Welcome to LWON’s second annual Snark Week! In celebration of the responsible and informative shark documentaries on basic cable this week, we have decided to offer five counter stories that will frighten you even more than a great white shark that’s been artificially driven into a frenzy by cameramen chumming the water. Remember, just because something […]
Month: August 2014
August 4 – 8, 2014 Richard and Ann disagree informatively about the nature of a science writer’s duty toward truth and its embellishments. There is a glimmer of hope when Richard strikes on the thought that science writers share subjective truths, whereas scientists have a duty to be objective. Ann disagrees. The debate rages on in […]
The teetering, hundred-year-old collection of wooden buildings that form my father’s fishing club in backwoods Quebec is arranged in a row like a Wild West town, where mosquitoes are the hostile locals. To reach his favourite fishing spots, Dad sometimes has to stop his motorized quad in front of downed trees and change into Kevlar trousers to chainsaw […]
For a landlubber, I’ve been spending a lot of time around fish. Not long ago, I plunged my hands into paddlefish guts for a story about caviar poaching in the Ozarks; last year, I spent several weeks in very fishy places on and around the Mekong River, researching an ongoing project about hydropower development on the […]
Around here, we do some things by the numbers. On odd days, the older boy sits on the prime outside seat of the kitchen island and has bedtime stories from his dad; on even days, his younger brother gets these things. On even days, no one has to wash his hair. But then we run […]
Three years ago, I spent a while in the rainforest of Panama, for a story. It’s one of those swashbuckling freelancer stories, except—like so many of those—it’s not all that swashbuckling when you get down to the details. I was an hour’s drive (on good roads) from an international airport. I was staying in a […]
Richard: A few months ago, Ann wrote a post about beauty and truth in science writing. I object to neither. But she seemed to take exception to a “literary nonfiction” approach to science, and I wondered what in particular her objections were. So I thought I’d ask her. Hey, Ann, what gives? Ann: Literary nonfiction […]
July 28—August 1, 2014 The ever-helpful Abstruse Goose swoops in to start the week with a vision of astronaut Barbie going rogue and unleashing her vengeance on Earth. Unrealistic expectations, according to AG—but why, I wonder? I’m particularly wondering this after seeing 5’0” Kacy Catanzaro climb up walls and hurl herself through obstacles to become […]
