What I did on my summer vacation
I got the scratches when I sorta got lost in the woods. Not really lost lost. But that’s a story for another day.
Archive of posts filed under the mind category.
Water in the desert, urban agriculture edition
Headed out on my bike ride this morning, I spotted our neighbor, Farmer John, in the front yard working on his food patch, and rolled up on the sidewalk to chat. It’s a lovely little garden – big robust tomatoes, some melons and a couple of rows of big, healthy-looking corn. Lissa and I have …
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Federal Money and Rural America
Update: I was just waving my arms here, but a commenter who actually knows what s/he is talking about has stepped in with some valuable assistance. So skip my post below and just read this: The data you’re looking for can be found here, at the county level: http://www.ers.usda.gov/briefing/ruraldevelopment/developments.htm Like any data set, it’s open …
Architecture or Just Art?
I get that Frank Lloyd Wright is one of America’s great artists. His works are magnificent, a thing to behold. But to count as one of America’s great architects, too, don’t his buildings have to actually work as buildings? Like, to not fall down and stuff? At more than 6,000 square feet, Wright’s Mayan-influenced design …
Giant Scissors, Carmageddon Edition
In honor of today’s Los Angeles Carmageddon, my new favorite giant scissors: Pat Brown and friends dedicate a section of the Santa Monica Freeway, courtesy KCET’s LA As Subject
Is the drought over?
It’s New Mexico: From the awesome Fuck Yeah NM Roadrunner
Thinking about the big dry
It rained this afternoon at my house. The physics of raindrops, I once learned, means that the largest raindrops falling out the bottom of a thunderhead hit first, and I was sitting in my office at the back of the house writing when I heard them banging onto the metal roof. I went out to …
On the persistence of anti-Semitism
Sad but fascinating work by Nico Voigtlaender of UCLA and Hans-Joachim Voth at CREI in Barcelona looking at the cultural persistence of anti-Semitism. They found that communities that blamed (and killed) Jews during the Black Death of the mid-1300s were more likely to also engage in violence against Jews in the 20th century: Pogroms during …
The secret handshake – a confession
Twenty-one years ago, I did a very bad thing. This is my confession. On the Public Record lists the 1979 California Water Atlas as one of the essential texts, describing it thus: Try to get your hands on one of the old California Water Atlas, put out in the 1970?s. They’re real big, bound in …
Magpies and Poppies
SACRAMENTO – My friend Judy Liddell*, wise in the ways of bird travel, tipped me to be on the lookout for the yellow-billed magpie while I’m in northern California. She knows whereof she speaks. I saw my first one on the roof of my motel this morning as I ventured out for breakfast. They’re everywhere. …