The Monument that Montreal Swallowed

By: | December 25, 2015

left, children of Goose Island / right, The Black Rock

When I travel outside the US, I use an app called OffMaps. It loads up a map of whatever city you chose onto your phone, so even without service I can at least have some sense of where I’m going. There are lots of apps that do this, and probably ones that do it better than OffMaps, but it’s what I’m used to. And there’s a feature that OffMaps offers that I really love. You can chose to download just the map, or you can chose to download the map and all the Wikipedia pages related to that map.

This means that I can walk around in a place and read about all the stuff I’m seeing, at least as far as Wikipedia has entries on things. It also means that I can browse through all these Wikipedia entries looking for interesting monuments or tidbits.

This summer I went to Montreal to see some Women’s World Cup games. And while browsing OffMaps I saw an entry for something called Goose Village. Already in my mind were images of a whole delightful village full of geese, waddling along tiny cobblestone streets. But when I clicked through to read the entry, I learned that the reality was much darker.

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The Undead: A Holiday Rant

By: | December 24, 2015

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It’s the holiday season so, of course, I’ve been binge-watching The Walking Dead. Something about this time of year makes the still-unbitten characters’ lives appealing. Minus the blood-oozing zombies, life is uncluttered. There are no commercials screaming that Santa’s sale on Christmas socks ends Friday, no light displays at the mall flashing to the beat of Grandma Got Run Over by a Raindeer, no fist fights in Walmart (next to the inflatable manger scene, for Pete’s sake!) over the last 60-inch TV. That in-your-face commercialism that loads up our senses with garbage simply doesn’t exist.

Think about it: During a zombie apocalypse, each surviving person has no choice but to set aside childish things and put his or her best skills to work. Someone plants a garden, someone else builds walls. She patches up the wounded, he goes in search of supplies. Everyone, because it’s necessary, learns to shoot, stab, or wield a machete. That same necessity forces creativity, which comes in handy when rebuilding society. No one cares about stuffing a cart with plastic amusements or getting the best parking spot at Sports Authority.

I apologize for getting a late start on my holiday rant—no doubt Santa is already tying back his beard in prep for his windy travels. But is it ever too late to rant, really? Because for some of us, the Christmas season, with all its sparkling energy, crashes in uninvited and wrestles us to the floor. And it bites.

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Give a Science Writer a Stage

By: | December 23, 2015

Moon ManThe Devil had two tattooed women in tight skirts holding a rope taut on stage. One he told to stand on her toes while the other crouched slightly. The rope between them showed a slight angle downward, which the Devil said expressed global mean temperature decreasing slightly from 1998 till now.

The Devil’s data was cherry picked from satellite records from NOAA.

His two stubs of horns caught the light as he laughed about using scientists’ own data against them. He explained that global warming is a hoax and climate change is the best bet if you’re a scientist.

“Of course climate change is going to happen,” the Devil preached. “It’s called job security.”

Michael Soulé, one of the founding scientists of conservation biology, stood from the audience and objected. All heads in the theater turned toward the 79-year-old man, his noble, bald dome shining as a spotlight fell on him.

Soulé then eviscerated the Devil’s argument.

I’d planted Soulé in the audience for this purpose. Soulé is a friend of mine. The Devil is a friend, too, a bold climate change denier I’ve known for years. Pitting the two against each other in front of an audience of 175 people might have been unfair. The Devil didn’t stand a chance. Continue reading →

Redux: Science Plus/Versus Religion

By: | December 22, 2015

6244584202_15591757f7_bI don’t think much about the climate debates; the problem seems so multivariate, and each part of it so difficult, I don’t see a solution.  Accordingly, I really appreciate the people who do think about and cover it because goddam, it really needs covering.

Anyway, when I read about the Paris agreement, I was most struck by all those countries with all their agendas still agreeing that the scientists knew what they were talking about, while this country — this science-rich country — is full of blowfish with no scientific credentials all over the media, still arguing about whether warming is real.  I don’t mean that the science is a slam-dunk because it never is, but this argument didn’t seem to be about science.

And that reminded me of a post I wrote that I liked, about arguments in which the arguers are talking past each other from points of view that are nonoverlapping but still confused, about what happens when this confusion happens between two brothers.  I hope you like it too.

 

Thou Shalt Watch This

By: | December 21, 2015

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The People of LWON have spoken. As promised, here is our annual list of what to watch over the holidays. For more recommendations, please refer to last year’s list.

Erik: It’s hard to make a suspenseful drama around the Revolutionary War. “Ooo! Who will win? The scrappy Americans or the evil redcoats? I just don’t know!” And yet, somehow the AMC show Turn does just this. Not only does it weave a fascinating and riveting tale around the country’s earliest spy ring, it paints the war in a nuanced light where the sides of this iconic struggle are blurred. And Samuel Roukin creates easily one of the most evil and fun-to-watch characters on television today.

Jennifer Holland: Romantic comedies often suck, but I love the wacky show Catastrophe, one of the Amazon Prime offerings. (Yes, you have to pay for Prime to see it, but lots of people do, so I figured it was worth including here.) Sharon Horgan is funny and real and wonderfully crass, and you just want to hug Rob Delaney because he’s exactly the guy we all wish we could bring home. Together they are hilarious and sweet and totally organic. There’s only one season so far, so it’s not a huge commitment. Give it a go. Continue reading →

The Last Word

By: | December 19, 2015

PARISrally

December 13-17, 2015

Michelle’s job as a climate change reporter feels like working a crime beat in a lawless nation. Compared with the natural, abysmal state of international climate negotiations, the Paris agreement is something she celebrates, however briefly.

Christie, meanwhile, is not impressed. The Paris agreement doesn’t include shipping or aviation, and it relies on technology that doesn’t exist. More than that, it requires something we don’t possess: restraint.

Guest poster Siobhan Roberts follows a mathematical genius as he gets his head examined, subverts the examination, and charms the examiner.

We’re desensitized to the image of the flag at half-mast, says Cameron, as Flag Protocol inflation makes it a frequent event.

The week was capped off with our annual What To Read list for the winter holidays, soon to be followed by What To Watch.

Image: Paris rally by Takver via Flickr

Thou Shalt Read This

By: | December 18, 2015

The holidays — one of the few times of year when the decision to pick up a book should never be preceded with the question, “But have I finished All The Work?”. Today, the People of LWON pick up a tradition we started last year, providing a handy list of great reading.  

Erik Vance : I recently read The Maltese Falcon for the pure cheesy irony of it. I wanted to experience that overwrought, noir style – that “the dame had legs that reached the skylight and a snub-nosed .38 in her handbag that showed she meant business” kind of sensibility. What I found was an entertaining, thoughtful book that was pure fun. The characters felt real and the plot kept me intrigued. I now see that the film noir movies that came afterward bastardized the genre. And if you live – or have ever lived – in San Francisco, you simply have to read it. The streets and the landmarks are instantly familiar and yet bizarrely out of synch with the techie hipster town that it is today. It’s not a long read and you’ll be glad you did.

Helen Fields: I am slightly late to this party, given that it won the Man Booker Prize in 2009, but oh my gosh, Wolf Hall is wonderful. It’s the first in a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell, an advisor to Henry VIII, and covers the period when the king was trying to get out of his first marriage so he could marry Anne Boleyn. The book is engrossing–I kept catching myself wanting to tell friends the amazing gossip from court today–and is engaged with so many things I care about: textiles, plants, animals, weather, and the lives of women and children, all through the eyes of this one man. Like this, when Cromwell visits Thomas More: “They go out to the aviary; they stand deep in talk, while finches flit and sing. A small grandchild toddles in; a woman in an apron shadows him, or her. The child points to the finches, makes sounds expressive of pleasure, flaps its arms.” A warning, though: It’s not what you’d call an easy read. The author pulls a goofy trick with pronouns, referring to her main character as “he” even if the “he” might more reasonably be assumed to refer to someone else. It can be confusing. But it’s so worth it. Continue reading →

Halfway

By: | December 17, 2015

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We had been driving across the Bay Bridge into San Francisco when I noticed the flags. They were everywhere, on top of the silvery tall buildings, on top of the squat red-brown ones, even on some places that seemed too precarious to fly a flag. They all unfurled themselves halfway down the flagpole, making the air around them gray with the electricity of the unusual.

I asked my mom why they were like that. I don’t recall her exact words, but in my memory the answer was this: Because something terrible has happened, and the whole country is in mourning.

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