Robin Waples: University of Washington (NOAA Fisheries, retired) Topic: On the shoulders of giants: Under-appreciated studies in salmon biology with lasting influence. In 1675 Isaac Newton wrote, “If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.” This idea epitomizes the way that science progresses by incremental steps, punctuated occasionally by
Lately, I’ve been thinking about bats. A few dozen have been flying around our Waldport, Oregon, Cyprus tree: California Myotis, Fringed Myotis, and the Big Brown Bat. Near White Salmon, WA, I have seen dozens of Silver-Haired Bats, flying low to the ground on 20 acres we own. This creature accounts for almost a third
Following here is an assignment: Find some object you hold near and dear. Something that can leap you into a backward narrative. Something to hold you as a memoir writer, going back, reflecting back. That thing, you can hold or touch. You find meaning in it. And, that object holds stories. Try and do this
This is a little soft-shoe pissed off blathering from me, so apologies up front. No big news on the Ukraine Invasion front, or the Gates Owning All the Farms front, or the Climate-Wall Street-Chronic Illness front. Nothing related to the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-MEDIA-Academia-Think-Tank) front. Just plain old burnt toast and spilled milk from a radical who
War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. ― Smedley Butler, War is a Racket: The