Thanks to City Pages Blotter, which included this blog as “Minnesota Blog of the Day” on July 25. It’s now listed on the City Pages Minnesota-Based Blog Directory.

Fellow Northfield blogger Ross Currier recently wrote about a meeting he and I attended on promoting bicycle and pedestrian issues in our hometown. He’s joking when he uses the word “cabal,” though. Really, he is! Anyone interested in promoting the cause is welcome to join us. I’m doing this advocacy as a volunteer with RENew Northfield, a great nonprofit run by Bruce Anderson. Read the rest of this entry »

Anne Bretts of Northfield.org wrote up a nice piece on me after I won a gift certificate. Thank you, Anne and Northfield.org!

As I contemplate the rockets and bombs raining down on people in Israel and Lebanon, it occurs to me that I experience modern technology in a very different way than do the people in those regions. Here, deep inside the most heavily militarized nation-state on the planet, the mighty fortress of the United States, it’s highly unlikely a rocket will rain down on my family and my house. Instead, I experience modern technology mainly as a benefit, as a sharp-edged knife that is in my own hands. For example, planes ferry us around for business and pleasure; they don’t direct bombs at my neighborhood. The one exception to that is September 11, when planes were directed as deadly missiles. Thus our obsessive focus on that dark day.

The vicious, serrated edge of modern techonology, the one used in warfare, will strike this nation again one day. But for now, it is mainly directed at others far away, including Lebanon, and to a lesser degree at Israel.

Since Israel’s military capacity is so much greater than its immediate neighbors, that country is also causing the most destruction in the current conflict. Israel, look at the blade in your own hand. Look where you are directing it, whose throats you are cutting.

On May 12 I reported on a talk on biofuels given by Dr. Stephen Polasky of the University of Minnesota. Now Polasky and several others, including renowned biologist David Tilman, have published their findings in an important paper titled “Environmental, economic, and energetic costs and benefits of biodiesel and ethanol biofuels,” published online July 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jason Hill, formerly of the St. Olaf College biology department, also participated in the study. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been busier than I would like lately. In addition to the test development work that I do, I have some volunteer responsibilities, including local bicycle and pedestrian advocacy, church responsibilities, and my new role as president of our townhome association. Then of course there are family responsibilities and the constant demands of parenthood.

The latter has great ups and downs, of course. I must report one cute comment by our two-year-old daughter. She was playing with some coins, and I asked her, “What do we do with money?” “Put it in our pockets,” she said.

I’ll take a busy but peaceful life over the war and civil strife that plagues the Middle East, including the ongoing fighting in Iraq and the escalating war between Israel and Hezbollah. I will keep the people of that region in my prayers.

The weather turned cooler last night after some fierce heat over the past few days. During the hot spell we had the house closed up and air conditioned for the first time this year as highs reached into the 90s with high humidity. It’s quite pleasant outside this morning with less humidity, though the high is supposed to approach 90 again.

What’s pleasant for me isn’t good for moisture-starved plants and farmers. As the weather remains dry, we are at or near drought conditions in much of the Upper Midwest. Portions of the Dakotas, especially central South Dakota, are already in a severe drought. To track the drought online, check out the U.S. Drought Monitor from the University of Nebraska.

Now that the World Cup is over, it occurred to me that I might begin to cheer for one of the English Premier League soccer teams as a way to stay attuned to top-flight soccer. (Sorry, Major League Soccer.) Thus I’ve picked Middlesborough as my team. I’m fairly ignorant about them, but from what I gather they are scrappy underdogs. Cheering for Arsenal or Manchester United would be like rooting for the Yankees or Braves here. I’m a Twins fan, after all.

Middlesborough - which is in northeastern England between Newcastle and York - is also a northern town not far from an area of England that I’ve had the pleasure of traveling in - the northern Pennines. That area was particuarly important to W.H. Auden, the poet who was the subject of my doctoral dissertation.

I’m pretty sure I’ve correctly identified that plant with yellow flowers that I described in my previous entry. It’s most likely birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus). Here are three shots I took on Saturday, July 8, here in Northfield, Minnesota:

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve had a busy week here in midsummer. We enjoyed a long Fourth of July weekend at the family cabin in northwestern Wisconsin, where the weather was much warmer than on our last visit in June. This time we could finally enjoy the beach.  Read the rest of this entry »