Evolution, we are often reminded, conducts itself at a glacial pace. It throws its dice and picks its favorites over thousands of generations—plenty of time, we wearily explain, for a functional eye to develop. By the same slow token, this process, life’s old standby for adapting to new environments, will not be fast enough […]
Month: October 2018
Half the people I know are sniffling, hacking, sneezing; and the other half are getting over it. Is it colds? the flu? sinusitis? For the last two weeks, I’ve had something wicked that’s had unfortunate and not entirely related sequelae (I use that word, “sequelae” every chance I get), and when I told the nurse […]
My own pile of good ideas I’ve had and forgotten is smaller than AG’s — probably he’s just brighter than I am. But this is a deeply depressing cartoon. AG doesn’t think so. His title for the download is: good_artists_copy_great_artists_steal_and_the_greatest_artists_dumpster_dive_. _________ https://abstrusegoose.com/589
This post originally appeared Dec. 17, 2017 On Tuesday, I texted my friend Michelle a brief video clip of a polar bear. The bear is starving, all jutting hips and elbows, its fur sparse except for a thatch along its spine and Clydesdale tufts around its plate-sized paws. As with any bear, there is something […]
This is a picture of a rift in our world. It was taken June 21 at Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano, in a rip called Fissure 8. What a remarkably utilitarian name for a tear in the planet. I was captivated by images like these all summer, and I forgot about them when my attention turned to […]
I’m not sure where the idea first came from. I think it was tossed around in a comment section – here on LWON, maybe, or on a Facebook post. And it seemed like a great idea. But it also seemed like a lot of work. It turns out, if you want to do something that […]
It’s embarrassing enough that it took me 12 years to go to Channel Islands National Park, especially since I see the islands almost every day. Last month, I got on board the dive boat that would take us to the place they call the Galapagos of North America. At last! The captain said something about […]
Dear readers: Everything is terrible. It feels like the beginning of the end of the world. Or maybe the middle of the end of the world. My brain spends its days vacillating between wild panic and stubborn denial. My denial actually takes the form of obsessive online research, which is why I have wasted approximately […]