Stay Positive: Woodpeckers

The Nasty family has been walking the trails around Lake Charleston created by the Parks and Rec department. 

Because I had gotten my work done today, I traveled there alone for a walk in the woods. 

As some readers might know, I'm a lover of birds. I'm particularly fond of woodpeckers. I enjoy hearing them tap the heck out of trees. 

Here are the two species of woodpeckers I saw this afternoon. 

The Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

And a species I haven't seen in a while: the Red-headed Woodpecker. 

Seafood, the Environment, and You

For those of you who might not know or for those of you who might need to be reminded, my title mimics the title of one of my fraternity brother's lectures during a "senior lecture series" where seniors had to give presentations related to their majors or whatever they wanted to talk about all while standing on a keg of beer.

This lecture series was done before I joined the fraternity. In fact, I think it was only done one year, so it never took hold as a tradition. Apparently though, it was a good time. But the lecture whose title I'm imitating was "Beer [or was it Booze?], Chemistry, and You."A fellow who went on to get his Ph.D. in Chemistry ("Goof") did it.

Anyway, an article in Audubon Magazine a while back relates science and decisions you make in a more serious manner than Goof's lecture at the Stove, so I thought I'd pass it along since probably many of you eat seafood.

Ted Williams in "Gone Fish" provides some helpful information for readers who are concerned about the fish they eat.

A few quotations stood out to me that relate to "the environment" on a large scale. You can ponder the connections on your own:

• "'Seafood guides educate people, but a minority. Personal conversation choices done mean much if public policy isn't changed.'" (related by John McMurray)
• "But for offshore species, commercial and recreational overkill is the result of a federal law predicated on the mistaken belief that 'stakeholders' will do what's best for the resource and the public good even when it means resisting their immediate appetites." 
• "Basically their argument comes down to this: 'Our current economic ill-health requires us to keep destroying the resources on which our economic health depends.'"

Early in the article, the author provides five fish guides "you should probably pay most attention to," and they are the following, some with hyperlinks:

• Blue Ocean Institute's Seafood Guide
• Seafood Recommendations from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium
• Seafood Selector by the Environmental Defense Fund
• Greenpeace's
• National Resources Defense Council's Sustainable Seafood Guide

Just because I was curious, I thought I'd see how past culinary decisions stack up. Using the guide from the Blue Ocean Institute, I punched in seafood choices that members of the Nasty family have eaten in the past. I'm going choice-by-choice.

Like many Americans, I first got introduced to seafood by eating fish sticks, and we have a package in the freezer. The sticks are made of Pollock, which is a good choice. American or Walleye Pollock both garner a green fish rating, and the Walleye variety earns the sustainable fishery rating by the Marine Stewardship Council.

Though I rarely get to eat them, I love Crawfish. Whenever I get back to the South, I gorge on those critters, which seems to be an excellent choice according to the Blue Ocean Institute.

Mrs. Nasty likes crabs, especially Dungeness Crab, a choice that earns a green fish rating. But Dungeness aren't always available, so she'll often select King Crab from time to time, which gets a not-bad rating with the lighter green fish. 

When we've been to Florida, I've gotten a Grouper from time to time, but it's not a selection I'm enamored with since it's kind of bland. That choice isn't so good with the Black species earning the lighter green fish, and the other two species--Gag and Red--earning yellow fish ratings. In addition, all three get red flags for this reason: "These fish contain levels of mercury or PCBs that may pose a health risk to adults and children." Yikes.

I also really like Oysters. And when I was in Baltimore for a conference this fall, I had a platter of  raw oysters from different areas--Canada, the Chesapeake, and another place I can't recall, maybe Rhode Island. I liked the Chesapeake ones the best, and I'm also fond of Gulf oysters. Green Fish for the Eastern Oyster, baby!

I've had Red Snapper before, but it's not something I order regularly when I have a chance. I won't be ordering it again since it gets an orange fish rating coupled with a red flag. 

Salmon, that choice is on all kinds of restaurants' menus. I don't really care for it much. Mrs. Nasty is more likely to order it than me. Whether you made a good choice on Salmon depends on what species you get and how it was raised, as you can see. Farmed-raised Atlantic Salmon are a bad choice. 

Another species that's all over the place--on menus and supermarkets--is Tilapia, a fish with little flavor. It looks like American raised ones are a better choice than ones from Asia, Central America, and South America. 

And finally, I'll end this post with a fish that is really fun to catch, Walleye. You're not going to get hand-caught Walleye in a restaurant, but even thought they're mass cultivated, the species gets the lighter green fish rating, so I'm happy about that. 

Black/Dark Humor & Blackbirds

As Nick Neely writes about in "Blackbird Humor" on Audubon's blog, there was a strange incident in Beebe, Arkansas with the massive death of red-winged blackbirds. They just dropped out of the sky on New Year's Eve.

Since I'm a bird lover and the red-winged blackbird is one of my favorites, this is saddening, and I find the whole deal eery in a Biblical sense.

In his post, Neely explores the dark humor associated with how people have talked about what happened, which is one of the better explanations of dark humor that I've seen in a while. As humor goes, dark humor is my favorite since, as one of my students from long ago described it, "Dark humor, it's sort of funny. But then again it's really not once you get to thinking about it."

One of my favorite short examples of Dark Humor comes from George Carlin: "The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, and you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating... you finish off as an orgasm."

If you're interested in browsing more aphorisms of Black/Dark Humor, click HERE, HERE, and HERE.

If you're so inclined, post one of your favorites from the links or from elsewhere.

"Smoke Signals" by Alisa Opar

Although the media's attention has been focused on the oil spill in the Gulf, a recent article in Audubon call back our attention the problem that isn't going to go away: the effects of global warming.

"Smoke Signals" relates what's has been going on in the Arctic for too damn long. The tundra is no longer staying frozen, thereby releasing carbon and methane, and thermokarsts are happening at an increasing rate.

As Opar informs, "The Arctic's soil and permafrost hold nearly twice as much carbon as the earth's atmosphere, dwarfing the amount of carbon emitted to date by fossil fuels. Since the industrial revolution our dependence on coal and oil has ratcheted up the atmosphere's carbon content, from 560 to 760 gigatons. Permafrost holds an estimated 1,400 gigatons of carbon. In addition to carbon dioxide, the frozen source is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent, though it stays in the atmosphere for only a decade rather than for millennia."

Click HERE if you might be interested in "Smoke Signals."