Coffee and Provocation

Life Lessons from Poet Mary Oliver

Poet Mary Oliver has died at the age of 83. Her instructions for living were simple: “Pay attention. / Be astonished. / Tell about it.”

Just Say NO to Frenchies
National Geographic asks: Are We Loving French Bulldogs to Death? They and the breeders they talk to are missing the basic point: love and "responsible breeding" has nothing to do with the Frenchie. This is a dog defective by design and intent. Deformity is the breed description.

Eat Like a Bird?
A Cooper’s Hawk, which is about the size of a crow, eats around 12 percent of its body weight per day. In comparison, that's like a 150 pound person eating 18 pounds of food (six extra-large pizzas) a day. But that's nothing compared to a chickadee, which eats the equivalent of 35 percent of its weight in sunflower seeds every day. But that's nothing compared to a hummingbird which drinks about 100 percent of its body weight per day.

The Conservation Coffee Project
The Conservation Coffee Project in Papua New Guinea aims to create income for local people while protecting land and helping populations of native tree kangaroos, cassowaries, and cuscus (a possum-like marsupial).

Scientific American Trolls Trump
In an article entitled When Leaders are Bullies, Scientific American notes that: "In primate societies, whether human or non-human, a leader who's a bloated, self-serving egotist creates mayhem and confusion."

War of Words
Vegans want to call crushed nuts and grains soaked in water "milk,” and ground up soybeans "meat". But the milk and meat industries are crying foul (not fowl) arguing that these words cannot be used for plant-based substitutes.

Island Killers
The Apostle Islands in northern Wisconsin's Lake Superior are home to at least 12 species of carnivores, including black bear, gray wolf, coyote, American marten, bobcat, fisher, raccoon, red fox, gray fox, long-tailed weasel, mink, and otter.

Hawaiian Snail Loss
Hawaii once had more than 750 species of land snails, but most were lost due to predation by rats and the Rosy Wolfsnail (Euglandina rosea), which eats other snails.

Jor-El sends Kal-El to Safety
“Reporting their findings in Nature, researchers have found evidence for the existence of a 'hot cocoon' of material enveloping a relativistic jet escaping a dying star."

How It Ends: The Manchurian Candidate