The Nature of Things

This is incredible, but not really surprising, I guess. It seems that if a conservative is given a choice of buying one of two light bulbs at the same price and is told that one of the bulbs is "greener" and more environmentally friendly, he will inevitably purchase the other one ! A study out Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences examined attitudes about energy efficiency in liberals and conservatives, and found that promoting energy-efficient products and services on the basis of their environmental benefits actually turned conservatives off from picking them. The researchers first quizzed participants on how much they value various benefits of energy efficiency, including reducing carbon emissions, reducing foreign oil dependence, and reducing how much consumers pay for energy; cutting emissions appealed to conservatives the least. The study then presented participants with a real-world choice: With a fixed amount of money in their wal...

Search the Dark  is the third in author Charles Todd's excellent Inspector Ian Rutledge series, and, in my view, it is the best so far. Several other entries have followed this one and I will be interested to read them later to see just where the series goes.  But not for a while, I think. After reading the first three books in quick succession in a matter of weeks, it's time for me to move on to something else. First, though, let me tell you about this book. Inspector Rutledge suffered terribly in the trenches in France in World War I and he is still suffering some years later once he has returned home, recovered physically, and returned to his job at Scotland Yard. He carries with him the psyche and the voice of a young Scotsman whom he had to have executed for insubordination in the war. Hamish is his alter ego and conscience. He carries, also, the memories of all that he saw and experienced. He is an introverted and complicated man. His superior at Scotland Yard is envio...

This poem, I think, expresses, with a kind of dark and twisted humor, the psychic pain or confusion which even the most devout may feel from time to time. The Obscenity Prayer by Mary Karr Our falter, whose art is Heavy, Halloween be thy name. Your kingdom’s numb your children dumb on earth moldy bread unleavened. Give us this day our wayward dead. And give us our asses as we forgive those who ass against us. And speed us not into wimp nation nor bequiver us with needles, for thine is the flimflam and the sour, and the same fucking story in leather for never and ever. Ah: gin.

Meet Henri, the very French cat. He is the very epitome of ennui and angst. What a tortured life he leads!

George Jones 1931 - 2013 R.I.P

I've written before about how Sherlock Holmes was my first literary love. I fell in love with him when I was twelve years old and I've never fallen out. Obviously, then, I am a sucker for any story featuring the great consulting detective. It's not just me. There is still an extensive audience for Sherlock Holmes stories, and so the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate, for the first time in its long history, authorized a new Holmes novel.  To complete the task, they chose Anthony Horowitz, who I knew chiefly from his excellent work as screenwriter for the television series  Midsomer Mysteries , certainly one of my all-time favorite television mystery series.  Horowitz channeled Conan Doyle very successfully, I thought. He wrote very much in the style of the master and remained true to the spirit of the originals, particularly in the relationship between Holmes and Watson. The story, of course, is told in the voice of Watson who is writing it twenty-five years after the events. H...

Case Histories  is certainly not your typical mystery. It is more of a literary fiction/mystery hybrid, perhaps weighted on the side of literary fiction. Still, it contains all the elements and many of the stock characters of the mystery formula, including exploited teenage runaways, innocent female murder victims, blowsy and outrageous middle-aged actresses, strait-laced and uptight spinsters, pathetic and hapless males, and wives with secrets. Moreover, it has the world-weary detective, existing in his own world of pain, who feels driven to try to protect, or occasionally avenge, all of these characters. The book begins with the telling of three case histories, any one of which could have been the backbone and beginning of a literary fiction novel. First, we have the story of Olivia Land, the youngest and favorite of four Land daughters. The child disappears one hot summer night when she is three years old and she is never seen or heard from again. Thirty years later, two o...

She's a beautiful planet, the only home we have. Respect her. Do something nice for her today, and every day. Happy Earth Day!

Tiger (right) and Giant Swallowtail (left) butterflies on Duranta erecta blossoms. Swallowtails BY  ALLAN PETERSON The Emperor thought of his heart as a water wheel flooding the rice fields of all creation and bloodied the water for a better harvest. His warriors hoped for a life with wings. His swallowtails wrote him the same lines —the secret of life is a resurrected worm— He told them eventually time would run backwards in their hands, now empty where a crossbow went.   A theory works if it answers the exceptions. The writing in the air of swallowtails, from here to where the time changes at Mexico Beach, is like writing all the armies of the afterlife waiting underground in China.   We are attuned to shadows. They strafe the shore. An osprey spins above the trees. But when a large one stops suddenly above the house, all the laws have been broken. A theory that a moment is a warehouse where armies are stacked to ...

This is the week that our income taxes were due and it was a week when we got a vivid example of our taxes at work.  As a society, we like to complain about our taxes, but the truth is that the U.S. has some of the lowest taxes in the industrialized world. Personally, I've never begrudged paying taxes. I see them as a part of the social contract that binds us together, as the price of all the goods and services I receive from the government, and paying them is part of my patriotic duty as a citizen. If you feel disposed to grouse about your taxes, just keep this image in mind. Perhaps it may make you think twice.

Inspector Ian Rutledge of Scotland Yard is a psychological mess. He fought in the trenches of France in World War I and was grievously injured. Now physically recovered (more or less), he has returned to work and has already managed to crack one difficult case in  A Test of Wills .  Before the war, Rutledge was a rising star at the Yard and that engendered envy from some of his cohorts and from his superior, Bowles. Bowles takes every opportunity to send the Inspector on out-of-town cases. He particularly wants to get him out of town now because of a recent Ripper-style killing spree in London and the likelihood that the detective who cracks the case will become a celebrity. Bowles is determined that it won't be Rutledge. His chance comes when three members of an influential family in a small Cornwall village die within a short span of time. Two are ruled suicides and one an accident. But a member of the family has her doubts and she prevails upon the Home Office to send so...

One keeps thinking that the U.S. Senate cannot disgrace itself any further. Then it goes and defeats consideration of a very mild background check bill for people who are attempting to purchase guns. Even though a clear majority of senators voted for the bill, even though poll after poll show 90% of Americans want this to become law, a cowardly forty-five who are deep in the pockets of the National Rifle Association refused to let the bill proceed and so, under the arcane filibuster rules of the Senate, the bill was defeated. Since the massacre of school children at Sandy Hook Elementary on December 14, 2012, at least 3513 other Americans have died as a result of gun violence. Some 80 more will die today!  But those forty-five senators don't give a damn, as long as the NRA continues to fill their coffers. Here are the names of the disreputable forty-five, along with their Twitter handles, should you wish to send them a message regarding this vote. I certainly intend to. S...

The cowardly and senseless bombing of the Boston Marathon continues to dominate our thoughts - the innocents killed, the many more innocents injured, the courageous response of the people of Boston and Massachusetts and of their government. One of the best known residents of Massachusetts who is no longer in government, Barney Frank, responded like this: "Let's be very grateful that we had a well-funded, functioning government...It is very fashionable in America and has been for some time to criticize government, belittle public employees, talk about their pensions, talk about what people think is their excessive health care, here we saw government in two ways perform very well...You know, I never was as a member of Congress, one of the cheerleaders for less government, lower taxes. No tax cut would have helped us deal with this — or will help us recover. This is very expensive." "We're not asking people, 'Do you have have private health insurance or...

You may have already seen this, but it's worth repeating. Somebody posted it on Twitter after the tragedy in Boston yesterday - words of comfort from Fred Rogers, the beloved Mister Rogers of my children's childhood. Blessings on the helpers, both those whose job it is to help in such events and those ordinary citizens who ran to help, instead of running for cover. They are our heroes. They are what gives us hope that the human race may actually survive, may actually be worth saving.

You always know what you are going to get with one of Anne Perry's Charlotte and Thomas Pitt mysteries: an exploration of the dark underbelly of Victorian society, the secrets that are hidden so well by the glitter and glamour and the stiff upper lips of that high society. The story will be told competently and with empathy for the helpless victims, and, somehow, in the end, justice will be served. All of that is true of  Midnight at Marble Arch.  While it is not her best work, it is a workmanlike effort that held my interest throughout.  In this 28th entry to the Pitt series, Perry takes on the subject of rape, something that she hasn't dealt with much before. She expresses outrage through the voices of her main characters that the women victims of rape are themselves blamed by society for the crime. They are seen as having invited it, of having brought it on themselves. Indeed, it often seems that little has changed in 150 years.  It won't be revealing too much ...

A Lizard in Spanish Valley BY  WENDY VIDELOCK A lizard does not make a sound, it has no song, it does not share my love affairs with flannel sheets, bearded men, interlocking silver rings, the moon, the sea, or ink. But sitting here the afternoon, I’ve come to believe we do share a love affair and a belief — in wink, blink, stone, and heat. Also, air. This is not a fable, nor is it bliss. Impatience, remember this. *~*~*~* Yes, I've come to believe that my garden's green anoles and I do share a love affair. Well, I admit it may be a little one-sided, but I do love them. They bring me joy and I am happy to share my space, my heat, and my air, not to mention my trees and rocks, with them.