October 2011 – Page 3

Texas drought: “Years before the cows come home”

Today reporter Molly Hennessy-Fiske took a potentially mundane story about how the drought in Texas is changing the traditional cattle business and wrote her way on to the front page of the Sunday Los Angeles Times with her boldness: The cowboys rose well before dawn, stars still high in the West Texas sky. They strapped onContinue reading “Texas drought: “Years before the cows come home””

What we have over-run and on which we rely

Here's a lovely profile of a poet new to me, Kim Stafford, from High Country News' Uncommon Westerners features series. The writer finds Stafford in a coffee shop in Portland. Nearby, writes Tara Rae Miner, is "a strip of untamed land, bounded by busy roads in a dense, urban landscape. It is not a park,Continue reading “What we have over-run and on which we rely”

Brad Pitt to win Best Actor

Reviewing Moneyball for The New Yorker, David Denby declares that Brad Pitt should win Best Actor — for The Tree of Life. He's right about that, and he describes Pitt's performance well: …in Terrence Malick’s “Tree of Life,” in which he plays a father who takes out his disappointments on his sons, his anger is self-woundingContinue reading “Brad Pitt to win Best Actor”

Whales, algae cross melting Arctic for first time in eons

First this year, in June, came the algae: A single-celled alga that went extinct in the North Atlantic Ocean about 800,000 years ago has returned after drifting from the Pacific through the Arctic thanks to melting polar ice. And while its appearance marks the first trans-Arctic migration in modern times, scientists say it signals somethingContinue reading “Whales, algae cross melting Arctic for first time in eons”

A Wilco riff that just won’t quit — for good reason

Wilco's new album, The Whole Love, concludes with a song unlike any I've ever heard from a Jeff Tweedy band. It's twelve minutes long, but not for the sake of a guitar freak-out (Poor Places). Nor does it want to pound home a point, or feeling (Misunderstood). A critic from Aquarium Drunkard describes it eloquently: Continue reading “A Wilco riff that just won’t quit — for good reason”

Birds, otters and whales: a week in the SoCal Bight

Had a busy week last week covering the ocean (by chance) for the Ventura County Star, I'm happy to say. On otters: fishermen not happy with prospect of being regulated by endangered species laws. On whales: CA air regulations may have saved whales from collisions with ships, but that could end. On birds: On theContinue reading “Birds, otters and whales: a week in the SoCal Bight”