In the week leading up to a rare total solar eclipse, we bring you a daily lineup of eclipse writing from the People of LWON. Ann, always the contrarian, looks right when everyone is looking left, and down when everyone else is looking up. This post first appeared in 2017. So, LWON is eclipsing, on into […]
This first ran on April 5, 2021. In the years since, the Wisley blues remain fine and flourishing (“flourish,” from “florire,” to flower, HA!); the Siberian squill have moved around but are still in little bunches except at my neighbor’s house where they’ve grown into cities; the anemones continue to look demure and squirrel-resistent. And […]
I don’t know how I managed to not know this for my whole life, but here it is: the Americas were the last continents to have people on them. By around 30,000 years ago, all the other continents had people on them. We didn’t have any people. Nobody. Empty of people. Why not? How do […]
I have had occasion to mention January before, once with hard eyes and grit and once with faith and hope. I mean, it needs both, doesn’t it. Another option is always to become one with the cold, dark skies. You finally get through the infinite holiday season, think you can relax for a minute, and […]
I first wrote this November 29, 2021, but I could have written the same take-home many times since and I could write it now. I mean, Elon keeps putting his Starlinks all over space, plus OneWeb and Planet and Jilin-1 keep putting all their satellite constellations all over space, plus the National Reconnaissance Office just […]
I’ve been interviewing an archeologist who’s famous for “sticking close to the data,” that is, not saying anything he can’t back with actual evidence. Reminding me of what I learned in my first year as a junior high school teacher: don’t make threats you can’t carry out, and that’s not as much a digression as […]
This ran July 10, 2020. Over the intervening few years, the kids have tapered off and finally stopped doing this, though they’re still uncontrollably attracted to those little red winterberries that they call birdberries. But on the whole, they’ve moved on to other things and currently it’s perfecting cartwheels (the older one is finally doing […]
I’ve rerun this post before, I think the last time was 2019 and the time before was 2014. I rerun it again now because 1) my Hungarian neighbor/physicist/co-obsessive and I have just shared our nearly decade-old Google doc of orange-peel data with another neighbor/chemist/neutral party because 2) in spite of my fearlessness below, my last […]