Glover et al., in a Comment piece for Nature, recommend perenniation (intercropping perennials and trees with food crops) to boost African agriculture. One of the genera recommended is Gliricidia, leguminous trees already known for their felicitous effects in shade-grown coffee farming.
Author: David Gorsline
T. R. has left
Russell Train, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, has died. He is remembered, briefly, by Robert B. Semple, Jr.
His death serves as a reminder of the G.O.P.’s historic tradition of environmental stewardship, a tradition stretching as far back as Teddy Roosevelt, which the party has now repudiated.
Again with the orders
Another one of these peculiar spam messages that purports to be a product order.
Dear Customer,
My name is Jack Melvin…and this order is an individual order. and i like to make a purchase of a (Architectural Casement Windows)and i will be more happy if you can email me with the types and Prices that you have for sale as well………Please let me know if you do accept credit card as a form of payment, and that will be pick up at your location….Hope to read back from you soon..
Best Regard
Jack Melvin
At least I think it’s supposed to be an order, even if it’s addressed to “Dear Customer.” “Jack Melvin” has some overtones of “George Spelvin,” the Equity actor’s pseudonym.
No victims here
Consider this an open response to Mitt Romney’s comments at a fundraiser:
There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
“…who believe that they are entitled… to food”? Willard Mitt Romney, shame on you!
Count me in as one of those “47-percenters” who do pay income taxes and who also support Barack Obama. I paid $12,804.06 in federal income taxes for tax year 2011 (somewhat more than that was withheld, and I got a refund), and I consider what I received from the federal government in return to be a damn good bargain. I also paid federal payroll and Medicare taxes (maybe not such a good bargain, yet) and state income, sales, personal property, and real estate taxes.
Romney has released his federal income tax return for 2010, and has released an estimate for his 2011 return. He remains coy about his returns and tax liability in earlier years. How much did you pay in 2009, Mitt? I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours.
Science debate 2012
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama respond to the 14-point questionnaire from ScienceDebate.org and Scientific American. IMO, both of them play it fairly safe, with no big surprises on either side. About the most radical statement from Romney is this:
I am not a scientist myself, but my best assessment of the data is that the world is getting warmer, that human activity contributes to that warming, and that policymakers should therefore consider the risk of negative consequences.
Alas, he then proceeds to walk back most of this statement.
Some links: 61
Stagecraft links ᔥ ArtsJournal:
- Erik Piepenburg sits in on a props masters’ and set dressers’ workshop: “A piece of duct tape on a chair can quietly speak volumes about a character.”
- Angela Watercutter introduces a brief video about the making and manipulating of the puppets for War Horse.
- Hannah Hessel wonders whether dramaturgy is a job: “if the play has any sense of artistic integrity, if it is able to connect with an audience, there probably already is a dramaturg in the room.”
Aisle of View
Sunday we walked the property of VNPS Pocahontas Chapter President Catharine Tucker in Hanover County. Her 70 acres have seen little farming disturbance over the last 150 years, and hence are one of our better representatives of mesic hardwood forest in the upper Coastal Plain. The fall zone runs through Richmond, and this part of Hanover County is northeast of Richmond.
On the state road leading to her land, Catharine pointed out Red Morning-Glory, or Redstar (Ipomoea coccinea) growing in a hedge managed for butterflies. There seems to be some question as to whether Ipomoea is native to this part of the country.
Catharine effectively used the subsiding road cut to illustrate the soil profile: a sandy horizon lying atop red clays.
The bulk of the property is a Beech-Tuliptree forest, with some magnificent examples of Fagus grandifolia. Our group measured around one tree, computing a DBH of 110 cm. And with beeches come the parasitic Beechdrops (Epifagus virginiana)—plentiful here, but difficult to photograph with a point-and-shoot.
Our destination plant was Shining Clubmoss (Huperzia lucidula), found in one small clump at the base of a tree. This fern ally is kin to the more often-seen Lycopodium ground pines.
Bonus local common name: Catharine calls Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) May Pops—although Google thinks that this name goes better with Passiflora incarnata.
VCU Rice Center
For my first field trip as part of the Virginia Native Plant Society’s annual meeting, we visited the Virginia Commonwealth University Inger and Walter Rice Center for Environmental Life Sciences in Charles City County. The botanizing was what it was, but the education and lab facility was a stunner.
VCU acquired the property, on a bluff with a majestic view of the James River, via a gift from Walter Rice’s widow, Inger. She then went on to specify (and fund!) a state-of-the-art sustainably-built edifice. Panelled in American White-cedar, the building has achieved LEED platinum certification. Early plans called for solar panels on the roof, but they would have been shadowed by the huge oak that provides the shade in this image. So the panels were relocated to the research pier at the bottom of the bluff.
Vertical geothermal tubes provide some of the heating and cooling. I was surprised to learn that the permeable paving system for the entrance drive and parking area (a plastic grid over layers of sand and gravel) was one of the more expensive elements, blowing out the original $2M budget for the entire package.
The south-facing conference hall is naturally lit and ventilated. Knee-height casement windows are supplemented with industrial-strength ceiling fans, keeping temps in the room very comfortable (albeit on a breezy early fall day).
As we talked outside, our presenters were upstaged by a pair of chippering Bald Eagles, their arrival announced by an unhappy Blue Jay.
Along with research into Eastern Box Turtles and Prothonotary Warblers, the Center is in the midst of a wetland restoration project—one that was prompted by Nature herself. Kimages Creek, just to the east of the educattion building, was dammed in the 1920s by a real estate developer who sought to establish a hunting club. Although he busted almost immediately, the dam remained for the time being, impounding a body of water called Charles Lake (it’s still labelled as such on Yahoo!’s maps). The earthen dam, never well-maintained, was eventually breached by storms in the 2000s. Efforts are now underway to re-establish the tidal freshwater creek.
Land use in the area is exceptionally well-documented and mapped, owing to the place’s strategic importance during the American Civil War. Gen. George McClellan’s Army of the Potomac was encamped on the eastern side of Kimages Creek for a short period of time in 1862.
We’re rolling
What, no tears?
I’ve been scrubbing the spam comments from a blog that was left unattended for a short time. Sort of like scrubbing a toilet, but smellier. Amid all the filter-evading nonsense text and copy-paste from real articles written by honest people, this bit of non sequitur caught my eye:
Fantastic website. Lots of useful info here. I am sending it to a few friends ans also sharing in delicious. And naturally, thank you in your sweat!
Silver Line progress report: 24
V-DOT has released a set of aerial photos of the line’s silver band of concrete and steel looping through Tysons Corner.
the bareknuckle sun
“Three Lauds,” by Kimberly Johnson, at Poetry Daily.
At the park: 51
I finally got my recordkeeping caught up for the Wood Duck/Hooded Merganser nesting season. Heck, most of these birds are probably on their way to Florida and points south by now.
The birds made good use of the boxes this year, especially the two new ones that we installed in February. In 16 boxes, we had 12 nesting attempts, all of them successful. No dump nests: our largest clutch was a combined Wood Duck/Hooded Merganser nest with 18 eggs, of which 16 hatched.
The mergs continue to produce more than the woodies for the third year running. 70 HM eggs laid, 63 hatched; 57 WD eggs laid, 46 hatched. The count for the woodies is probably a little low, as we had one box where we never did get a complete egg count. The Wood Ducks made as many nests as the Hooded Mergansers (5 each, with 2 mixed), but their clutches were, on the average, smaller.
What we require is silence
Happy 100th to John Cage. His “Lecture on Nothing,” performed by Kaegan Sparks, is trending at UbuWeb.
Happens to us all
The Supreme Court’s building on 1st Street, N.E., gets a temporary wrapper.