Eleanor Arnason's Blog, page 88

Dredging

Patrick takes his camera when he goes bike riding. This is one of his photos.

Tow Boats Docked in St. Paul

This is another.

African Wattled Crane

This is from our trip to the International Crane Center in Wisconsin. Another Patrick photo.

Chatty Today

I am chatty today. Soon I will get dressed, go to the bank and library, and then write in a coffee house.

I was at 11,000 words on the Lydia Duluth story on September 1. I now (20 days later) have something like 18,000 words. The story is done, except for a wrap-up scene. Right now, I'm going over the printed-out manuscript, making corrections and cutting material that is not needed, though it's still a long story.

I've been averaging 350 words a day. This is a good-sized novel a year. For som...

Obama

I am pretty completely disillusioned with Obama now. But I still can't figure him out. Not that it matters. What matters is action.

However, writers make up explanations for behavior. At the moment, I have three theories.

1) He is completely clueless. He knew how to get elected, but has no idea how to be president. There's a Robert Redford movie called The Candidate. At the end of the movie, the Redford character has been elected president. In a private room, he asks one of his advisers, "What ...

The Death of Cities & Poverty

What amazing me is how the death of great American cities is nothing to worry about. Just as it's no big deal to have 10% unemployment, which is now expected to continue for years. If you add in people who are underemployed or have given up looking for work, the unemployment rate is about 17%. That is one person in six. One family in eight is on food stamps. The number of Americans living in poverty is rising. It's now 15%, almost one person in six.

The poverty line in the US is $22,000 for a...

Cities (A Poem)

I'm still tinkering with this. Patrick thinks it's too depressing. I should remember that Grace Lee Boggs is still in Detroit and still believes in the future. There are some remarkable people living in -- and fighting to revive -- our ruined cities. Maybe our future is there, among the trees.

But here is the poem:

Isn't there something wrong with a nation
where the cities die?
Youngstown returned to grass and trees,
Detroit mostly empty,
New Orleans still a wreck
five years after the flood.

The...

Breaking Up Cities

From an article in yesterday's New York Times about St. Louis:

Law enforcement officials, politicians and historic preservationists here have concluded that brick thieves are often to blame (for house fires in St. Louis), deliberately torching buildings to quicken their harvest of St. Louis brick, prized by developers throughout the South for its distinctive character.

"The firemen come and hose them down and shoot all that mortar off with the high-pressure hose," said Alderman Samuel Moore...

Astronomy Photo of the Day

What dark forms lurk in the mists of the Carina Nebula? These ominous figures are actually molecular clouds, knots of molecular gas and dust so thick they have become opaque. In comparison, however, these clouds are typically much less dense than Earth's atmosphere. Pictured above is part of the most detailed image of the Carina Nebula ever taken, a part where dark molecular clouds are particularly prominent. The image has recently been retaken and then re-colored based on light emitted by...

Astronomy Photo of the Day (Courtesy of NASA)

What created the strange spiral structure on the left? No one is sure, although it is likely related to a star in a binary star system entering the planetary nebula phase, when its outer atmosphere is ejected. The huge spiral spans about a third of a light year across and, winding four or five complete turns, has a regularity that is without precedent. Given the expansion rate of the spiral gas, a new layer must appear about every 800 years, a close match to the time it takes for the two...