Monday 27 May 2002

This isn’t a me ’n’ the media issue, more of an aesthetic issue. But this category, Hostage to Crap, seems particularly appropriate. South Plainfield is the next township over. There haven’t been that many geese this year, probably due to these efforts. But what a pest they are! I remember the story of a truck driver who accidentally ran over one, decapitating it, and got charged with cruel something or other. Geese Love This Land of Lush Lawns, but the Residents Are Fed Up. Canada geese have taken over Spring Lake Park in Middlesex County, N.J., much to the chagrin of local residents. By Maria Newman. [by way of New York Times: Science] One of the methods is egg addling. Speaking of addled eggs: "I must ask, if the geese are slaughtered, what animal could be the next victim?" asked Bari Feinstein, a representative of the New Jersey chapter of the Coalition to Prevent the Destruction of Canada Geese. "What are we teaching our children, that problems can only be solved by bloodshed, instead of teaching them compassion and respect for all living things?" By what moral imperative am I supposed to respect all living things? Should I feel guilty for squishing a fly? For eating bistik? Deep ecology philosophers aside, no such imperative exists. The geese flocks are pests, and when they give you the evil eye, watch out. If we decide to take on the responsibility of preserving an animal population, we must also take on the responsibility of knowing the proper limits of that population and cull it accordingly. It’s called husbandry. We have erred too much in one direction in some cases (passenger pigeons, aardwolves, dodos, whales) but that does not mean we must err in the opposing direction. Error is error, and what we really need to cultivate is not an indiscriminate respect for any life, but a sense of proportion in deciding issues. Arming or buying slaves in Africa is a moral issue; deciding how to respond to the Middle Eastern quagmire is a moral issue; determining how to treat prisoners of war is a moral issue; dealing with geese is not. 10:47:37 PM    comment [] I am trying to find the original Greek for an epigram of Nossis of Locri to put in my commonplace book. I am unsatisfied with the poetic quality of the English translations I found on the web, and, though I have almost no Greek, I would prefer to see the source form over comparing the various translations and putting out the one I have. In one case, the contextual exegesis of the epigram mentions glukopikros, sweet-bitter, which clearly links Nossis to Sappho, but the poem as it stands in most forms has the comparative, sweeter. In another case, where the goddess is mentioned, the translations differ: Kypris, Aphrodite. (Kypris is a conventional kenning found in Homer, referring I suppose to her birthplace in Cyprus.) Which is it? 10:41:09 AM    comment [] Vote: Arts & Letters Daily has been nominated for a Webby. I love A&L Daily; it’s like an aggregator of the best of the mainstream journals; stuff to make you think. Like that Harpers Magazine section or the Utne Reader, only with less bias, and I don’t mean more conservative or more liberal, just the best of what the mainstream web has to say, often from several perspectives. 2:42:16 AM    comment [] Huh. Someone more into Invader Zim than I am. Scary. (If Nickelodeon had a decent site for IZ, I would have linked to it.) 2:39:30 AM    comment [] Whoops. Only caught a few bits from 127 to about 129 beats per minute this afternoon. Surprisingly, this included Dirty Vegas’s “Days Go By” and Kravitz’s “Are you gonna go my way?” What MTV 1 Should Be..... Sometimes I just want something on TV in the background while I'm working or blogging, and this weekend it's MTV2 because it's an "Increase the Beat" weekend. (I'd make that a link if I could find ANY information about it on their site.) Basically, they're playing 400 songs in order of increasing beats per minute. Cool! [by way of The Shifted Librarian] Currently it’s doing a rehash of the Most Controversial Videos bit they did a month or so ago, so you know my TiVo is workin’ full time. I think the only time I watch MTV (one) is for the cartoons and 120 Minutes. Oh, wait, that got moved to M2, neh? 2:00:39 AM    comment [] Snort. The best line when the president meets his adversary. "I decided to kick your ass when you said.." We cheer for President Bartlett, as we would have for Bill Clinton, had he faced Dubya in the Y2K election. [by way of Scripting News] Sure Dave. The difference between Bartlett and Clinton: Barlett is a man of unimpeachable integrity who may not have disclosed some medical facts. Clinton—no, it’s just too easy. Has he been disbarred yet? Yes? Thank God. 1:54:13 AM    comment []

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