Scratchpad

I talked it over with my teen. She has posted her own glowing review of President Obama’s inauguration. Anything I could write would be derivative, besides her artwork is better than I can do. Instead I thought I would offer for quirky consideration a resolution spun from Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen’s celebration (from The Rural Blog). Resolved: “This Land Is Your Land,” at least the first three verses, would make a better national anthem than “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

My teen agreed to help me out here. She votes in favor of the resolution and prefers “This Land is Your Land” (1st verse):

This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me...

I vote for The Star Spangled Banner (1st verse):

O! say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?…

Part of our difference is likely generational (meant as a catch-all cultural thing); part of it involves accessibility, I am sure. The Star Spangled Banner is by its words unashamedly 19th century and harsh to an unfamiliar reader. For the sake of accessibility, I note that President Obama streamlined his use of Thomas Paine - making for better oratory:

“Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [and to repulse] it.”

I don’t believe Thomas Paine would have minded. Francis Scott Key would care more, surely, were Woodie Gutherie to prevail.

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01/17/09

A perfect storm

Filed under: General
Posted by: nnn @ 7:22 pm

(full)
The last time I checked, this is what my house looked like in Google Earth - from a summer time. The dimple in the middle marks my house, that is the chimney. We live beneath a canopy of oak, mostly. We also live among squirrels. Early on, my kids used to tell a lot of silly squirrel tales. Our chimney has a cap on it, in part because of an act of regulatory genius (cough), in the 1990’s my town required such devices so that creatures such as squirrels couldn’t enter chimneys. As for the squirrels, I’ve seen a few about recently, but I am less certain about their well-being these days.

Our oak trees usually produce a substantial crop of acorns in the fall. In some years they have produced so many acorns that the lawn would be covered. Other years there would be less. But there was always some. In the last several months there has been a flurry of press (e.g. WP, CNN) claiming a complete lack of acorns in many areas up and down the east coast of the US and as far west as Indiana.

The naturalists I have read have cited a number of possible explanations, though none seem not to really know. Ideas have ranged from too much summer moisture to pollination issues, and more. It is true that there is a natural variability in the acorn crop; I know this first hand. I wonder, however, how a system of oaks as large as this one could completely fail to produce any acorns for so many areas. One naturalist described it as the result of a “perfect storm” of individual factors. Too perfect a storm for my taste.

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01/04/09

Sewall and sparrows

Filed under: General
Posted by: nnn @ 6:59 pm

(full, original).

Fort Sewall is a place about which the Wikipedia is surprisingly mum at the time of this writing; not much more than “a historic fort on … (p)romontory in Marblehead Massachusetts… built in 1644.“ Thin indeed. The plaque at the site whispers more; I was able to find so little else on the web that was convenient, I’ve placed its text below.

Near this old fort is a stack of lobster traps. Protected from the wind and predator, it attracted a few sparrows. As they are able to navigate into and out of it without difficulty, they are surely cleverer than lobsters - in case there was any doubt.

(full, original).

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