Today was the annual butterfly census here in Sewanee.  Every year the North American Butterfly Association sponsors hundreds of butterfly counts across the United States, Mexico and Canada as a way of gauging changes in the butterfly population.  Butterflies are considered indicator creatures -- if global climate change or pollution or habitat ( Read more... )

A delayed BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award this week.  I was going to post it yesterday afternoon, but (this is a true story) just as I sat down to write the thing, a thunderstorm moved into the area and we lost power.  No computer.  No satellite, no internet.  Fortunately I hadn't actually started writing, so I didn't lose anything, but that's why ( Read more... )

This week's BOW (Buffoon Of the Week) Award is a bit different from recent ones, in that we'll be focusing in depth on a single issue question.

I'll begin by stating the obvious:  There was plenty of buffoonery this week -- the staffers with Barack Obama's Presidential campaign who refused to let two Muslim women sit behind the candidate during a ( Read more... )

After going on a bit yesterday about how glad I was that I no longer had a dog, I was reminded this morning that dog ownership does have its benefits.  As I mentioned in my previous post, we're caring for our friends' dog, Violet, a medium-sized, short-haired mutt. She's sweet as can be, but because she's just barely out of puppyhood she has A LOT ( Read more... )

Kudos to newly elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who yesterday followed through on one of his main campaign promises.  Rudd, the leader of Australia's Labour Party, which swept to power in November's national elections, ousting the utterly misnamed "Liberal Party" and its leader, John Howard, vowed throughout the campaign to add ( Read more... )

On Saturday, the voters of Australia finally voted Prime Minister John Howard out of office.

Howard, for those of you who don't know, was the dominant political personality in Australia for the past decade.  He led Australia's Liberal Party (the equivalent of our Republican Party) and continually outsmarted and outmaneuvered the hapless leaders of ( Read more... )

Never mind what it says on the calendar, for those of us in Tennessee, November began last night. Yesterday was warm -- 70 degrees -- and it rained, which we needed desperately. It felt like early April, though the air smelled like fall: that slightly sweet smell of leaf rot that seems always to accompany an autumn rain ( Read more... )