Author: David Gorsline

Changes- Changes- Changes: 2

Sometimes your vote really does count. In the commonwealth-wide elections of 2013, 907 votes decided the attorney general’s race; the gubernatorial election was determined by a slightly wider margin (56 thousand votes out of 2.2 million). The happy result: newly-elected Governor McAuliffe and A-G Mark Herring chose not to defend indefensible law, and today, less than a year later, same-sex marriages are legal in Virginia. This is a change that I knew would happen eventually, but I am almost (pleasantly) shocked at how quickly it has come to pass.

In the most recent development, gay and lesbian couples are free to adopt in the Commonwealth. Our friends J. and L., who left the area some years ago so that they could start a family, are now welcome. Well, Virginia is for lovers.

Serialized

Good advice (i.e., advice I agree with) accompanied by useful local lore and an extra helping of snark: Washington City Paper‘s manual of style and usage.

NoMa
M is uppercase, but feel free to grumble about it.

* * *

Penn Quarter
Neighborhood south and west of Chinatown defined better by the overconcentration of José Andrés restaurants than by definitive boundaries.

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theater
Not theatre, except as part of a proper noun. We don’t know how the obsession with French spelling arose, but we’re not playing along. Studio Theatre, you’re doing it wrong. Howard Theatre, WTF? Signature Theatre, just stop. You’re making our spellcheck misfire and our copy editors gnash their already worn-down teeth. Take a hint from our star pupil, Arena Stage’s Mead Center for American Theater, or we may start calling you thee-AT-ruhs.

Ellanor C. Lawrence Park project: 2

chicken beforechicken afterOne of the learning objectives of this class project is to observe changes in the forest over the course of a season. I stumbled upon an unexpected case of before-and-after with this log, seen in two images. The image at the left was made on 27 September; the one on the right today. The bright yellow, striped fruiting body, just little blobs on the log in September, is the mushroom Laetiporus sulphureus. It’s an edible polypore known by various common names, including Sulphur Shelf and Chicken of the Woods.

Blue Ridge forests

readysimply redOur first class field trip, examining forest ecosystems of the mid-Atlantic, visited three spots in Shenandoah National Park. Spicebush (Lindera benzoin) (left) was in fruit in Buck Hollow, on the flank of the Blue Ridge. And up top, we found Mountain Holly (Ilex montana) (right) likewise offering red yummies; the holly’s fruits have four seeds each.

Katydids were singing at mid-day, clearly understanding that “last call” was imminent. On the Stony Man Nature Trail (which I last walked in May), Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) was blooming like crazy. We also made the acquaintance of Poke Milkweed (Asclepias exaltata), a milkweed of the woods, and Mountain Maple (Acer spicata), which looks like Striped Maple without the stripy bark.

I scooped up a American Carrion Beetle (Necrophila americana) for everyone to admire. And Stephanie identified a trio of Table Mountain Pine trees (Pinus pungens) across Skyline Drive from the Stony Man Overlook parking area. I’d like to make a map of everywhere P. pungens can be found in the Park.

Ellanor C. Lawrence Park project: 1

StonyBoxieMy class field work assignment this fall consists of studying a forest locale over multiple visits. Even though I love to hang out at Huntley Meadows Park, I chose the eastern tract of Ellanor C. Lawrence Park: it’s a little bit closer to Reston, a little wilder, and just generally a place I don’t know well. Today’s trip was a getting-to-know-you walk for me. I found the lovely ruins of this stone wall, which marks the boundary between the park and the residential subdivision. And I came upon this very handsome Eastern Box Turtle (Terrapene carolina carolina) taking its time going down the trail.

I heard it through the grapevine

Verifiable knowledge makes its way slowly, and only under cultivation, but fable has burrs and feet and claws and wings and an indestructible sheath like weed-seed, and can be carried almost anywhere and take root without benefit of soil or water.

—Wallace Stegner, Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West (1954), II.4., p. 134

Mixed effects

A recent paper by Jason M. Gleditsch and Tomás A. Carlo explores the impact on nesting success of Gray Catbirds (Dumetella carolinensis) breeding in Pennsylvania landscapes dominated by invasive Asian honeysuckles (Lonicera sp.). It turns out that they found little evidence to support the claim that honeysuckle represents an “ecological trap” of increased predation risk and poor nutritive value from fruits, contrary to the results of other researchers. Adult birds may have made more trips to the nest, bearing what some have called “junk food,” but body mass measurements of the nestlings, in this study, show that they grow up just fine.

Our results show that relationships between introduced fleshy-fruited plants and native birds are complex and not easily characterized as purely harmful or beneficial because they can include negative, neutral, or positive outcomes.

Sometimes, in the authors’ view, using an alien species is the best the birds can do, under the circumstances.

… the traditional and widespread categorical approach to invasive species management should be revised to prevent harming certain communities and ecosystems, especially areas in a process of self-recovery from heavy human disturbances.

The Shoplifters

The Shoplifters is a quick, entertaining comedy set in an overstuffed back store room of a contemporary big box store. From the first scene, our sympathies are torn between the world-weary, savvy-enough Alma (confident Jane Houdyshell) and the idealistic apprentice security guard Dom (overwound Adi Stein) who has detained her for stealing a ribeye steak. Swimming in a uniform two sizes too big for him and suffering from a nut allergy, Stein’s frantic attempt to assert his authority is fun to watch.

Alma and Dom are mirrored in their respective pragmatism and frenzy by the dour Otto (Michael Russotto filling in for Delaney Williams), a senior security guard who’s just had a “you can’t fire me, I quit” conversation, and the leporine Phyllis (skittish Jenna Sokolowski), who has been recruited by Alma into her bit of Robin Hood larceny. Newly-hatched thief Phyllis finds a surprising number of places to conceal heisted baking ingredients on her slender frame.

We’re asked to consider “Who stole the American dream?” and the piece does give us something to chew on in that respect, inviting us to join the 99%; as a counterbalance, the play touches on the depersonalization of all economic transactions. Is it OK to steal if and only if you don’t see the person you’re stealing from?

At its heart, the work is an updating of that fine series of Looney Tunes featuring the sheepdog chasing the wolf all day and punching out when the whistle blows at the end of the shift.

Unfortunately, the script calls for a series of choppy scenes, all set in that store room and separated from one another by only a moment or two. And a momentum-breaking intermission is needed largely to do a little cleanup and to precisely position a key prop.

  • The Shoplifters, written and directed by Morris Panych, Arena Stage Kreeger Theater, Washington

Into the spotlight

Citizen science has an important role to play in research in a wide range of biological disciplines, as Caren B. Cooper et al. write in a recently-published paper in PLOS ONE:

… the quality of data collected by volunteers, on a project-by-project basis, has generally been found as reliable as the data collected by professionals in community-based research and contributory projects across a wide variety of subjects, including lady beetles, moths, wolves, trees, air pollution, light pollution, plants, pikas, invasive plants, and bees.

However, volunteer data collection is largely “invisible:” in the reports that Cooper et al. examined, citizen science participation was recognized in a paper’s acknowledgements section, if at all. The authors make the case that volunteer data collection should be more widely appreciated for its scientific value. Furthermore, as Cooper says in a supporting blog post by Hugh Powell, participants should self-identify as citizen scientists, not merely as, say, birders or volunteer water quality monitors.

“…people who have been doing a hobby for years have tons of expertise, and they can make a very real contribution.”

The research paper also reinforces the point that volunteer data collection can go where full-time professionals can’t, into spatiotemporal domains spanning decades and land masses. And often, data collected for one area of study can be repurposed to examine some other phenomenon, as we see with various phenology datasets being used to understand climate change.