sundries

[rm]

I am home, but Patty doesn't get home until the weekend-ish, so all is not quite right with the world yet.

There will be some interesting, accessible to the public, outgrowth of the conference stuff available soon. Soon, of course, as regards academic timelines, which I find to be geologically slow. More about that from my own perspective later, but for now, soon there will be stuff for you, also I will still post my notes.

Also need to write about the Martin Carthy gig.

I have to say, Virgin Atlantic handled the gluten-free meal requests MUCH better than Delta. I did get a roll yesterday that contained "gluten-free wheat starch" that I was too scared to eat, because gluten-attack on an airplane? NO WAY IN HELL DO I WANT THAT EXPERIENCE. Do any of the other celiacs reading this have any insight into "gluten-free wheat starch"? Is it derived from clean oats (which I can't eat anyway) or is it some other bizarreo process?

Thank you to everyone who posted auction items to graduate_maria while I was away. I'll try to check up on and update tags and stuff tonight, and bidding will open in a few days. People who have asked me to post items for them or host pictures, I will also try to get that in order tonight. Sorry for the delay, things have been overwhelming.

George Steinbrener has died.

I cannot believe all this drama about the possibility of a mosque near the WTC site is still ongoing.

Oh, this kid again. Teen serial thief arrested.

Paperwork fuckery is preventing a team of lacross players from the Iriquois Confederacy traveling to an international competition in Manchester because the UK gov't is worried the US won't allow them back into the country with their tribal passports. The US won't guarantee that they will. WTF?

The Son of Sam, his image makeover and a bunch of evangelical Christians.

Geese removed (via death) from Prospect Park in response to flight that ditched into Hudson a year and a half ago. 1. Ugh. 2. You know the thing with birds? They'll make more. Killing park geese isn't going to stop them from flying into airplanes.

The Advocate has starting putting up the Day in Gay America photos.

Big DADT trial begins today, thanks to the Log Cabin Republicans.

That damn writing meme going around. It told me it thought "Because Men Once Went West" is written like Stephen King. That would be no.

Since I can tell it's going to be that type of morning, and I've other stuff to do: Yes, I've seen the purported Torchwood casting sheet; no, I don't have anything to say about it at this time.

Comments

[graene.livejournal.com]

Just before I moved away from Chicago they were having a similar debate about the deer, one of whom had recently sent a child to the ER with a torn scalp when he sat up straight in his sandbox just as the deer passed over it. I definitely favored the 'rangers cull the herd with anesthetic darts and give the dressed meat to homeless shelters/money from sale of meats to soup kitchens' option over the so-called environmentalists' proposal to 'release native cougars into the wildlife preserves.' I just kept wondering exactly what they expected said felines to do if chasing a deer resulted in a bloodied toddler in their path.

[feyandstrange.livejournal.com]

There's always going to be a conflict for any of the predator which might attack a human, which is a shame, as some of them would happily eat those darn deer and geese, and many of which are endangered by humans moving into the animals' environments. Maybe it's my mean side speaking, but if people want to live in places where there are yards and trees and birds and so on to raise their children amongst, then they're gonna have to get used to cougars and other predators. (And anyway, the cougars in CA are already perfectly happy to eat deer or tourists.) Cougars may be endangered, but nothing's going to get rid of coyotes and a dozen other opportunists, any of which will happily bite a baby.

[graene.livejournal.com]

I'm talking about a heavily developed area that hasn't seen a cougar in at least a hundred years - enough so that there was also debate about if that was the correct feline predator to be discussing anyway. There were/are zero other wild predators left in Chicago/close 'burbs and the houses, even most with huge yards in outer burbs, are still closer together than the range of the anesthetic dart guns under discussion.
People moving into undeveloped areas and expecting there to be no wildlife in their yards are absolutely missing the big picture of new development and 'pretty' nature.