Quote of the Day
David Zetland: Blogs are the future of academic debate. Now we need to figure out how to connect them to tenure.
Archive of entries posted by jfleck
Elephant Diaries: Connecting the Dots on the George Will Affair
There is a line to be drawn, it seems to me, connecting the events of the George Will affair and my elephant diaries (the series of posts in which I try to sort out the past and future of my industry). In short summary, the affair illustrates both the way new information ecosystems have developed …
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It Ain’t Rainin’ Down In Texas
Richard Seager plays his traditional role of scaring the crap out of Westerners: What is permanent drought? It’s pretty much just like it sounds. When I ask (with serious journalistic intonation, I might add) how long a permanent drought would last, he answers simply: “It would just become the new climate.” Duh. (h/t Laura Paskus) …
Washington Post Publishes Mooney Reply to Will
The Washington Post published Chris Mooney’s reply to George Will’s recent climate columns. I’ll cherrypick my favorite bit, but encourage you to read the whole thing: Consider a few of Will’s claims from his Feb. 15 column, “Dark Green Doomsayers”: In a long paragraph quoting press sources from the 1970s, Will suggested that widespread scientific …
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Elephant Diaries: Cleaning Out the In Box
Between the university economics class I’m taking and the various stuff people are actually trying to pay me to do, I’ve been too busy to pay proper writerly attention here to a number of important events and discussions. Let me just dump a few things quickly, and let you click through to read what smarter …
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Wednesday Bird Blogging (Bike Blogging?)
I almost crashed the bike this morning, distracted as I zoomed on the bike trail beneath Interstate 25 near the north end of Albuquerque. The bridge abutments are prime swallow turf, and I was looking to see if any have returned from their southern sojourn. I almost took a header into the trailside railing, and …
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The Least Surprised Woman in America
Win Quigley on why it wasn’t really a black swan: [E]very morning my wife and I spend a half hour to an hour reading the newspaper before we walk our dogs. Every morning for many months, up until the real estate market collapse, Bonnie would read the real estate ads and ask the same questions: …
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere, Colorado River Edition
From today’s newspaper, a look at decision-making in the face of uncertainty on the Colorado River: Trying to follow the science of climate change and the Colorado River, it would be easy to throw up your hands. Very smart scientists (Hoerling among them) have come up with very different answers about how climate change might …
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Calloway on Stegner
From Larry Calloway: I asked Wallace Stegner if he could define the history of the West, expecting a Frontier Thesis answer consistent with his Wilderness Letter and “the geography of hope.” He leaned forward as cool as his heavy drift of snowy hair and said: “One big real estate deal.”
Stuff I Wrote Elsewhere: A Business Exec Approaches Climate Change
From today’s business section (adwalled): “There is no bigger risk that can impact you long term in our business than climate change,” Sterba, chief executive officer of PNM, told the Journal in an interview.