Reading Recommendation: Six Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism, by Jane J. Lee in National Geographic Daily News.
Not so much a recommendation as a directive: you must read this.
There’s a NOVA episode about Rosalind Franklin that’s worth seeing too (she’s noted in the above article).
Somewhere over the west
“I really don’t know one plane from the other. To me they are all just marginal costs with wings.”
-Alfred Kahn, airline economist (1917-2010)
Commercial air travel has changed a lot over the years. Since the US airline industry was deregulated in 1978, fares have dropped and lots more people have been flying. Airlines have merged and morphed and vanished. The rise of hub-and-spoke airline systems means that a major delay at one important airport can ripple across the country for days.
What hasn’t changed is the incredible vastness and variety of the country you see out the window. On a recent round trip from southern Colorado to Portland, Oregon (via Phoenix), I saw the Grand Canyon and the Colorado river valley, tract housing as far as the eye could see, and irrigation circles laid out like giant board games in the desert. I saw dormant volcanoes in Oregon and a bird’s eye view of the oil fields of the San Juan Basin in northwest New Mexico.
Commercial flight is the only way most of us will ever get to see those wide, wide views. Every time I fly, those views remind me of all the thousands of places in the US that I haven’t been to yet. And that takes the sting out of the scores of little annoyances along the way.
Because wow, America.
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Read about the history of commercial flight in the US at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s America By Air exhibit.
Read about Alfred Kahn, who headed up the Civil Aeronautics Board that oversaw airline deregulation, in his obituary from The Economist (January 20, 2011).
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This is an entry for The American Guide.
(via textless)
As we were reaching the end of our trip we spotted a great gathering of great blue herons (Ardea herodias) at the falls of the Rappahannock River, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. My sisters counted about thirty birds on the rocks at the fall line from Mayfield Bridge. I counted 25 from the shore, but never had a sight line that took in more than about ten birds at once.
In 1910 a small hydroelectric dam was constructed here, impeding the movement of anadromous fish - like herring, shad, and stripped bass - that historically returned to the Rappahannock headwaters to spawn. The dam was demolished in 2006, and these fish are now returning to their historical ranges in the river, though their populations are still in flux. Our guess is that the herons we saw were there to exploit a run of fish at the old Embry Dam site, where the river narrows and the falls slow (but no longer stop) the fishes’ progress.
Please click any photo in the set for full views.
Bonus trivia: the collective term for a group of herons is sedge, sege, or siege.
I’m airing out my tent that I haven’t used in years.
This little company from Kenya makes toys from slippers that wash up on the beach. Pictures by Ben Curtis
(via mardallie)
There is a quiet walkway in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park that is off the Little River Road (it’s the second one you encounter after leaving the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center and head towards Townsend).. If you head straight, you’ll have an uphill portion that ends in this cemetery. This is the Fighting Creek cemetery which served the Fighting Creek community.
There are many of these small cemeteries scattered throughout the park. Only some of them were associated with churches. Good examples of those are found in the Cades Cove loop (the Primitive Baptist Church, the Missionary Baptist Church and the Methodist church). These cemeteries are considered ‘live’ cemeteries in that they are being used still. Anyone who lived in the park before it was a park (and if they were allowed to live there after) are allowed to be buried there. The cemetery in the photo is considered a ‘dead’ cemetery in that it isn’t being used anymore. However, there was a newer gravestone in there. Many of those gravestones are so worn that the engraving is no longer visible and occasionally family members will put a new marker down.
There is a cemetery by the Sugarlands Visitor’s center that was associated with a church but it was removed when the Civilian Conservation Corps put roads in the park.
When we asked about this cemetery at the visitor’s center, we learned that you can make an appointment and use the library if you want to do any research.
This is one of the original shops on the Gatlinburg Arts and Crafts loop in the Glades area. My mom and I stopped in here (she had been in here previously). The owner’s name is Randy Whaley. He is the great-great grandson of William Bradford “Whitehead Bill” Whaley (who was the grandson of the first Whaley in the Greenbrier area). If you’re ever there, stop in. He and his son are wood carvers and have these wonderful birds, flowers and other items. There are also weaved items (done by Hope Reagan on an old family loom ).
He is very chatty and knows a lot of the local history of the Greenbrier area where the Ownby and Whaley families first settled (and is now part of the National park). Unfortunately the people coming in to these areas forced out the Cherokee people who were living there and they were relegated to the Cherokee reservation in North Carolina (I know that one sentence doesn’t do the subject justice). Along with those families, the Rayfields and the Partons also settled there later (Dolly is the great-great granddaughter of Benjamin Christenberry Parton who was the first Parton there).
Randy has some big hand-drawn maps showing all of the families who lived in the Gatlinburg, Greenbrier and Glades areas before it became a park. He said there were so many Bill Whaleys in the area that they each had nicknames. There was ‘Whitehead’ Bill Whaley, ‘Speckled’ Bill Whaley, ‘Vander’ Bill Whaley and ‘Booger’ Bill Whaley.
They have a lot of great information on Smoky Mountain residents at SmokyKin.com. It seems to be a great time-waster.
The John Ownby cabin
It’s about a 0.6 mile hike (one way) on the Fighting Creek Nature Trail from the Sugarlands Visitor’s Center in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
“The world just became a lot more complicated.” — Elektra
Cedric Arnold was on assignment in Thailand when he first saw a shipyard worker covered head-to-toe in tattoos. This was Arnold’s entry point into the yantra tattoo tradition, one that goes back hundreds of years and spans several countries in Southeast Asia.
Arnold’s project, “Sacred Ink,” consumed four and a half years of his life and took him all over Thailand to cover this tradition in its entirety, from the giant ceremonies for devotees to the rare tattoos that are only found in certain parts of the country.
Incorporating elements of Buddhism, Animism, Brahmanism, and Hinduism, the tradition is believed to go back as far as the ninth century, and there’s even historical evidence of soldiers wearing the tattoos for protection in battle during the 16th and 17th centuries. (click through to read rest)
Photos: Cedric Arnold (via Cedric Arnold: “Sacred Ink” examines the tradition of yantra tattoos of Southeast Asia (PHOTOS).)
