Pantanal

Today I attended a meeting of the Winona bird club. The speaker is a naturalist in La Crosse, WI. He spoke about a wetland in southern Brazil called Pantanal. This is the largest tropical wetland in the world. He said the wet season is from October until March. He went in September which is a good time to go because the water levels are way down and the wildlife is concentrated in smaller areas. He stayed at 5 lodges or hotels. He usually traveled by boat. He saw three kinds of kingfishers, 5 kinds of herons, five kinds of hawks, three kinds of toucans, ibises, spoonbills, trogans and 4 species of macaws. He saw lots of caiman. He saw 8 jaguars. Jaguars have the strongest bite. Their bite is stronger than lions and tigers. Their method of killing is crushing the skull. Their primary targets are caiman and copybaras. He saw giant anteaters and giant river otters (six feet long).  He saw 3 species of monkeys. He had great photos and an abundance of quiet enthusiasm.

 

The pantanal is the area of lime green. The river across the top of the map is the Amazon River.

 

Three Days In June

One of my favorite authors is Anne Tyler. She doesn't write often but her stories are about quaint, ordinary people. I just finished reading Three Days In June. In this story Gail is preparing for her daughter's wedding. The rehearsal dinner is on day one, the wedding on day two, and the day after the wedding is on day three. On day one Gail goes to work at her school job as assistant principal. The current principal says she will retire over the summer. Earlier Gail had been promised the job. Now the principal says the board decided (at her encouragement) to bring in another principal from the south. The new principal wants to bring her own assistant. Gail is upset and empties her office and goes home. At home her ex-husband comes to the door with a suitcase and a cat. He was planning to stay at the daughter's place but her fiancee is allergic to cats. Gail lets him stay for a few nights. She helps him buy a suit. The next day they attend the wedding. I know this doesn't sound like much drama. There is no mystery and no conflict. But it was a very pleasant book to read. 

 

 

No More Tears

Gardiner Harris is an investigative reporter. He wrote No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson and Johnson. Johnson and Johnson, J & J, was a trusted pharmaceutical company. As this books points out repeatedly, that trust was undeserved.  J&J knew there was asbestos in their baby powder but claimed there was none. They knew Tylenol overuse was dangerous but kept that information to themselves. They knew the medical mesh they made to hold up bladders was ineffective. They knew a drug used to fight cancer actually caused more tumors to form. They illegally bribed psychiatrists to prescribe Risperidol to children who did not need it plus they hid the side effects. The FDA does not keep us safe and we cannot rely on pharmaceutical companies to put consumer safety above profits. 

 

 

Happy Halloween!

 

The Berry Pickers

Amanda Peters is the author of The Berry Pickers. This is a story of a young girl named Ruthie. She is the youngest in her family. They live in Nova Scotia. In the summer of the 1960's, they travel to Maine to pick blueberries. She has three older brothers and an older sister. One day, after lunch, she is sitting on a rock waiting for her family to return when she is kidnapped. She is taken into an unhappy family. Her mother is worried her family will come to get her so she keeps her close. She is now named Norma. She dreams of campfires and family but is told she has an active imagination. Not until both of her parents have died does Norma figure out she was once named Ruthie. This is a tale about determination and unrelenting hope. 

 

 

Political Science

 Like jumbo shrimp and deafening science, I always thought political science was an oxymoron. I still believed this after Offspring #2 got a degree in political science. The past two weeks I have been taking a political science class designed for seniors at Winona State University.  Our second class was today and we have three more to go. We have been studying the importance of the midterm elections. We studied partisan balance in congress and why the party of the president usually loses seats. We studied the changes in election laws since 2024 and gerrymandering. We analyzed house races and identified competitive districts. We analyzed senate and governors races. We spent a little time forecasting results of the midterm elections. I now have changed my mind. There is such a thing as political science. We can study data from the past and try to predict the future. Live and learn!

 

 

The Dinner

How far would you go to protect your children from legal consequences? In the book by Herman Koch, a Dutch writer, the parents go way farther than I ever would. The book is called The Dinner. The narrator of the story is Peter, a former history teacher. He and his wife are meeting his brother and his wife to discuss their two sons. They meet at an expensive restaurant. Peter's brother is up for election to be prime minister of the Netherlands. He has plenty of money and likes to flaunt it. Peter is irritated with his brother. Each chapter is named after a course in the dinner from aperitif to digestive. Both brothers and both wives love their sons. After reading this, I believe all four of them were psychopaths. This is a book with an ending you will not see coming.