Monthly Archives: January 2025

Book Review: Every Living Thing

Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life
Jason Roberts
Random House
Copyright 2024 by the author

The Scientific Revolution kept rolling on. The Copernican Revolution changed how we look at the universe. Isaac Newton crystallized several lines of inquiry into modern physics. Now it was time to tackle the life sciences.

Two geniuses would set things in motion by taking on the huge task of organizing and classifying living things. In Sweden, Carl Linnaeus was set on becoming a doctor, but he found the field of botany more fascinating. In France, Georges-Louis Leclerc, the self-styled Comte de Buffon, used a lucky inheritance to indulge his passion for “natural history”. A brief work in statistics (“Buffon’s Needle”) got him noticed, and soon he was picked to be the “superintendent” of the Royal Garden* in Paris, where he was given the task of cataloging the massive collections.

Roberts treats these two contemporaries with a dual biography, showing how they approached the matter of the abundance and variety of life from two different directions.

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Pond in a Jar – 9

I have to admit it’s really ugly, and I want to dump it and start anew. I even have a jar / bottle being prepared as a replacement. That little plant that sprouted back in the fall of 2023 is pretty much out of control – it’s grown up and out above the water surface. There are stems and dangling rootlets all over the place, Unfortunately, quite a few leaves are turning brown. Yuck. At least most of the green fuzzy stuff is gone.

It’s not something you really want on your desk or windowsill.

But then the light hits it just right, and you see that the darned thing still has plenty of life in it.

There are dozens of teeny swimming things. The big snail seems to have gotten bigger, and there are even a few tiny snails creeping around. And most interestingly, there’s a tiny worm in the muck at the bottom. About a half inch long and a pale green in color, it is most definitely a worm. It waves back and forth independently of any movement of the Jar, and can hide back in the muck when I tap the glass. I’d never have noticed it if it wasn’t right next to the side.

Looks like I’ve got a nice little ecosystem going in there. Hopefully it will look better in the spring.

No photos this time; my phone’s camera isn’t good enough to take decent close ups of the interesting stuff. Maybe in the next update.

Sorry Everybody

Way back in ancient history (20 years ago), George W. Bush was able to win re-election as president. College student James Zetlen was a bit stunned and surprised by this; like many others he could see that Bush was a political naif who was being controlled by Darth Cheney and Emperor Rove. He decided he needed to apologize to the rest of the world. He created a website – SorryEverybody.com – where he posted a photo of himself w/ apology sign, and encouraged people to send in their own photos and apologies. He was overwhelmed with responses and submissions, and got some international press coverage.

Just a few of the hundreds….

It was a cathartic way for people to share their feelings and anxieties about the next four years.

Now that we have an exponentially worse president moving back into the “People’s House”, I’m not seeing anything similar. Not even any talk of performative protests like the “pink pussycat hat” demonstrations of eight years ago.

I suspect I know why.

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Welcome to 2025

In the past, I’ve used the first post of the year to go over the stats from the previous year. But after eleven full years of doing this, things haven’t really changed. I post about the same number of essays, get no significant increase in the number of visits or views, and the same old posts top the “Most Visited” list. And I always make a comment that I’m surprised that I’ve been able to post fairly regularly, and that I’m still going with this thing.

This year, I feel like doing something a bit different.

In the next few months, expect to see a usual post on the Baseball Hall of Fame results, and another “fantasy” game where I play with the Deadball rules. I’ve got five book and one movie reviews lined up, and I’ll probably do another post or two on my Pond in a Jar.

With luck, that will carry me through to the point where I can blather on about a vacation.

But – I’m also starting to feel that this is more of a chore than anything. Look, eleven years and well over 500 posts is a pretty good run for a silly little personal blog that I do for free. Maybe if it brought in some money I’d be more “inspired” to keep it going. If I do decide to pack it in, I will let you know. And I’ll keep the site up for another year at least – those 80 book reviews and 70 movie reviews are still good, right?

By the way, if you care, 2024 saw 57 posts, over 4000 visitors, and over 5000 page views….