Tuesday, 11 December 2007
Yes, high today was solidly in the mid-70s. Oops, nope, just checked. Seventy-EIGHT. Whew!
And huge amounts of ice north and west of here (especially Oklahoma and Missouri; flights cancelled in Chicago—whatta mess!).
Screwy weather, no doubt about it!
Monday, 10 December 2007
Two brothers in a waiting room.
And, honestly, before we left the house, JCB said, “We don’t really need the laptop do we? Jim has his….”
Sunday, 9 December 2007
Doh!
I can hardly believe it took me until today to realize that burning candles, fireplaces, and campfires add to the carbon footprint!
Saturday, 8 December 2007
The share of the population possessing college degrees in the 1970s is the best predictor of which northeastern and midwestern cities have done well since then.
That is, northeastern and midwestern cities in the US of A….
Edward L. Glaeser says this in an article about Buffalo’s potential for “coming back” from the decline of this once-important manufacturing and transshipment hub.
Glaeser makes the point that however much tax/government money flows into the community, and however wise and effective are the projects that money is used for, what really makes the difference are citizen-originated entrepreneurial undertakings that effectively use human capital. Glaeser cites Boston and Minneapolis as examples of that kind of turn-around.
What Glaeser doesn’t mention, at least in this article, is that both those cities also have important, prominent, and vibrant university and medical communities that maintained their eminence throughout the second half of the last century. I keep thinking both have to have been important components of the mix of factors that allowed the reinvention/survival of those cities—factors that aren’t prominent in dear old Buffalo….
You will not be surprised to know that I read Glaeser’s article while thinking about Detroit and other cities in my home state. Same huge population and economic declines as Buffalo. Same elevated percentages of poor(ish) and generally poorly educated people. And the educational and medical training and treatment nexuses of the state are not in Detroit. Not good odds….
I also wonder if there are parallels among European cities, once prominent in transportation networks webbed among ports along coasts or rivers….
Friday, 7 December 2007
Mexican field turned over with moldboard plow (rather 16th C in design), probably pulled by an ox.
The Byzantine plow was, technically, not a plow at all, but a sole ard.
Boy, there’s a term you don’t see every day. “Sole ard.” Kinda makes your knees weak, doesn’t it?
FYI, apparently a sole ard scratches the surface rather than turning it over like the plows we see today. The tool is suitable for shallow tilling, as in arid areas, and requires less effort to use than moldboard plows (less force is needed than to overturn the soil).
Bryer, Anthony. 2002. “The Means of Agricultural Production: Muscle and Tools,” in The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, vol. 1, Studies, vol. 39. Edited by Angeliki E. Laiou, pp. 101–13. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. Page 107.
Thursday, 6 December 2007
The Botanist keeps up with the modern world mostly through reading the NYT daily. So he guesses at pronunciation. Example: C D roam (for CD-ROM). And: blodging (for blogging, commonly recorded as blahging here, which adds to the confusion, I guess).
The WashPost reports that the Japanese make more blog entries than any other nationality, at least according to Technorati data (and how accurate is that, the Scientist in me asks). They apparently do it via texting on their mobile phones.
Pfffffffft. If I had to do it that way, well, you’d be reading something else every day! Like about some lady’s weekday lunch, or other “chatty postings”….
Wednesday, 5 December 2007
Cousin S is a very talented potter—she gave us a lovely pair of bowls that are my current favorites!
Post-T-giving turk soup looked great in it.
So did this lamb and spinach dish—with lots of cilantro.
Tuesday, 4 December 2007
Even when the library’s computer tells me I’m at the top of the list of people requesting a book, it can take as much as two months for the volume to arrive at my branch, for me to pick up. This adds an additional layer of mystery to what books I will have to read simultaneously.
I just finished Ha Jin’s new book, A Free Life, about a Chinese man and his family who emigrated to the US before the Tiananmen Square massacre. Circumstance then led them to a northern Atlanta suburb, where they owned and operated a restaurant (the author taught here at Emory for a time), and the years passed. Ha Jin crafted a good tale, but the epilogue and appended poems (authored by the hero at the end of the tale) make the volume truly special.
The other book I’m reading is non-fiction and a couple of years old, but still pretty recent. It is River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze, by Peter Hessler, about Hessler and a pal who teach English in Fuling, a city on the Yangtze near the Three Gorges Dam. I haven’t gotten far in this volume, so I don’t know where Hessler gets with it….
Together, the two provide interesting insights into modern China, and the concerns of individual citizens. I still can’t imagine living in modern Chinese mega-cities, with those high population densities and pollution levels….
Monday, 3 December 2007
The cynic in me says let’s check back in a year and see if Brad Pitt’s initiative to rebuild New Orleans and the Gulf Coast residences in innovative, affordable, and green ways still has traction, and has produced as planned.
BTW, the GBH was standing in a tree today. Not far above the water, but still. Standing on a branch.
Sunday, 2 December 2007
Perhaps against all odds, we spotted our friend-of-the-week again. S/he provided an unnoticed backdrop to two photographers…. As we departed the park, we could see the weather change flowing across the sky above, so that although we had arrived in sunshine, we left under overcast skies.