Wordless Wednesday: Common Buckeye

Poetry Sunday: A Copywriter's Christmas

'Tis the season, and here is a rather acerbic - but not inaccurate - comment on the commercial exploitation of that season.

A Copywriter's Christmas

by Margaret Fishback

The Twenty-fifth is imminent

And every known expedient

Designed for making Christmas pay

is getting swiftly under way.

Observe the people swarming to

And fro, somnambulating through

The stores in search of ties and shirts

And gloves to give until it hurts.

They're eyeing gifts in Saks' and Hearn's

And Macy's, not to mention Stern's,

While earnest copywriters are

Hitching their copy to the star

Of Bethlehem quite shamelessly,

For they are duty bound to see

That Peace On Earth Good Will To Men

Gets adequate results again.

This week in birds - #235

A roundup of the week's news of birds and the environment:

Red-bellied Woodpecker, a favorite visitor to backyard feeders.

*~*~*~*

Scott Pruitt, the man who will be nominated to head the Environmental Protection Agency, is an ardent opponent of measures to control and reverse climate change, a proponent of freeing up mining and drilling for fossil fuels, and as Oklahoma's Attorney General, has sued to block federal measures to protect public health by reducing smog and curbing toxic emissions from power plants. 

*~*~*~*

The Army Corps of Engineers announced this week that it would not allow an easement for an oil pipeline across lands held sacred by the Standing Rock Sioux people of North Dakota. The pipeline project has not been killed, however. The Corps has merely agreed to conduct a full environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act, to include an Environmental Impact Statement that considers alternate pipeline routes and offers room for public comment.  

*~*~*~*

The autumn of 2016 has been the warmest in U.S. weather history. The average September to November temperature was 57.63 degrees F, a full 1.05 degrees F above the previous autumn record.

*~*~*~*

Of the more than 740 worldwide species of birds that were added to the Red List of Threatened Species this week, 13 of the species have already been declared extinct. All of the 13 had been only recently identified by scientists but their situation was so precarious that it was impossible to save them. 

*~*~*~*

The extent of sea ice in both the Arctic and the Antarctic hit record lows in the month of November.

*~*~*~*

The Ringed Kingfisher, largest of the three kingfishers that occur in North America, has long been an occasional visitor to the Valley of South Texas, but it has now become a permanent resident there. The reasons for the expansion of its range may be complicated but probably have something to do with the warming climate.  

*~*~*~*

The tail of a therapod dinosaur from 99 million years ago has been discovered preserved in amber in a mine in Myanmar, and that tail has feathers! 

*~*~*~*

Thousands of migrating Snow Geese died when a storm forced them down and they landed in the acidic, metal-laden waters of an old open pit mine in Montana. This is not the first time this has happened. 

*~*~*~*

On a much happier note, the world's oldest known seabird has laid an egg! Yes, Wisdom, the Laysan Albatross that was first banded in 1956 and is believed to be 66 years old, has returned to the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge where she nests. She has laid her egg and is incubating it.

Wisdom and her egg. She doesn't look a day over 50, does she? 

*~*~*~*

The Red List of Threatened Species also shows that the giraffe is on the brink of extinction. There has been a devastating collapse in the species' numbers with as many of 40% of the animals having been lost within the last thirty years. 

*~*~*~*

Who would have thought that choosing a bird to represent a country could be so controversial? Well, many mild-mannered Canadians are outraged at the thought of the Gray Jay being their national bird. There were four other finalists in the contest: Canada Goose, Snowy Owl, Common Loon, and Black-capped Chickadee. Each bird has its passionate advocates.

*~*~*~*

The New York metropolitan region is already seeing the effects of sea level rise and there are estimates that the area could see as much as one foot of sea level rise within the next 15 to 20 years, which could be devastating.

*~*~*~*

The Greater Adjutant Stork, once loathed by Indian villagers, is now loved by those same villagers because of the work of ornithologists who have educated them to the worth of the species. The endangered bird is making a comeback, thanks to the work of those scientists and the support of villagers. 

*~*~*~*

The Red-cockaded Woodpecker, America's most endangered woodpecker, is endemic on the grounds of Fort Bragg, one of the world's largest military installations, located in North Carolina. It features the longleaf pines that the bird favors. The same is true of many military installations across the Southeast U.S., creating a strange alliance between birds and bombs.  

*~*~*~*

Laura's Birding Blog has an appreciation of the oft unappreciated (i.e., hated) House Sparrow. The little sparrow that loves humans so much that it chooses to live in close proximity to humans around the world is actually declining in population in many areas, and, difficult as it may be to believe, if these trends continue, the bird could be in trouble.

A future endangered species?

The Likeness by Tana French: A review

This book started out as maybe a two-star read if I were feeling generous, but as I kept turning the pages, it kept moving up the scale and, by the time I reached the denouement, I was finding it hard to put it down even for a minute or two.

My first problem with the book was that its premise is just so unbelievable. It strays from the thriller concept straight into the fantastical world of science fiction. 

But as I got further and further into the plot, that ceased to bother me. The characters were so interesting that they moved the story along and built suspense until it finally reached the breaking point.

That unbelievable premise, briefly, is this: Cassie Maddox, one of the detectives on the Dublin Murder Squad that we met in Into the Woods, has now moved on to Domestic Violence after the debacle of the Woods case. Her beloved but now estranged partner, Rob Ryan, was moved into a desk job. 

Even before she worked on the Murder Squad, Cassie had worked in the Undercover division. While there, she and her boss had created a persona for her called Alexandra (Lexie) Madison and she had worked undercover using that name.

Now, Cassie is called to the scene of a murder in the countryside outside of Dublin where she finds Detective Sam O'Neill, another of her former colleagues on the Murder Squad and now her lover, and Frank Mackey from Undercover, the person who created Lexie Madison all those years ago. 

When Cassie is shown the dead body, she is shocked to see a woman who looks very much like her. The murder victim's name, according to her ID, is Alexandra (Lexie) Madison.

It develops that this Lexie Madison was a Ph.D. candidate at the local university and she lived in a house in the countryside, near where she died, with four other Ph.D. candidates. She had lived with them for four years and they were all close friends, functioning very much as a family.

Now Lexie is dead and the police have no clues as to the identity of her murderer. 

But Cassie looks SO much like Lexie that Frank Mackey, the undercover guy who has a streak of sadism, says why don't we keep her death a secret - just say she was injured - and then put Cassie in her place to play Lexie once again and flush out the murderer? 

And Cassie agrees to this!

And all the four friends back at the big house, the friends who have known her for four years and know all of her quirks and habits accept her! They believe she is Lexie!

Can you see why a reader might have a problem with this?

This is a very strange and self-contained group of people who live in a very strange house and provide all of each other's needs for love and friendship and family. The group is not liked or accepted by their neighbors in the village. In fact, they are actively hated and are the victims of vandalism, graffiti, and intimidation. It's very much an us-against-them situation.

Their group provides a feeling of belonging for these outsiders and outcasts. Even Cassie/Lexie finds herself seduced by the warmth of the group. There's nothing that really transcends that feeling, and as the story progresses, we see that that is what it is really about: Paradise found and, eventually, paradise lost.

Tana French builds her story and the tension slowly and, up until late in the book, I was still very much in a quandary as to who killed Lexie. And, maybe even more importantly, who was Lexie? 

In the end, all - well, most anyway - is revealed and we are left wondering what Tana French is going to titillate us with next. 

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wordless Wednesday: Red Admiral

Moonglow by Michael Chabon: A review

Michael Chabon just gets better and better as a writer. While I can't claim to have read everything that he's written, each book of his that I have read has been better than the last. Moonglow is the best one yet and it's hard to see how he can improve with the next one.

This book takes the form of a family memoir and it seems to have been at least loosely based on Chabon's own family, although he assures us that it is, in fact, entirely fictional. But the third person narrator of the book is named Mike Chabon and the stories that he tells us were told to him by his grandfather as he lay dying.

In 1989, Mike traveled to his mother's house in Oakland to be with his terminally ill grandfather. Over ten days at the very end of his life, the grandfather told his grandson stories of his eventful life. This was a unique experience in a family known for its silences. Mike said that 90% of what he knew about his grandfather was learned in those ten days.

The grandfather's story begins before World War II when, as a Drexel Tech graduate, he joined the Army Corps of Engineers. He relates his wartime experiences chasing rocket technology and Wernher von Braun; his experience with the liberation of a concentration camp and the rescue of slave laborers; and after the war, his attempt to find meaning in all of those experiences and to search for a purpose in his life. 

His purpose might have been found when he met and fell in love with a beautiful woman, herself a victim of the war and the mother of a small daughter. The woman's own experiences had left her wracked by mental illness and, throughout their life together, she and Mike's grandfather struggled in fits and starts for stability and mental equilibrium for her.  

The grandfather's tale is a story of financial success and disaster, of companies founded and lost, of violence and the consequences of violence. At one point, the grandfather had spent fourteen months in prison because he had tried to garrote his boss who had just fired him. But through it all, he was always a man who could fix things and it was his joy as an engineer to find solutions to problems. That was one of the things that first drew him to the woman who was to become his wife.

From the first that was part of his attraction to her: not her brokenness but her potential for being mended, and, even more, the challenge that mending her would pose.

After the grandfather's death, Mike's mother asks him if he thinks her parents were happy in spite of all the problems and challenges they faced - the failures and the repeated mental health breakdowns, the disillusionment with men thought to be heroes who were found to have feet of clay, and all the silences and lies that had failed to acknowledge the truth of their family's lives. Mike replied that he thought they were happy. 

She asks him when he thinks they were happy. "In the cracks," he replies.

That answer washed over me like a tidal wave of enlightenment, for aren't we all happy "in the cracks"? The cracks that exist between the failures and disappointments of our lives. Happiness is never a constant thing. We are always beset by sadnesses and setbacks, but thank goodness for those "cracks" that always come to give us hope that things can be better.

Michael Chabon makes me laugh sometimes with his writing, but he also makes me cry, and I felt tears on my cheeks as this book ended. It was the poignancy of the story, but also the shock of recognition that this family's story made me feel about my own family. And, too, I was just sad to see this marvelous book end.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: The late year

While searching for a poem to feature this week, I came across this one from 2006 by Marge Piercy and I was so struck by its imagery that I felt I had to share it with you.

I loved the idea of the black silhouettes of migrating birds perching on wires and reciting liturgical prayers. And I can certainly relate to studying the granite pitted and pocked rockface of my life as it emerges from the veil of greenery "to be mapped, to be examined, to be judged. "

For this season of holidays is also a time of reflection and repentance as we count our days and look forward - perhaps - to a fresh start in the new year.

The late year

by Marge Piercy

I like Rosh Hashonah late,
when the leaves are half burnt
umber and scarlet, when sunset
marks the horizon with slow fire
and the black silhouettes
of migrating birds perch
on the wires davening.

I like Rosh Hashonah late
when all living are counting
their days toward death
or sleep or the putting by
of what will sustain them -
when the cold whose tendrils
translucent as a jellyfish

and with a hidden sting
just brush our faces
at twilight. The threat
of frost, a premonition
a warning, a whisper
whose words we cannot
yet decipher but will.

I repent better in the waning
season when the blood
runs swiftly and all creatures
look keenly about them
for quickening danger.
Then I study the rockface
of my life, its granite pitted

and pocked and pickaxed
eroded, discolored by sun
and wind and rain -
my rock emerging
from the veil of greenery
to be mapped, to be
examined, to be judged.