Category Archives: writing

A limerick for Darwin’s 200th

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Thursday is, of course, the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth. To kick off a week of commemorations, symposia, and nerdy parties, I humbly submit a limerick:

The vicar, one Quite Reverend Darwin
Considered, whilst penning each sermon,
How he might have advanced,
Had he taken that chance
To go with the Beagle a-voyagin’.

(It is widely considered that Darwin, had he not taken an interest in natural history, would’ve ended up as a clergyman; see David Quamman’s excellent pocket biography, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin.)

Inauguration Day

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Photo by Jeremy Yoder.

In one of those quirks of political geography, the Idaho panhandle is apart from the rest of the state in the Pacific time zone. So Barack Obama will become President of the United States at about 0830 local time, and I am listening to the Inauguration on NPR as part of only slightly extended morning laziness with a cup of coffee and Ovaltine. Through one of those quirks of weather, my part of Idaho is under what’s called a thermal inversion – a layer of warm air somewhere above us is preventing the air at ground level from moving. At this time of year, that means there’s no wind to blow away the freezing fog, which every night coats trees’ leafless twigs in a filigree of frost. In Washington, though, a new wind is blowing, and today, at least, there’s a smell of spring in the air.


Photo by Barack Obama.

It would appear

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… that McSweeney’s Internet Tendency has published a little piece I submitted. I am pleased. [Be advised: The piece in question would probably get an “R” for language, and a “meh” from Manohla Dargis.]