were talking about how their Alma Mater had become a haven for the sexually confused and deviant. They were nostalgic for the old Smith days of weekend trips to Yale and Dartmouth for a wholesome romp and some drinks and hopefully a husband. By skillful application of their charms, they all married very well indeed, and relatively happily too, if appearances are any measure (which they aren't). I had to admit that I had heard of transgender, but didn't understand it at all. So I tried to read up on it, and I still do not quite get it, but I can see that it all stems from this idea of "gender," a recent concept, sort of a wierd one, introduced by Dr. John Money, a shrink and a famous sex researcher at Hopkins. The notion is that one's anatomy and one's psychology are not always in sync. But I can reach back to medical school and psychiatry classes and, as I recall, Freud said that humans are all mixed up and perverted, psychologically anyway - whether it's conscious or unconscious, so I do not find the fact that many or even most people fail to fit a male or female stereotype particularly interesting - I never met anyone who did, unless they were either putting their best foot forward, or play-acting. We are all made differently. And when it comes to sex change operations, I would no sooner get near one of those than to an abortion. For me, such things are not medicine - they are barbarism and not any part of the Hippocratic Oath I took - which I take to forbid abortion by physicians, in addition to the famous forbidding of cutting "those laboring under the stone". (That was for lowly surgeons, not physicians.) So as not to look stupid, among the things I read was this piece by Carl Bushong, which I found to be basically happy horse s-, basically true things about people but drawing drastic conclusions from superficial psychology. And this "true self" stuff sounds a little too pop-psychology for me, a little too self-involved. (I guess everyone is kinda transgendered, but who worries about it? Well, I guess adolescents and young folks do a lot of navel-gazing, especially where it's in fashion. Still, if youth wants to navel-gaze, I'd suggest that they worry more about their character and about how they plan to make a living than about their "sexual identity" - if such a thing even exists. The kids today are spoiled, self-indulgent brats: didn't Socrates say that? And, in Socrates' day, seems like all the young folk were transgendering themselves silly in the gymnasium - the fellas, anyway.) But, at this point, I am out of my league and will ask Dr. Bliss to take this one on for me.
Observing the Foolish Master, Packing for Hunting Trip Gwynnie the dog just has to speak out: Whazzizname is crashing about the house, panting, with foam flecking his ample chins. Scary to hear about – appalling to see! Shouted comments to the innocent: “Have you seen my boonie hat?” Did you touch my blaze vest?” Where are my camo hat and jammies?” The innocent, and Gwynnie is as innocent as they come, stay clear. Whazzizname is going on his annual hunting expedition to upper Manitoba and is incapable of packing till the last minute – which, at his pace, is a couple of days in advance. The innocents don’t know what a boonie is, or why he needs a hat. “Chokes!” he shouts, “I never remember chokes! Oh, oh! Handwarmers, gotta find those too. Wonder if Bird Dog will remember everything?” Gwynnie is glad she’s a herding dog – what can you forget, the cow? “Look at those labs,” she says. “They have all that GEAR – electronic collars, camo jackets, bells, all the stuff from Orvis or Cabelas or Kevins. Stuff must drive them nuts!” Yet, still, Whazzizname grins with a blended expression of eager anticipation and deep satisfaction whenever he pauses to take a breath. Could it be he is remembering Manitoba Sunsets? 
Or chilly dawns? 
Or simply chatting idly with great friends? Whatever it is, it is an enduring mystery to Gwynnie and Whazzhername – but to Whazzizname himself as well. 
We failed, but in the good providence of God apparent failure often proves a blessing. Robert E. Lee
Tuesday, September 27. 2005
Media Whore gets herself Arrested Yup, Cindy finally did it. Wow, what a hero! Saw her happy face on Drudge this AM, but the photo is taken down now.
Odysseus Found? Like Pejman, I will take this story with a grain of salt. But fun to think about Ithaka.
A Plan for Fisheries Reasonableness finally enters the subject of preserving fisheries, and the Bush admin. is on the right side. The Commons.
Hillary Concerned about Free Speech on Internet From Drudge: "I don't have any clue about what we're going to do legally, regulatorily, technologically -- I don't have a clue. But I do think we always have to keep competing interests in balance." Meaning her interests, no doubt. Honestly, I do not like the sound of this. Wonder whether she might like the Chinese approach.
Choooo chooo Good timeline of railroad history. And the Central Pacific Railroad photo history website.
Gimme Some Money, Part 2 Katrina's flood waters woke the poverty pimps from their dormancy, but now the heavy hitters are getting on board - massive pork projects for LA. Quoted from Washington Times at The Corner: Louisiana Sens. David Vitter (R) and Mary Landrieu (D) tucked the request into their $250 billion Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief and Economic Recovery Act, the state's opening salvo in the scramble for federal dollars. The bill, unveiled last week, would create a powerful "Pelican Commission" controlled by Louisiana residents that would decide which Corps projects to fund, and ordered the commission to consider several controversial navigation projects that have nothing to do with flood protection. The Corps section of the Louisiana bill, which was supported by the entire state delegation, was based on recommendations from a "working group" dominated by lobbyists for ports, shipping firms, energy companies and other corporate interests. The bill would exempt any Corps projects approved by the commission from provisions of the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. It would also waive the usual Corps cost-sharing requirements, ensuring that federal taxpayers would pay every dime.
Glenn Reynolds on the Second Amendment and States Rights In 1995, before he achieved renown as Instapundit, Glenn published this piece (Click here: THE SECOND AMENDMENT AND STATES' RIGHTS: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT ) in the William and Mary Law Review to examine the Second Amendment from the states' rights (rather than from the individual rights) standpoint, and in the process is critical of casual Constitutional interpretation by talking heads. He concludes the article: The Constitution, and especially the Bill of Rights, is a package deal: It is all or nothing, and for each of us there are likely to be parts we dislike. Where such parts exist, the answer is either to live with them or to amend the Constitution, not to interpret pieces of it out of existence. There always will be a market for those who feel otherwise just as there always will be a market for "miracle" diets that purport to let people eat all they want and not exercise. But the Constitution, unlike the diet industry or the mass media, is not founded on giving the people what they want. We forget that at our peril, and as the mass-marketing of the states' right interpretation of the Second (p.1768)Amendment demonstrates, we appear perilously close to forgetting it now.
I think the right to bear arms is, or should be, an individual right, but the "thought experiment" was an interesting way to approach the issue of states' rights, and reveals Glenn to be a disciplined thinker.
Scopes II The so-called Scopes II trial begins this week in Harrisburg, PA., which concerns a Dover, PA school board's decision for teaching Intelligent Design along with evolutionary theory in biology classes. Frm the NYT piece: On the evolutionists' side is a legal team put together by the American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State. These groups want to put intelligent design itself on trial and discredit it so thoroughly that no other school board would dare authorize teaching it.
So here come the religion-haters and the Bible-phobics. Isn't the real issue, though, as it was in Scopes I, whether a local school board can make its own decisions?
Man thinks; God laughs. Yiddish saying
Monday, September 26. 2005
Admiral Nelson's t-shirt and other personal items to be auctioned. His undershirt expected to bring $500,000. Says Sotheby's re the Admiral: "He was remarkably brave in battle, but he also wanted recognition for this, and was remarkably weak in his personal life," Grist said. "He'd face the French and Spanish fleet much easier than he would face his first wife." Who wouldn't? Piece here.
 What's a Steamfitter?
One of those trade terms I've heard all my life, and sounds antique, but wasn't too clear on. They started out as the construction trade that handled the furnaces boilers and piping for residential and industrial steam heating and other steam-powered equipment, but nowadays steamfitters are the guys who do installation and maintenance of heating, ventilation, and refrigeration equipment. It's an apprenticeship trade, whose unions are generally closely associated with pipelayers, plumbers, and pipefitters. Pipefitters? Not sure how different they are from steamfitters and plumbers, but all kinds of industrial piping. Pipes and welding. Good, honest, physical work, not like mine. Photo of a nice steam boiler and spacious boiler room.
Katrina, Environmentalists, The Corps of Engineers, and Money Powerline highlighted this piece in the WSJ. Good. A sample: "...the Corps hardly has a record of rationality. It claims that Katrina produced surges higher than the levees that Congress funded it to build. But Louisiana State University's Hurricane Center found that "the flooding of most of New Orleans" came from breaches of floodwalls on canals adjoining Lake Pontchartrain; Katrina's surges did not pour over the levees but breached them because the Corps' floodwalls were shoddy. The barrier stopped by the lawsuit was designed to keep storm surges out of the lake, so it would have reduced the pressure on these floodwalls. And now, as we have seen, Hurricane Rita drove new surges into the lake. The Corps actually contributed to increased pressure from the surges on Lake Pontchartrain by building the little-used Mississippi River Gulf Outlet, a 76-mile long canal that destroyed 20,000 acres of wetlands. The Corps causes floods across the country by destroying wetlands and channeling rivers. Meanwhile, the federal government encourages construction in flood plains by providing flood insurance."
Gimme Some Money Trying to leverage the Katrina coverage into some cash. Star Parker: More than $7 trillion has been spent on poverty programs since Lyndon Johnson declared his "war on poverty" 40 years ago, with effectively zero impact on overall black poverty. Yet 40 years of failure doesn't seem to be enough to suggest to liberals, black and white, that their approach to poverty might be wrong. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and former Democratic Sen. John Edwards, among others, riding the post-Katrina poverty-in-America theme, are making predictable speeches calling for yet more government poverty programs. I'm not sure I want to let these folks off with an insanity plea, but you really have to wonder what it takes for liberals to add one and one and get two. It's a bit hard to buy the claim that Katrina suddenly made Americans aware of poverty.
Read entire.
Canada's GunScam, at Captain Ed Killer Dolphins Missing? At Ex-Donk. Howler reports on Ed Decker. Who he? Find out, and watch Howler rip the poor soul a new one.
Photos from the Anti-War protest Photos here. Gives you a good sense of who these people are. Thanks, Powerline. Protest posting from No OIl, too. Definitely Moonbats on Parade - their signs are revealing. Respectful disagreement, people? The Coalition Against Civilization Even wackier than the anti-war crowd. Thanks, LGF Men outnumbered by women on campus. This has got to be fun for the guys, unless half the women are transgender whatevers. At Instapundit
Another offering by Julian Beever, the English street chalk artist. Notice the way the guy steps around the "hole." 
On natural Disasters, from Barcepundit: 579. That’s the current death toll in Louisiana from the hurricane and catastrophic flooding. Terrible for the victims, their family, their friends. But also much less than the 10,000 widely predicted. And, BTW, much less than the more than 35,000 killed by a heat wave in Europe two summers ago. You recall the debate that set off about European heartlessness, racism and discrimination? No, neither do I." Read all of his comments on the latest news stories cause he is good:
Dylan Fest Seven short Dylan-related videos at BBC. And BBC's Dylan page here. You can follow the "Endless Tour" here. A piece by Scott, and a special Dylan page at The Independent. Mark your calendars, if you have not done so already. The Scorsese film "No Direction Home" will be on PBS Sept. 26 and 27. The DVD should be available around Sept. 20 on Amazon. The No Direction Home CD is available at Amazon. The Gaslight CD is at Starbucks. The Dylanologist and I were talking yesterday, wondering why Dylan has quit his guitar and returned to his first instrument, piano. We decided it was whim - not arthritis, as has been speculated. We also wondered whether his current touring band will ever reach the heights of his past bands. And we decided that, regardless of the interest in the Scorsese film, we'd be more interested in a current documentary about this fascinating and enigmatic character.
An Irishman is never drunk as long as he can hold onto one blade of grass to keep from falling off the earth. Irish Saying
|
