Here I am, all “I-work-at-a-nature-center”-y, and I don’t know what the heck these plants are.  I mean, I know they’re not ferns, or tomatoes, or irises, or vultures - the list could go on.  As I didn’t file this in the Science category, though, I don’t feel any compulsion to identify them.  So there.

When I went for a stroll at Fenner Nature Center today, I didn’t go with a theme in mind.  Seriously - who does that?  I did seem to end up with one though.  The branches and barks below are what caught my eye today.

Technically, these next two aren’t photos of branches or barks.  They’re photos of ice – and I don’t say that to be flip but on the chance that it’s not obvious what they are.

Not bad for such a dark and grey day.

I’m more of a photographer than a Photographer.  What I mean to say is that, if you were to do such a thing, you’d measure my camera in terms of cubic centimeters and not cubic feet like Photographers.  It’s more a camera than it is a Camera.  Don’t misunderstand – I like my camera, which was a fabulous gift from my lovely wife, a LOT.  I pretty much have it with me wherever I go, and am quite often happy I do.  I snap shots of our daughters at the Glo Golf course, sunrises, cats’ antics, spaghetti that I spilled all over the kitchen floor, leaves, birds – and occasionally a really nice shot.  The more I use it, the more of its capabilities I “get”.  My only concern with it has to do with wearing it out.  So, it’s a great camera.  It’s just not one of those swanky pieces of Borg-like technology that real Photographers lug around.  Mine fits in my shirt pocket; theirs fits in their back seat, depending on the model of automobile they’re driving.

What all that leads up to – and, again, if you’re a Photographer, please leave now – is this series of photos I nabbed recently.  If I’m half the Birder I think I am, these photos are full of House Sparrows - or, as we out in the field like to call them, passer domesticus.  During the six years I spent working at a frustratingly effectiveness-challenged Audubon Society organization, I met a few folks who could identify birds with their Latin names, which is nearly as impressive as my Dad reciting all of Michigan’s counties.  In alphabetical order.  One of my colleagues, though, would sometimes refer to LBJs – little brown jobs, or all those sparrows, et al, that are, well, little and brown and otherwise difficult to distinguish.

What I tried to do here was capture the birds in flight, which in theory makes for more interesting photographs than birds eating.  You can judge for yourself – unless you’re a Photographer, in which case I want to politely but firmly ask you again to leave now.

Incidentally, Peterson’s Eastern Birds Field Guide has this to say about House Sparrows: “Familiar to everyone.  Sooty city birds often bear a poor resemblance to clean country males with the black throat, white cheeks, chestnut nape.  Females and young lack the black throat; have a plain dingy breast and a dull eye stripe.”  Familiar, sooty, plain, dingy, and dull – not the most effusive description of an animal I’ve ever read.  No matter – I still like them.

Along with Ted Black in his Birds of Michigan, Roger Tory Peterson also states that House Sparrows were brought to North America in hopes of controlling crop-eating insects in the 1850s.  As they’re vegetarians, their introduction didn’t have the effect the farmers had hoped for.  The House Sparrows did alright, though, as they’ve colonized almost the entire United States and thrive in the ”human-altered” environments that are so prevalent now.  Interestingly, they aren’t really sparrows, but are more closely related to what are called Old World Sparrows, or Weaver Finches.  Maybe the sparrows were not happy about being associated with their plain and dull cousins?  I hope not.  Really, every bird – be it an LBJ or an Ingido Bunting – is worthy of our caring attention.  I hope these less-than-stellar shots inspire at least a bit of that.

Our older protégé is a little girl who has spent much of her life thinking she’ll grow up to be an Egyptologist and, in letting that wane of late, is now thinking she’ll be an astrophysicist.  Ancient Egypt?  Astronomy?  I can’t fathom where she’s gotten ideas like those…  Her little sister has, all along, aspired to be a veterinarian/zookeeper/animal shelterer.  Again, where does a child pick up such a zany idea like compassion for animals?

Seriously, if I can have as much effect on two little people as I do, then certainly you can as well.  Your children are paying attention to you, and to a great degree, using you as an example.  The example, probably.  So whether you think you have influence on them or not, you do.  I’m (hopefully) learning that it’s not to be taken lightly – parental influence comes with responsibility, and blessings.  Seize it, is my advice.

What all that is has to with this photo I took almost a year ago is not entirely clear.  I’ll just mention that the littler drops are absolutely following the bigger drop – much like our children are following us.

That was a bit of a stretch, I know, but there it is all the same.

Suddenly, the table tennis table is ridiculously small and the court in Rod Laver Arena is just enormous!

No worries, though.  Adjustment or not, I’m ready to absorb some tennis.

By the way, two days in to the tournaments, one of my forecasted champions (Sam Stosur) is out – but I bet she’d do marvelously in Wii table tennis.

Cheers!

Too often, politicians treat certain generally accepted scientific theories as “ideas” that still need validation and proof.  They tell the masses that “it’s just a theory” and that “nothing has been proven” and that “we need more and better research done before we can accept it” and that, by the way, “we’re certainly not going to fund such research”.

Global warming as caused by human activity is the poster child for these mistreated scientific theories.

The problem – or, well, one of them – is that the politicians define scientific theory incorrectly.  To those who do this type of thing for a living, a scientific theory is an explanation based on currently accepted evidence and that can be disproven.  To the politicians, though, scientific theories are open to debate by the non-scientifically-literate.  They hold science up to insurmountably demanding standards.  “Show me” is their mantra, but they have no intention of accepting any evidence.  It’s frustrating to me that we seem to want unreasonable people leading our country.

So I say it’s time science, and voters, started pushing back.  It’s time we started demanding of politicians what the politicians are demanding of scientists.

When a member of congress, say, or a candidate for president says to us, “My plan for the economy is such and such, and will result in this and that, and is light years better than any plans from that yee-ha in the other party,” we need to treat their claims as a “theory”.  We need to demand that they back up their statement with evidence.

“Oh yeah?  Your tax plan will create 400,000 jobs within weeks?  SHOW ME.  Tell me exactly how it will work, and spare no details.”

We don’t get detailed explanations, because we don’t demand them - but I think we’d all be much better off if we did.

Cheers!

My best guess is that whoever was playing hide ‘n’ seek with him forgot about the game…

…and so he fell asleep.  He wasn’t all that well-hidden anyway.

I don’t guess at this point he really cared.

Cheers!

My favorite female singer probably should be Ella Fitzgerald, after all.  She’s fabulous, is from an era in which singers had only their voice to rely on and no electronic editing wizardry, and put as much swing into the standards as Benny Goodman or Count Basie.  She’s not my favorite, though.  Doris Day and Sarah Vaughn are similarly great, and similarly not my favorite.

Olivia Newton-John, she of my childhood crush that never entirely dissipated, is marvelous as well – but not my favorite.

I’ve liked Eithne Ní Bhraonáin - you may know her as Enya - ever since her “Orinoco Flow” made her wildly popular in the late 1980s.  Some will call her music, especially her more recent work, as redundant and boring; I say bring it on.  Her voice is fantastic for one song or twenty.  Loreena McKennitt is in many ways the antithesis to the current crowd of teenage “singers” who dominate the airwaves.  Any one of her songs has more intellect and depth than Katy Perry’s entire canon.  Neither she nor Enya is my favorite, though.

Along with the ’40s and ’50s, I’m admittedly partial to the ’80s.  Belinda Carlisle from the Go-Gos was great then, as was Susanna Hoffs from the Bangles, but they don’t come close.

As a bit of an aside, my daughters have more than once said that Geddy Lee of Rush sounds like a girl.  They have an argument.  I’ll add that Maurice White of Earth Wind & Fire hit some pretty amazing high notes in his time as well.  Tina Brooks and Gigi Gryce were super in jazz circles back fifty years ago - but they played saxophone, and, their names notwithstanding, were no more female than Geddy Lee.

What that leaves is this.  She’s obscure and she fronted a folksy-alt-indie band – two big strikes against her – and Harriet Wheeler is nonetheless my favorite.  She was the face and voice of The Sundays, who appeared while I was in college, made a few records, and faded.  There’s just something about her voice that hits a sweet spot in my brain.  She’s the one.

“Here’s Where The Story Ends” is maybe her most known tune; “On Earth” is perhaps what I like best of hers.

From:  Sid

Date:  6 January 2012

Re:  Sunsets and Sunrises

Bravo!

____________________

Without the atmosphere, all those photons arriving here from the Sun would do little visibly but light the place up.  Not that I have anything but enormous gratitude for that, mind you, but what happens to sunlight when it plows through the atmosphere at sunrise and sunset is sometimes truly phenomenal.

As anyone with a camera and a penchant for taking pictures of the sky at sunrise or sunset can tell you, the gorgeous skies at such times are fleeting, coming and going noiselessly and swiftly.  One might be leaving a park with one’s children (as in the first photo below), driving to work (the second), or glancing out a bedroom window while trying desperately to remember the reason for going into that particular room (third) – in these situations and many others, folks are happy to have a camera on their person.  I know I was.

In each case, the sky was significantly more colorful and, well, awesome than these pictures would suggest.  Whatever.  The girls were happy to stay at the park longer while I took the first picture and I was driving on a non-busy neighborhood street when I stopped for the second photo.  As for the third one – I never did figure out why the heck I went into that room.

Not surprisingly, I don’t know for sure what it is Stan is gazing at.  Nor do I know what schemes are waltzing through his head, although my guess is that they have to do with reaching the feeder more quickly and more often without me noticing.

Anyway, while I don’t really want the squirrels to hijack our bird feeders, sometimes I just have to ease up on them, sit back, and marvel at how determined - and adept - they are at reaching the smorgasbord that they seek.  This time I eased up and sat back with my camera.

Bon appetit, Stan.

As I write, it is 11:15 pm on Christmas Eve.  The children are sleeping, or at least being quiet and still, and from all appearances I’d say Santa and his reindeer pals have come and gone – really quite early, for Santa and for the children.  I didn’t see or hear a thing, but there it is.  Say what you will, but this time of year is brimming with the magical and the miraculous.

May you, and all of us, be aware of the magic that fills life – whether it’s right in front of your eyes or barely perceptible even with effort.  May we all be more aware of the miracle of Christmas, and allow ourselves to be affected by it.

That’s my wish for this evening.

Well, that, and a spaceship.

Happy Christmas!