In the bespangled Pioneer Saloon in Paisley, Oregon, hangs a picture on a wall of a fit, gray mustached archaeologist out in the field. Written in pen, the name at the bottom of the photo is Dr. Poop. Dennis Jenkins is his actual name, a senior archaeologist at the University of Oregon. Jenkins leads paleo digs in […]
Evolution
In my last post I made the case for why we are not, in fact, slaves to nature and our genes. Today allow me to do the opposite. First let me set the stage. You are on a tiny island – maybe the size of a few city blocks – looking out to sea. You could […]
Bowhunting season in Western Colorado opened yesterday, which means the rut is underway, the next season coming into view. By the time you see this, I will be sitting in the quiet of the woods with my 12 year old boy listening for bugling elk, their haunting, whale-like calls rising through dusk aspens and sea-green […]
If there’s a landmass that has them, get off of it now. As you’ll learn in this blog post, the last thing you want to do is find yourself trapped in a confined space with sloths, and I consider a continent a confined space. For starters, the sloth is the only animal listed as one […]
I couldn’t have been any more than 7 or 8 years old when I told my mom I was running away. Her response was, “Take me with you.” I grew up with her, just the two of us. She was a wanderer, not happy unless she was going somewhere. Her restlessness had us moving once […]
As of yesterday, May 20, LWON has been alive for five years. LWON is a little surprised at this and pretty pleased with itself. In celebration, two of our brilliant alumni wrote guest posts listing the Top Five Things They Wanted to List the Top Five Of. Today, Five People of LWON announce the best […]
If you were a bobcat, all tufted ears and oblique green eyes and lush spotted coat, you might find a lot to like about life in the Santa Monica Mountains. In the low, rugged range that bisects metropolitan Los Angeles, you would feast on the hordes of rats that frequent the unkempt middens of slovenly humans. You […]
For all those who suffered through my impossibly obscure quiz questions a fortnight ago, my heartfelt thanks. 120 readers sat the quiz to the end, and the average grade of 44% is no disservice to your knowledge level. There is one question in particular, though, whose most popular response surprises me. A remipede is a […]
