4 November 05
Pepperoni Ballots
The Davis Enterprise isn’t hurting for advertising these days. Next Tuesday in a local election the town of Davis will decide whether to allow a 1,864-unit housing development called Covell Village on the north side of town to go forward or not. Voices are running high, to say the least. Today’s headlines read “Tactics assailed: Covell Village criticized for ‘smear’ campaign”. The article goes on to describe events in this past week of early voting:
In the past week, Yes on X [the Covell Village project] was stopped from passing out free pizza coupons on the UC Davis Quad to students who gave proof they had voted; a Yes on X campaigner was asked to remove himself from working at the campus polling station; and a complaint was filed with the California Fair Political Practices Commission alleging that Yes on X is underreporting its campaign expenditures.
Not that the No on X folks are exactly innocent. There are a couple of entries in today’s two-page spread of letters to the editor from people who were either for Measure X or undecided on the project who were shocked and dismayed to see their names used in an anti-Measure X advertisement.
Opinions on the project range from it being sensible New Urbanist development to something that will cause horrible traffic problems and will bankrupt the city. Personally, I don’t believe that the housing mix will be very affordable, despite proponents’ claims to the contrary.
Not that we get to vote on the matter, living on the other side of the county border. At least this means we can courteously avoid engaging with those who will accost us tomorrow for votes at the Farmers’ Market.
3 November 05
Leaked, But Live
The project I’ve been working on for months got leaked to the press yesterday, so it’s now available. Online.
Conservation in California: what makes it hard, and what will make it harder. Read all about it.
2 November 05
Be Obscure Clearly
Those who are fans of Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style will be pleased to learn that this classic work has been turned into an operatic song cycle. It received its first performance last month in the reading room of the New York Public Library, the accompaniment performed by the Omit Needless Words Orchestra.
1 November 05
Sharp-tailed Surprise
I got up this morning and did my usual rounds of blogs, email, work email, news, etc.
My work email is where I get local bird reports. Mostly these are about the arrival or departure of our regular birds.
Not today. A sharp-tailed sandpiper was reported late yesterday afternoon at the Yolo Bypass. This is an Asian species, well off-course. They are known in birding circles as one-day wonders; they usually spend a day somewhere and then move on. It’s not wise to dally if one’s been reported in your backyard…
I duly headed over there at around 7:15, had seen the bird by 7:40. I told the folks who were there I’d report it to the list as having been refound by Michael Perrone.
Tonight, I get home from Hebrew class, and find there is a SECOND sharp-tailed sandpiper at this spot.
31 October 05
On Spokesweasels and Bark Mitzvahs
In the spirit of Word Spy comes the Double-Tongued Word Wrester dictionary, which describes itself as a “growing dictionary of old and new words from the fringes of English.”
Fitzmas, anyone?
30 October 05
Avian Flu as Halloween Costume
I spent Friday afternoon helping some TV reporters from San Francisco while they interviewed Wildlife Health Center Director Walter Boyce—again—on the threat of avian flu from wild birds.
A reporter called Walter Thursday afternoon from Vermont saying there was a black-tailed gull on Lake Champlain, a bird that by rights should really be in the Sea of Japan, and did it pose any kind of flu threat? Poor Walter. He hadn’t had breakfast or lunch but he tried to answer as best he could, calling from Southern California to see if I knew anything about this bird (I didn’t, though I’ve seen one in Rhode Island) and whether it might be a vector for AI H5N1 (avian flu, the scary kind) (yes, it might, according to a Japanese paper published in 1982).
The Friday San Francisco reporters were interesting and after the interview we were able to talk about the world and Harriet Miers and Colin Powell and what might happen. I invited a couple of guys from the New York Times over for dinner last week after they’d locked their keys in the trunk. There are way more boring folks to run into in the parking lot as you leave to go home, for sure. The problem is that now there are so many of them. For now. Once the pandemic hits nobody will be the slightest bit interested in wild birds as vectors…
Above, left, I’m dressed as avian flu, talking to a veterinarian and a vet tech on either clicker-training (the witch is an authority on the subject) or West Nile Virus (the crow is an authority on THAT).
29 October 05
Valles Caldera
During my conference in Albuquerque, we went on a field trip to the Jemez Mountains and the Valles Caldera National Preserve. This is the best preserved location of a caldera complex volcano in the world, about 30 miles in diameter. This is a view of one of the volcanic domes in the caldera, Cerro La Jara, which is visible from NM Highway 4.
28 October 05
Rain
I hesitate to celebrate the arrival of rain when it’s such a problem for others, but, well, the rain’s arrived.
The smell of damp earth. Gone are those hot dusty days when you could hardly breathe. The grass alfalfa field has a few rogue sprouts of wheat that have gone bananas.
I got Numenius from the airport this evening. He has many sketches from the Jemez mountains, a place where there’s also very low rainfall.
It feels like time to snuggle and give thanks for the rain.
27 October 05
Champions
I’ve been off in Albuquerque at a meeting this week. This has meant that I got to watch a good bit of the World Series from my hotel room. As everybody knows by now, the Chicago White Sox won their first World Series in 88 years yesterday. It was a very good series. Although the White Sox swept the Astros, all of the games were close. Tuesday night’s game lasted 14 innings, and the final game was a pitcher’s duel ending in a 1-0 Sox victory. Congratulations to all the Chicago fans—the Sox played masterfully!
25 October 05
Using Language
Today I co-taught a class on Culturally Inclusive and Non-Violent Language. Here’s why this is important:
“Keep your thoughts positive
Because your thoughts become your words
Keep your words positive
Because your words become your behavior
Keep your behaviorf positive
Because your behavior becomes your habit
Keep your habits positive
Because your habits become your values
Keep your values positive
Because your values become your destiny.”
—Mahatma Gandhi