The Persnickety Reader

This article was interesting to me because Sherry and I have been wondering how Milo is going to react come September when baby makes his appearance in the house.

(from Slate)

I think it says a lot about our culture that we even have to do this: ensure biodiversity.

Think Teflon is the greatest thing since sliced bread?

In North America, it has been widely reported, as many as 95 per cent of all people have traces of the key ingredient in Teflon — PFOA for perfluorooctanoic acid — in their bloodstream. What’s more, this compound, which has been linked (in very high doses) to health and reproductive problems in lab animals, can take decades or longer to be expelled from the body.

It seems that the miracle that creates non-stickiness is chemicals. And not just any chemicals, toxic chemicals. Very toxic chemicals. Won’t anyone think of the polar bears?

And speaking of polar bears, I meant to link to this story a while back. The shockingly stange but true case of the Pizzly / Grolar Bear.

Not only did the Oilers lose last night, but Leah McLaren has signed a new book deal. AAAARGH!

I’m hoping that I can drive down to Edmonton for the Stanley Cup parade.

Go Oilers Go!

Not as neat as the Eagle Cam (link to previous post), but a good site for information, nonetheless: the Falcon Cam. An initiative of CBC Manitoba and some people from the corporate world with a lot of neat facts, stuff, and even a “Falcon Chick” blog, but a web cam that unfortunately only refreshes every 30 seconds.

The Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project (Manitoba), Shaw and CBC in Manitoba are proud to share with you a very special journey in the life of the peregrine.

Follow the only known pair of nesting peregrine falcons in Winnipeg as they make their home on a downtown high rise.

Also check out: The Peregrine Falcon Recovery Project.

I always really liked Don McKay’s poem, “Identification,” from Birding, or Desire (1983):

Yesterday a hawkish speck
above the cornfield moving
far too fast its where are those
binoculars sharp wings row row row the air above
the Campbell’s bush it

stooped and

vanished

Peregrine

I write it down because

I write it down because of too much sky
because I might have gone on digging the potatoes
never looking up because
I mean to bang this loneliness to speech you
jesus falcon
fix me to my feet and lock me in this
slow sad pocket of awe…

My latest review–Robin Robertson’s Swithering–is on-line at PoetryReviews.ca.

Heard back from UNB English Department and the news wasn’t good: they hired someone else, someone who “had a great deal more job experience, particularly in the areas of financial management and computer programming.”

Edmonton wins 4-3, short-handed, in overtime.

(photo from EdmontonOilers.com)

Parliamentary Poet re-launches Poems of the Week feature.