If you could give your child the gift of perfect pitch — the ability to identify a note simply by hearing it — would you? The few who are born with perfect pitch say notes have a concrete identity and presence, almost like colors, and being able to intuitively recognize them gives music an almost [...]
Archive for July, 2009
An Elusive Musical Gift Could Be at Children’s Fingertips
Posted in Living on July 27, 2009 | Comments Off
The swine flu panic will turn into a national sickie
Posted in Health on July 27, 2009 | Comments Off
Sarah Standing says that the outbreak has brought out the worst in the governing class and public alike. Ministers and experts feed us with contradictory information, breeding alarmism without dealing with it. Stand by for a civil war between hypochondria and common sense First, the good news. And we all need good news. According to [...]
Bear-Proof Can Is Pop-Top Picnic for a Crafty Thief
Posted in Animals on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
On top of Marcy Dam in the Adirondacks, Taryn Tomasik prepares dinner from food stored in her bear canister. Campers are encouraged to eat on the dam to help keep the scent of their food away from bears. It was built to be impenetrable, from its “super rugged transparent polycarbonate housing” to its intricate double-tabbed [...]
See-through
Posted in The Word, tagged July 26 2009 on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Should we demand a literal ‘transparency’? AT LEAST ONE reader had a problem (or maybe just an issue) with a word I used in last week’s column. I said that I preferred P-town as the short form of Provincetown, rather than Ptown or P’town, because it was conventional and also “transparent” – that is, the [...]
Your brain in drive
Posted in Health, Living, Natural sciences on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
What happens when an older driver takes the wheel — and what we all can learn from it. For all the indignities that the elderly suffer, they aren’t typically accused of being a menace to society. Until, that is, they get behind the wheel of a car. Here in Massachusetts, a spate of high-profile accidents [...]
Today in History – July 26
Posted in This day in history, tagged July 26 on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Sunday, July 26, the 207th day of 2009. There are 158 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On July 26, 1908, U.S. Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte ordered creation of a force of special agents that was a forerunner of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On this date: In 1775, [...]
Nasty Gnomes and Nicked Knickers
Posted in Strange but true on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
It’s summer time and any real news has been replaced by the news of the weird. Whether it’s stolen panties, water turned into wine or offensive garden gnomes, SPIEGEL has been keeping its eye on the seasonal silliness. Now it’s time to pour yourself a beer, make yourself comfortable and put your news knowledge to [...]
Deposed President Manuel Zelaya returned to the Honduran border on Saturday and announced he would set up camp there
Posted in Politics, Strange but true on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Zelaya Makes Second Trip to Honduran Border Deposed President Manuel Zelaya returned to the Honduran border on Saturday and announced he would set up camp there, despite foreign leaders urging him not to force a confrontation with the government that ousted him in last month’s coup. Ousted Honduras President Manuel Zelaya talks to his supporters [...]
Health Reform Utah’s Way
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
In a way, it’s too bad President Obama tapped Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman to serve as ambassador to China. The ambassador-designee promised a Senate panel Thursday that, if confirmed, he would press American values in China. If only the Obama administration would press Huntsman’s health-care reform values here in the United States. As governor, Huntsman [...]
The Health-Care Sacrifice
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Health on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
What President Obama needs to tell the public about the cost of reform. PRESIDENT OBAMA sometimes presents health-care reform as a pain-free proposition, as simple as choosing the red pill over the blue — one that’s no more effective but costs twice as much. Asked at his news conference whether “the American people are going [...]
Iran’s Revolution Has a Vacancy at the Top
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
On June 15, five of my relatives — the oldest 65, the youngest 22 — spent four hours traveling across Tehran’s sprawling metropolis to reach a demonstration against the country’s election result. They first crammed into a creaky Iranian-made car, rode part of the way in a dilapidated bus and walked the final three miles. [...]
Today’s papers – July 26, 2009
Posted in Today's Papers, tagged July 26 2009 on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Focus on Health Savings Obscures Other Issues The Washington Post leads with a look at the evolving debate over health care reform. While previous reform efforts referred to providing universal coverage as a moral issue, President Barack Obama is instead focusing on reining in the burgeoning cost of care. Now some experts worry that all [...]
Life Before Air Conditioning
Posted in Living on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
How in the world did people deal with the heat of August without air conditioning? Lots of ways, both time-tested and experimental. Cooling homes was not the intended purpose when Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning in 1902. The earliest air conditioners were for industrial quality control; the comfort of the workers was incidental. However, [...]
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 112, 113, 114 on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Picoides pubescens Pic mineur ( mâle et femelle) / Downy Woodpecker (male and female) We owe the Downy Woodpecker much respect and attention, simply because it destroys great quantities of insects that are harmful to the environment! It is present in leafy and mixed forests, orchards, parks and wooded neighborhoods in cities, and feeds mainly [...]
Genius In Exile
Posted in Arts and Entertainment, History on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
One morning in September 1940, a newly arrived European musician paid a visit to the conductor Otto Klemperer in Los Angeles and found him discussing Gustav Mahler with his fellow-exile Bruno Walter. The visitor went on to lunch at the new home of Thomas Mann in Pacific Palisades, where he worked on some chamber music [...]
Chinese Scientists Reprogram Cells to Create Mice
Posted in Natural sciences on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
A picture released by Nature magazine shows Xiao Xiao, or “Tiny” in Chinese, the first baby mouse created from reprogrammed skin cells. Two teams of Chinese researchers working separately have reprogrammed mature skin cells of mice to an embryonic-like state and used the resulting cells to create live mouse offspring. The reprogramming may bring scientists [...]
Molting Season: Sarkozy’s New Feathers
Posted in Politics on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
French commentators say President Nicolas Sarkozy, with his wife, Carla, is already preparing himself for the 2012 election. If Nicolas Sarkozy seems to some to represent a kind of modern politician, rudderless and without ideology, he also is deeply aware, on the basis of opinion polls and focus groups, of what his image lacks. Now, [...]
New Creatures in an Age of Extinctions
Posted in Animals, Natural sciences on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off
Scientists recently announced the discovery of a small monkey in the Amazon. In the inner precincts of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, along a corridor that could easily accommodate a string of bowling alleys, Kristofer M. Helgen, curator of mammals, pulled open one of the thousands of metal cabinets stacked against the [...]
So where’s that global cooling alert?
Posted in Editorials and opinion, Energy and Environment on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Twillingate in Toronto: Thank God Toronto is having a Newfoundland summer. Now I don’t mean, even though it would be a wonderful idea, that there are bake-apple festivals at Bloor and Yonge. Or that the Bay Street stockbrokers are out jigging codfish on “food fish” weekends. Though that, too, would be an encouraging, even edifying, [...]
Spies like them
Posted in Popular culture on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
There have been many fictional British spies From Ian Fleming to John Le Carre – authors have long been fascinated by the world of espionage. But what do real life spooks make of fictional spies? Much of what the public knows about the UK’s Secret Service, or MI6, comes from the world of fiction [...]
Today in History – July 25
Posted in This day in history, tagged July 25 on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Today is Saturday, July 25, the 206th day of 2009. There are 159 days left in the year. Today’s Highlight in History On July 25, 1909, French aviator Louis Bleriot became the first person to fly an airplane across the English Channel, traveling from Calais to Dover in 37 minutes. On this date: In 1261, [...]
Today’s papers – July 25, 2009
Posted in Today's Papers, tagged July 25 2009 on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Obama Shifts Tone on Gates After Mulling Scale of Debate The New York Times and Washington Post lead and the Wall Street Journal tops its world-wide newsbox with President Obama’s attempt to back away from his earlier criticism of the police officer who arrested the African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.—criticism that has blown up [...]
Exiled Leader of Honduras Steps Into Country
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Politics on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Manuel Zelaya surrounded by supporters at the Las Manos border station on Friday. The ousted president of Honduras, Manuel Zelaya, briefly stepped a few feet inside Honduran territory for the first time in a month on Friday afternoon, and he demanded that he be allowed to return to power. Driving a white Jeep Wrangler north [...]
All-Purpose Pronoun
Posted in On Language, tagged July 26 2009 on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
What can you say in 140 characters? On Twitter, that’s your limit per tweet. The Twitterati consider this the last word in writing lite, but they’ve devoted quite a few tweets to a venerable linguistic quest that has long thwarted old-media types: the search for an all-purpose pronoun that’s masculine or feminine, singular or plural. [...]
100 Years Later, Celebrating a Historic Flight in Europe
Posted in History on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Louis Blériot, left, stood in front of his plane on July 25, 1909, after he flew it across the English Channel to Dover, England, from France. At the time, his feat was an international sensation. Suspended from the vaulted arches of the church of St.-Martin-des-Champs, on the grounds of the Musée des Arts et Métiers [...]
Obama Scrambles to Defuse Race Flap
Posted in Politics on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Police Sgt. James M. Crowley (left) listens as police union officials speak at a news conference in Cambridge, Mass. President Barack Obama tried to step back from the contretemps over the arrest of African-American scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., saying he “could have calibrated” his words differently when he said police had “acted stupidly” in [...]
The UAW’s Defined Benefactor
Posted in Economy and business, Editorials and opinion on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Welcome to the General Motors bailout, part three—or is it four, or five? It’s hard to keep up, but this week the federal Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation took over the pension liabilities of Delphi, the auto-parts spinoff of GM that has been working its way through Chapter 11 since 2005. As with the previous taxpayer [...]
The President Takes a Hard Line on Israel
Posted in Conflicts and wars, Editorials and opinion on July 25, 2009 | Comments Off
Yet he doesn’t want to be seen as ‘meddling’ in Iran. In foreign policy, President Barack Obama has demonstrated a disturbing propensity to curry favor with our adversaries at the expense of our friends. The Czechs and Poles are rightly concerned that they will be sacrificed on the altar of better U.S. relations with Russia. [...]
The Birds of America
Posted in Birds of America, tagged 109, 110, 111 on July 24, 2009 | Comments Off
Passerculus sandwichensis Bruant des prés / Savannah Sparrow The Savannah Sparrow has made of Québec, along with Canada and the United States, its nesting territory, and it migrates southward to spend the winter. It feeds essentially on seeds, insects, spiders, and snails that it finds in straw-fields, pastures, coastal dunes, fresh and saltwater marshes and [...]
