Yearly Archives: 2011

Lynn Margulis Has Died

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i-1c9ffe9bf605754c1423eb6a49ec7057-225px-Lynn_Margulis.jpgLynn Margulis died yesterday at her home in Amherst at the age of 73.

Margulis is best known and best remembered for her endosymbiotic theory. You know what this is because you took basic biology and it is now part of every textbook. Notably, at the time Margulis published this idea, it was rejected and continued to be shunned for some time, but eventually was accepted. Margulis made a number of other important and accepted contributions to evolutionary biology.

Margulis has also pressed forward with a number of other theories (either hers, or as an advocate for others) that are just plain wacky. But they only deserve the briefest of mention at this time of her death.

Margulis, who began her University training at the University of Chicago at the age of 14, earned an MA from Madison and a PhD from Berkeley (1963) won the National Medal of Science, was a member of the National Academy, and had many other awards and accolades. She was married to Carl Sagan, and their children are well known for their various contributions to science, science writing, and technology.

Image from wikipedia

I am the Angry Left. But if I was in Congress I’d still be polite.

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We know that the right wing revels in stupidity; Willful stupidity and well practiced stupidity are thought to be the way elitist anti-populous tax-the-middle-class Republicans capture support from the masses. Seems to work rather well. But increasingly this trope of (ig)noble ignorance is being supplemented by large doses of mean spirited in your face angry verbal assault. Imagine a member of congress saying to an expert witness at a committee hearing “As long as I’m sitting here and you’re sitting there, I can call you whatever I want.”

Seriously. The last time I heard that kind of talk in real life was in a bar, late at night, everyone was drunk, and the words were slurred.

I would like you to look at two freshly produced essays reflecting on one recent incident:

Continue reading I am the Angry Left. But if I was in Congress I’d still be polite. →

Manspace

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In an old colonial-looking restaurant that served ten kinds of steaks, I met up with an experienced explorer and a local farmer, to have dinner and discuss plans for an upcoming research project that would be managed by The Explorer and that would partly be on The Farmer’s land, which adjoined a rather extensive and remote wilderness area. I don’t remember a lot about the conversation, but one memory of the evening stands out: That was when The Farmer, rooting around in a bag for some cash to tip the waitress, pulled out this big-ass gun … a small cannon, really … that was in the way. For just a moment, the gun came out of the bag and went on the table, then back in the sack. I wondered if this was a random event or if it was a not too subtle way to let everyone around see that This Particular Farmer was packing Major Heat. I’d seen that move before in this part of South Africa, which is where, by the way, this dinner was being enjoyed.

Earlier that day, The Explorer, whom I had commissioned to be my field logistics manager, drove me out to a possible research site — an island centered in one of Southern Africa’s more significant rivers. The island had once been part of a farming project, now defunct, and at some point a levy was built there to divert water into an irrigation system. The now defunct and overgrown levy was about four kilometers long, flat topped, and exactly the width of a vehicle’s wheel-base plus 30 centimeters. There were numerous erosional cuts on both sides of it, so as The Explorer drove our truck along the top of the vegetation-covered berm, the wheels would take turns dropping into these open-ended Potholes-Of-Death. I wondered what would happen if we hit an erosional gully that was a bit bigger than the others, or two at once, and just as I was wondering about that, The Explorer uttered some words that made all that seem less important. Continue reading Manspace →

Why do NASCAR fans hate our troops?

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Several NASCAR fans booed two women who were announcing the start of a race (with the famous words “Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!!”). The women were part of the “Joining Forces” initiative, which is in support of military families. The women stood next to retired Army Sgt. Andrew Barry, who was wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is unclear why NASCAR fans hate America.

Source

“Gentlemen Shall Lean to the Left”

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Today, you get into a car and just drive. In the old, old days, you walked. Somewhere in between, you could, under certain circumstances, get in a stagecoach and go somewhere.

I’ve never done that (well, actually, I have, but that’s another story), but I have spent a lot of time flying around in tiny airplanes that get filled to capacity with weight in the form of humans and their luggage. When you do that, the pilots tend to weigh everything and add it up to make sure they know exactly how much there is and to not go over some limit, and they tend to put things where they want them. I’ve seen pilots ask a particularly large or small person to sit in a particular seat, for instance. The point of doing that is not only to control weight, but also to achieve balance (mainly between the front and back ends of the aircraft).

Continue reading “Gentlemen Shall Lean to the Left” →