Anyone who knows anything about crows knows that they are very intelligent. Dr. John M. Marzluff, a wildlife biologist at Seattle's University of Washington, thought that crows recognized biologists who had previously trapped them. He has studied crows and ravens for twenty years so he had good reason to think this. Of course, Konrad Lorenz, the well know ethologist, used to dress in a devil costume to band jackdaws so they wouldn't turn against him, and that was decades ago, so Marzluff isn't the first to realize this. Apparently, he is the first to study the phenomenon and design an experiment to test his hypothesis, however.
"To test the birds’ recognition of faces separately from that of clothing, gait and other individual human characteristics, Dr. Marzluff and two students wore rubber masks. He designated a caveman mask as “dangerous” and, in a deliberate gesture of civic generosity, a Dick Cheney mask as “neutral.” Researchers in the dangerous mask then trapped and banded seven crows on the university’s campus in Seattle."
"In the months that followed, the researchers and volunteers donned the masks on campus, this time walking prescribed routes and not bothering crows. The crows had not forgotten. They scolded people in the dangerous mask significantly more than they did before they were trapped, even when the mask was disguised with a hat or worn upside down. The neutral mask provoked little reaction. The effect has not only persisted, but also multiplied over the past two years. Wearing the dangerous mask on one recent walk through campus, Dr. Marzluff said, he was scolded by 47 of the 53 crows he encountered, many more than had experienced or witnessed the initial trapping. The researchers hypothesize that crows learn to recognize threatening humans from both parents and others in their flock."
"After their experiments on campus, Dr. Marzluff and his students tested the effect with more realistic masks. Using a half-dozen students as models, they enlisted a professional mask maker, then wore the new masks while trapping crows at several sites in and around Seattle. The researchers then gave a mix of neutral and dangerous masks to volunteer observers who, unaware of the masks’ histories, wore them at the trapping sites and recorded the crows’ responses."
One volunteer told about how the crows screamed raucously at him.
Crows will come quite close to humans perceived as "dangerous." But Dick Cheney has nothing to fear from crows in Seattle.
More at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/26/science/26crow.html
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Synchronicity made with real ginger & molasses
Ginger snaps were a favorite treat at my grandmother Buddy’s house. There was always a box in the pantry when I was there and I would sit in the kitchen and dunk them in milk. Dunking them was an art form that I worked at, requiring the cookie to spend just enough time in the milk to be soft but not so much as to crumble away into the milk. There was a small green table in the kitchen where I sat for dunking ginger snaps. It was also used as a sort of early version of a kitchen island.
I was young when my grandmother died and sometimes I see the table as being what they called “that green” back in the Thirties, a sort of paler shade of the avocado green of the late Sixties. I know this name because today it’s reproduced in fabric for quilters who want to make Thirties style quilts and I own several yards of “that green” fabric for a butterfly garden quilt I plan to make. Butterflies are symbols of hope and were very popular for quilts during the Depression.
The bathroom was painted “that green” but there was also a little stool in the bathroom, for small grandchildren to stand on when brushing their teeth or when climbing into the huge claw-footed tub, and that stool was painted dark green. Was the table in the kitchen also dark green? I can no longer be sure.
In any case, it was just a simple, homey table in the kitchen and I would face my grandmother’s back as she stood at the sink peeling potatoes or some such task. My older brother had christened her “Buddy” when he was very small and Buddy she remained to all of us. In the kitchen, Buddy would be wearing a nice housedress with one of those allover aprons but she’d also have on nylons and heels, makeup and earrings. She would be dressed that way before she cooked breakfast every morning — and you would be completely dressed and have made your bed before breakfast, too, or you'd be sent back to get it right.
Although ordinarily all good housewives washed dishes right after a meal, it’s possible that sometimes Buddy was doing the lunch dishes when I was dunking ginger snaps because she had to lie down in the afternoon and rest. She had a congenital heart defect and when she rested I would sometimes lie on the bed, too, and we would talk. I always thought it curious how she washed dishes: in a metal dish pan in the sink.
I didn’t know anyone else who used a dish pan but now that I think of it, I’ve used a plastic dish pan for about fifteen years. Another thing I have in my kitchen that I’ve just remembered Buddy having in hers is a metal trash can with a pedal to step on to raise the lid. We got ours to keep Sophie, our Labrador, out of the trash but the first time she saw it, she simply raised the lid with her nose! Fortunately, she never did that again. Perhaps she realized she got all the interesting “garbage,” anyway, from bread crusts to bits of fruit and vegetables.
Yesterday, out of the blue (or out of the green as in the table), I wanted ginger snaps and milk, conveniently thinking of this before my husband went to the store. Last night I sat in our sunroom and dunked ginger snaps in milk while my husband ate them dry, with orange juice to drink, which he says is an excellent combination. Of course I’m sticking with the dunked ones because I’ve loved them since I was small enough to have to climb on that dark green stool to brush my teeth or get in the tub.
I didn’t think too much about my sudden craving for ginger snaps until I realized this morning that in two weeks, Buddy will have been dead fifty years. Synchronicity.
I was young when my grandmother died and sometimes I see the table as being what they called “that green” back in the Thirties, a sort of paler shade of the avocado green of the late Sixties. I know this name because today it’s reproduced in fabric for quilters who want to make Thirties style quilts and I own several yards of “that green” fabric for a butterfly garden quilt I plan to make. Butterflies are symbols of hope and were very popular for quilts during the Depression.
The bathroom was painted “that green” but there was also a little stool in the bathroom, for small grandchildren to stand on when brushing their teeth or when climbing into the huge claw-footed tub, and that stool was painted dark green. Was the table in the kitchen also dark green? I can no longer be sure.
In any case, it was just a simple, homey table in the kitchen and I would face my grandmother’s back as she stood at the sink peeling potatoes or some such task. My older brother had christened her “Buddy” when he was very small and Buddy she remained to all of us. In the kitchen, Buddy would be wearing a nice housedress with one of those allover aprons but she’d also have on nylons and heels, makeup and earrings. She would be dressed that way before she cooked breakfast every morning — and you would be completely dressed and have made your bed before breakfast, too, or you'd be sent back to get it right.
Although ordinarily all good housewives washed dishes right after a meal, it’s possible that sometimes Buddy was doing the lunch dishes when I was dunking ginger snaps because she had to lie down in the afternoon and rest. She had a congenital heart defect and when she rested I would sometimes lie on the bed, too, and we would talk. I always thought it curious how she washed dishes: in a metal dish pan in the sink.
I didn’t know anyone else who used a dish pan but now that I think of it, I’ve used a plastic dish pan for about fifteen years. Another thing I have in my kitchen that I’ve just remembered Buddy having in hers is a metal trash can with a pedal to step on to raise the lid. We got ours to keep Sophie, our Labrador, out of the trash but the first time she saw it, she simply raised the lid with her nose! Fortunately, she never did that again. Perhaps she realized she got all the interesting “garbage,” anyway, from bread crusts to bits of fruit and vegetables.
Yesterday, out of the blue (or out of the green as in the table), I wanted ginger snaps and milk, conveniently thinking of this before my husband went to the store. Last night I sat in our sunroom and dunked ginger snaps in milk while my husband ate them dry, with orange juice to drink, which he says is an excellent combination. Of course I’m sticking with the dunked ones because I’ve loved them since I was small enough to have to climb on that dark green stool to brush my teeth or get in the tub.
I didn’t think too much about my sudden craving for ginger snaps until I realized this morning that in two weeks, Buddy will have been dead fifty years. Synchronicity.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Quote of the Day
Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832)
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Blogger, Interrupted
But by very pleasant circumstances. Daughter is home, along with her husband, and we're all having a nice visit. She and I got our hair done together on Thursday, for the first time in many years, and we are pleased with our updated looks. Friday they had errands to run and so did we, and yesterday, Saturday, she and I went to one of my favorite antique and junque shops. I'll just be quiet for a few days here. . .
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Synchronicity: the lost art of penmanship
Today's synchronicity is between a conversation earlier today and the Quote of the Day which I only saw minutes ago.
My daughter and I were talking this morning and the topic of writing came up, which led us to recall how she got "Needs Improvement" in handwriting in second grade until they started writing cursive toward the end of the year. She had been to Montessori school, not to first grade, and wrote a beautiful cursive hand but couldn't print well. The teacher knew this so it was rather annoying that she kept getting those "N's" on her report cards but we shrugged it off. Once they were doing cursive writing in class, her obvious skill earned her good grades.
Today's Quote of the Day:
Here is a golden Rule...Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this Rule!
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Of course we all use computers today but we still have to write some things by hand; our signature, if nothing else. We also have to read others' handwriting at times and that can be an exercise in deciphering and in frustration. Penmanship is little emphasized in schools today and that's a shame, I think. Being able to write a nice hand is a useful skill worth taking the time to acquire. It did not come easily to me but I worked at it until I could write and print nicely.
One of my great-grandmothers had an embossed leather bound book in which her friends wrote poems and compliments to her such as later generations would write in yearbooks. It's a treasury of beautiful handwriting, all written prior to 1861, and amazing to realize that these were teenagers doing the writing. At least half of the writers were young men and their handwriting was as elegant as the girls' writing.
One reason handwriting has deteriorated so much is the ballpoint pen. Most people can write much more legibly and prettily with a fountain pen or a felt-tip pen. Fountain pens have improved since I was in grade school and had to carry a bottle of ink as well as a fountain pen to school. When the first fountain pens with cartridge refills came on the market, we all had to have one because they were much less trouble and leaked less. The cartridge pens are even better today, though I also have an expensive fountain pen; not expensive if you consider it will last a lifetime and then be my daughter's. It's not a Mont Blanc or anything like that, just a nice pen from a good stationery and office supply shop.
My daughter and I were talking this morning and the topic of writing came up, which led us to recall how she got "Needs Improvement" in handwriting in second grade until they started writing cursive toward the end of the year. She had been to Montessori school, not to first grade, and wrote a beautiful cursive hand but couldn't print well. The teacher knew this so it was rather annoying that she kept getting those "N's" on her report cards but we shrugged it off. Once they were doing cursive writing in class, her obvious skill earned her good grades.
Today's Quote of the Day:
Here is a golden Rule...Write legibly. The average temper of the human race would be perceptibly sweetened, if everybody obeyed this Rule!
Lewis Carroll (1832-1898)
Of course we all use computers today but we still have to write some things by hand; our signature, if nothing else. We also have to read others' handwriting at times and that can be an exercise in deciphering and in frustration. Penmanship is little emphasized in schools today and that's a shame, I think. Being able to write a nice hand is a useful skill worth taking the time to acquire. It did not come easily to me but I worked at it until I could write and print nicely.
One of my great-grandmothers had an embossed leather bound book in which her friends wrote poems and compliments to her such as later generations would write in yearbooks. It's a treasury of beautiful handwriting, all written prior to 1861, and amazing to realize that these were teenagers doing the writing. At least half of the writers were young men and their handwriting was as elegant as the girls' writing.
One reason handwriting has deteriorated so much is the ballpoint pen. Most people can write much more legibly and prettily with a fountain pen or a felt-tip pen. Fountain pens have improved since I was in grade school and had to carry a bottle of ink as well as a fountain pen to school. When the first fountain pens with cartridge refills came on the market, we all had to have one because they were much less trouble and leaked less. The cartridge pens are even better today, though I also have an expensive fountain pen; not expensive if you consider it will last a lifetime and then be my daughter's. It's not a Mont Blanc or anything like that, just a nice pen from a good stationery and office supply shop.
About Montessori schools. . . Maria Montessori was the first woman in Italy to become a physician, was required to rent a space to dissect her cadaver, lest she be in the same room with male students and nude cadavers of both sexes. A bit strange in a country where replicas of Michelangelo's David and other nudes are seen everywhere today! She also hired a man to be present while she dissected and smoke a cigar to help mask the formaldehyde fumes. After medical school, she took a great interest in poor children, who were often labeled as mentally deficient. She set up schools and developed "self-correcting" learning materials: objects for children to manipulate and learn from.
Montessori observed, quite correctly, that it is easier and more natural to draw a curved line than a straight one and decided to teach children to write cursive rather than to print. Kids choose activities for themselves in Montessori schools, with occasional lessons from teachers, so not all children learn to write young but I remember one three year-old who wrote a fine cursive hand. All or most of the five year-olds and a good many four year-olds had mastered cursive writing in the school where I worked while training to be a Montessori teacher. They learned phonics and reading within the context of learning to write.
Maria Montessori became renowned for her schools and the Montessori method was popular in the U.S. in, if I recall correctly, the early 1930s. Then she was shunned when it was learned somehow that her adopted son was actually her natural son, fathered by a married colleague. O, madonna! But the Montessori method has resurged in popularity several times and Montessori schools are widespread.
Before the advent of the Euro, Maria Montessori was pictured on Italian paper currency, which was exciting to see on my first trip to Italy. Then I saw that it was a thousand lire note, just enough to buy a four ounce soft drink in the pensionato where we were staying. Shades of the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, which, to add injury to insult, was constantly mistaken as a quarter. We have not come a long way, baby. Or we have, but we still have far to go. We've had the vote almost ninety years in the U.S. but forty years ago we did not have the right to equal pay for equal work and in practice we still don't get equal pay for equal work. After the misogyny shown toward first Hillary Clinton and now Sarah Palin, many American women are angry and want real change, not just "change" and "hope" as slogans for a campaign that's been guilty of misogyny and sexism itself.
Montessori observed, quite correctly, that it is easier and more natural to draw a curved line than a straight one and decided to teach children to write cursive rather than to print. Kids choose activities for themselves in Montessori schools, with occasional lessons from teachers, so not all children learn to write young but I remember one three year-old who wrote a fine cursive hand. All or most of the five year-olds and a good many four year-olds had mastered cursive writing in the school where I worked while training to be a Montessori teacher. They learned phonics and reading within the context of learning to write.
Maria Montessori became renowned for her schools and the Montessori method was popular in the U.S. in, if I recall correctly, the early 1930s. Then she was shunned when it was learned somehow that her adopted son was actually her natural son, fathered by a married colleague. O, madonna! But the Montessori method has resurged in popularity several times and Montessori schools are widespread.
Before the advent of the Euro, Maria Montessori was pictured on Italian paper currency, which was exciting to see on my first trip to Italy. Then I saw that it was a thousand lire note, just enough to buy a four ounce soft drink in the pensionato where we were staying. Shades of the Susan B. Anthony dollar coin, which, to add injury to insult, was constantly mistaken as a quarter. We have not come a long way, baby. Or we have, but we still have far to go. We've had the vote almost ninety years in the U.S. but forty years ago we did not have the right to equal pay for equal work and in practice we still don't get equal pay for equal work. After the misogyny shown toward first Hillary Clinton and now Sarah Palin, many American women are angry and want real change, not just "change" and "hope" as slogans for a campaign that's been guilty of misogyny and sexism itself.
Monday, September 22, 2008
Suffragette City
The things we didn't learn in school. . . Once upon a time, suffragette was an insult. A suffragist was a woman or man who advocated a woman's right to vote.
The term suffragette originated in Britain and was first used to insult members of the suffrage movement. It then became the term to describe the more radical branch of the British suffrage movement.
Definitions from http://www.winningthevote.org/glossary.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/jmurray_01.shtml has this:
"In the early part of the century the suffragists argued powerfully, but peacefully for the vote. They were unsuccessful in their immediate objective, although they still exist in the form of one of the country's main research and lobbying groups working on behalf of women, the Fawcett Society."
"It was the suffragettes who would really make a difference. The term was first employed in the Daily Mail" in 1906 and soon was "in general use as a means of differentiating the militant campaigners of the Women's Social and Political Union from the suffragists."
The WPSU was led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia and Christabel. They dedicated themselves to gaining the vote for women "by any militant means, drawing the line at any threat to human life. So they would break windows, throw stones, burn slogans on putting greens, cut telephone and telegraph wires, destroy pillar boxes and burn or bomb empty buildings."
So the suffragists played nice and got nowhere. The militants, whom the Daily Mail dubbed the suffragettes, actually made a difference. It seems that the WPSU members came to be proud of being called suffragettes since they were militants and disagreed with the suffragists' approach. The WPSU newspaper was called "The Suffragette."
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
What do women have to do to put an end to misogyny? Sometimes I think it's worse today than it was a hundred and thirty some years ago, when the United States gave the vote to newly freed slaves, as long as they were male, and promised to come back for the ladies later. Specifically, black men got the right to vote in 1870. Women got the right to vote in 1920.
It took the men quite a long time to come back for the ladies. Today the descendants of those mulish men are calling women like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton the vilest terms imaginable. I would never have imagined a campaign as nasty as the 2008 one has been, would never have expected so many Democratic men to be silent while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was abused and ridiculed in ways no man ever is.
Women have joined in, too, in deriding these women, not for their positions on issues or their experience, but because they think Hillary should have divorced Bill and Sarah should have aborted her son with Down syndrome, and has "too many" kids. Hillary was no doubt criticized by some for having only one daughter. Both are criticized for working with children, something men are never criticized for. Women are truly damned if they do and damned if they don't. We're still living in suffragette city.
The term suffragette originated in Britain and was first used to insult members of the suffrage movement. It then became the term to describe the more radical branch of the British suffrage movement.
Definitions from http://www.winningthevote.org/glossary.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/jmurray_01.shtml has this:
"In the early part of the century the suffragists argued powerfully, but peacefully for the vote. They were unsuccessful in their immediate objective, although they still exist in the form of one of the country's main research and lobbying groups working on behalf of women, the Fawcett Society."
"It was the suffragettes who would really make a difference. The term was first employed in the Daily Mail" in 1906 and soon was "in general use as a means of differentiating the militant campaigners of the Women's Social and Political Union from the suffragists."
The WPSU was led by Emmeline Pankhurst and her daughters Sylvia and Christabel. They dedicated themselves to gaining the vote for women "by any militant means, drawing the line at any threat to human life. So they would break windows, throw stones, burn slogans on putting greens, cut telephone and telegraph wires, destroy pillar boxes and burn or bomb empty buildings."
So the suffragists played nice and got nowhere. The militants, whom the Daily Mail dubbed the suffragettes, actually made a difference. It seems that the WPSU members came to be proud of being called suffragettes since they were militants and disagreed with the suffragists' approach. The WPSU newspaper was called "The Suffragette."
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
What do women have to do to put an end to misogyny? Sometimes I think it's worse today than it was a hundred and thirty some years ago, when the United States gave the vote to newly freed slaves, as long as they were male, and promised to come back for the ladies later. Specifically, black men got the right to vote in 1870. Women got the right to vote in 1920.
It took the men quite a long time to come back for the ladies. Today the descendants of those mulish men are calling women like Sarah Palin and Hillary Clinton the vilest terms imaginable. I would never have imagined a campaign as nasty as the 2008 one has been, would never have expected so many Democratic men to be silent while Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton was abused and ridiculed in ways no man ever is.
Women have joined in, too, in deriding these women, not for their positions on issues or their experience, but because they think Hillary should have divorced Bill and Sarah should have aborted her son with Down syndrome, and has "too many" kids. Hillary was no doubt criticized by some for having only one daughter. Both are criticized for working with children, something men are never criticized for. Women are truly damned if they do and damned if they don't. We're still living in suffragette city.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Home again
Our sweet little Lab is home again, though in a different form. We had to have her put down to stop her suffering and now her ashes have been returned. They were sent back in a pink-flowered tin, very appropriate for a little lady like Sophie. Right now I have the tin on the top shelf of the hutch, centered on a delicate doily crocheted by an Austrian neighbor of my mother-in-law's. I have enough of Mrs. D.'s doilies to have a different one there every day for a couple of weeks before repeating a day but I will probably just settle on one.
Sophie hadn't been small enough to hold on my lap for many years but now she is, and we can pet the tin whenever we like. It's not the same as petting her softness but it's still a bit of comfort. We didn't feel like she'd left us because she seems to be outside, waiting to be invited in, but when we'd think of letting her in or feeding her, taking her a treat, we'd remember she was gone. Now she's home again. Her yard is still empty, her house abandoned, but we feel her presence still and now we have her ashes inside with us.
Like many girls, she could be a tomboy and play in the mud, dig holes in her yard, but she also had a very feminine streak. She was pretty and she knew it, liked to center her blonde self on a dark background, our green leather sofa being her favorite, for appropriate contrast. Of course I'm anthropomorphizing here but she really did act as if she knew she was pretty. She also cleaned her paws very delicately and deliberately and then used her wet paws to clean her face. Our male Labs did the same but Sophie made it seem much more girlish when she did it. Her eyeliner helped. She had dark bands around both eyes that looked like eyeliner. Pretty eyes, even at the last when she was developing cataracts.
She had a quirky personality, was very intelligent, quite willful, could be devious, too. When she was young and knew she'd done something wrong, she'd stand under the breakfast bar part of our island and point her nose straight up in the air. She seemed to think, we hypothesized, that if she didn't look at us, we couldn't see her. She was always an amusing companion.
Sophie hadn't been small enough to hold on my lap for many years but now she is, and we can pet the tin whenever we like. It's not the same as petting her softness but it's still a bit of comfort. We didn't feel like she'd left us because she seems to be outside, waiting to be invited in, but when we'd think of letting her in or feeding her, taking her a treat, we'd remember she was gone. Now she's home again. Her yard is still empty, her house abandoned, but we feel her presence still and now we have her ashes inside with us.
Like many girls, she could be a tomboy and play in the mud, dig holes in her yard, but she also had a very feminine streak. She was pretty and she knew it, liked to center her blonde self on a dark background, our green leather sofa being her favorite, for appropriate contrast. Of course I'm anthropomorphizing here but she really did act as if she knew she was pretty. She also cleaned her paws very delicately and deliberately and then used her wet paws to clean her face. Our male Labs did the same but Sophie made it seem much more girlish when she did it. Her eyeliner helped. She had dark bands around both eyes that looked like eyeliner. Pretty eyes, even at the last when she was developing cataracts.
She had a quirky personality, was very intelligent, quite willful, could be devious, too. When she was young and knew she'd done something wrong, she'd stand under the breakfast bar part of our island and point her nose straight up in the air. She seemed to think, we hypothesized, that if she didn't look at us, we couldn't see her. She was always an amusing companion.
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