“She turned to face south and the whole field lifted to her eyes as a single reflected sheet of brightness. An ocean, stippled and roiling in waves over submerged rock and rill, rising as she watched. She felt the reckless thrill of being at sea. Like Columbus on his ship, maybe, after he’d spent his […]
“Tina blinked once, twice. ‘Scientists tell us they can’t predict the exact effects of global warming.’ ‘Correct. We tell you that, because we are more honest than other people. We know evidence will keep coming in. It does not mean we ignore the subject until further notice. We brush our teeth, for instance, even though […]
“‘Why does everybody want to be famous,’ Dellarobia asked, ‘and at the same time they want to hear the ugliest trash about famous people?’ ‘I guess they hate what they haven’t got.’ ‘Everybody wants to be rich, too, but there’s still some kind of team spirit. You should hear Bear on his rant against raising […]
“‘Humans are in love with the idea of persisting,’ he said. ‘We fetishize it, really. Our retirement funds, our genealogies. Our so-called ideas for the ages.’ ‘I really hate this. What you’re saying. Just so you know.’ ‘Sorry. I am a doctor of natural systems. And this looks terminal to me.’ In the branches over […]
I’ve made some notable progress since my last journal, but the most important recent development has nothing to do with my personal efforts: the rain has finally returned to Humboldt. In two weeks, we’ve had more rain here at the house than in the entire time since I began keeping a rain log in November […]
“Correlation, cause. She would write the words in the corner of her lab notebook, which was starting to fill with small, encrypted notes to herself. ‘Is the parasite sapping the monarch’s strength and preventing a long migration?’ Ovid asked. ‘We don’t know. We are seeing a big increase in these parasite infestations. And we have […]
“In 1996 a SWAT team in Fitchburg, Massachusetts (population 39,102) burned down an entire apartment complex with a flash-bang they used during a drug raid. Six police officers were injured and twenty-four people were left homeless. Several of the officers were later cited for bravery.” ––Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America’s Police […]
“‘You came here because you’re one of the people who study these monarchs,’ she said. ‘You are exactly right. I spent the day doing a quick census up there.’ Quick, she thought, as in nine hours. Had he counted them all? ‘So, you do what, experiments, or observations? And write up what you find out?’ […]
“Here was church. An hour in the café, the slake of a tall cup of coffee, and stillness, and wearing shoes, a clean tile floor, time off for good behavior. A reminder that she could belong to something the size of this congregation, if they would have her. She was not outside the believer realm […]
“Bennett had headed up the National Endowment for the Humanities and then the Department of Education under Reagan. He had run both agencies as a proud moral scold. Which isn’t to say he was a prude. Bennett was an obese man, a chain-smoker, and, the country would learn years later, he had a pretty serious […]