What Do I Know?

All the King's Men: The Rollright Stones

Yesterday we went to the Cotswolds to see the Rollright Stones, the third most famous of England's many prehistoric stone circles. The circle of stones, known as The King's Men, stands in a farmer's field like unmoving chess pieces, perhaps sorting out what to do with Humpty Dumpty. 

A lot of folklore has built up around the stones. They're thought to be the king's men, turned to stone, except for warm nights when they turn to men again and take a drink from the well at the nearby village of Little Rollright. Or possibly they hold hands and dance in a circle; apparently no one's ever caught this magic on camera. 

But I'd believe it anyway. There's just something mystical about stone circles, erected thousands of years ago by very dedicated craftsmen.

Another legend says it's impossible to count the stones in the circle, and if you manage to count the same number twice, you'll have bad luck. Or possibly good luck, depending on who's telling. This legend apparently played into a Dr Who episode, filmed partly on location at the Rollright Stones. 

A neolithic burial cairn, The Whispering Knights

Nearby stand the Whispering Knights, who, after plotting against their king, were turned into stone by a witch. 

I listened, but I couldn't hear what they were whispering about. 

The King Stone, all alone

The king himself is across the road. Since chips of the rock will protect men in battle, he had to be protected by a fence from all the soldiers who, literally, wanted a piece of him. 

The stones were erected not by Druids or by witches with a penchant for stoning but by neolithic worshipers at various times in prehistory. The Whispering Knights are a burial chamber, built around 3500 BC. The circle dates to around 2500 BC, and the king stone is from the Bronze age, and sits atop a Bronze age barrow. 

The megalith is located about a half hour drive from Oxford, deep in the heart of the Cotswolds. It's a fine way to spend a sunny summer afternoon, gazing at lichen covered stones that haven't moved for thousands of years. 

Not quite as moving as Stonehenge, but not quite as crowded either. 

Woof Wednesday

Don't worry, this video might be selling insurance but it's still cute.

Much of my web surfing these days is dog related. Training articles and videos are plentiful on the web, but I've found some sources that are particularly worthy. Since it's Woof Wednesday on Twitter, I thought I'd compile a list of some of my favorite dog-related links I've come across this week. Many of my dog-raising friends may find them helpful. 

• Dr. Sophia Yin's one-stop resource page for dog behavior issues.

• Sarah in Dogland answers some of my questions about using a clicker. (I've been doing it wrong!) 

• Finally! A scientific study on dog begging. 

• I loved this article, and especially the title: "Keep eye on dog. Is one most important thing I tell you."

• What do you do when a vet visit goes badly? We had this problem ourselves, which I wrote about in the comments on that site. 

• Kikopup demonstrates equipment for teaching loose-lead walking. We use an Easy Walk front-clip harness which we got from ebay.co.uk. Amazon has them as well. 

• Prosthetic paws? 

• It's coming up to the Fourth of July. Is your dog scared of fireworks? Try this helpful website, which includes a video of fireworks to help condition your dog to associate firework noise with fun (i.e., food). I tried it with Sparky before the Guy Fawkes/Diwali celebrations in November. Since I don't imagine he'd ever heard fireworks, I can't asses if it helped, but he's pretty cool with them now, as long as they aren't right next door.

Have any helpful or amusing Woof Wednesday links you've found? Post in comments! 

Summer Solstice, Redux

Sparky wonders why I wasn't up to celebrate the earliest sunrise of the year. 

This will probably be our last Summer Solstice from the 51st parallel. The first summer we were here, I was really excited about the longest day of the year, having seen just how short the shortest day was. I actually live-blogged the event, starting from sunrise at 4:44 a.m. 

Last year I spent the day in Helsinki, even further north at 60° latitude. Around 9:30 p.m., I decided to take a walk in the park near the hotel. There was a path around Lake Töölönlahti, so I figured I'd start walking and turn around when it got dark. But by sunset, at 11 p.m., I was almost all the way around the lake and it was still light outside. I guess that will count as one of those moments I'll always remember, walking around Lake Töölönlahti in Helsinki at almost midnight. 

Sunset over Lake Töölönlahti

Today I slept in. When I got up at 5:45, the sun was up and the back garden was alive with light. Sparky ran out, but hurried back in to get his Good Boy treat (for not barking so early in the morning, waking the neighbors). He must have wondered why I slept so late, well past the moment the sun rose over the pasture and streamed into our bedroom. 

Tonight I just went out, at 10 minutes till eight, and took another photo of the daylight, still hovering over the pasture: 

Sunlight in the evening hours

I took these photos that summer solstice six years ago, as I enjoyed the day with another golden dog. When I commemorated that day here on my blog, I had no idea I'd still be here six years on, or that I'd still remember the tiny details of that day—the roses, the pond, the lonely path through the woods.

The days will get shorter now, first by a few minutes, then by hours. I really hope I'm not here to see another Winter Solstice. 

But if I am, I hope I get another Summer Solstice to even the score. Balance is everything: an earth that tilts up must eventually tilt down, and the hours lost to darkness will eventually be made up by the eager sun, waking me in the wee hours again.

Jon Stewart and Chris Wallace Take on Ignorance

Chris Wallace interviewed Jon Stewart on Fox News Sunday. I'm not a regular viewer of either Chris Wallace or Jon Stewart, but it's worth watching the full interview, especially if you're a Fox viewer who happened to miss it. 

Because if you're a Fox viewer you may not be disappointed with the network, as Chris Wallace brags, but you are still misinformed, as Jon Stewart laments. And that's a shame. Misinformed voters make bad decisions. And politicians who get elected by misinforming voters don't have your best interests at heart, it turns out.

Still don't think you're misinformed, but that Fox News gives you the "real" news that the rest of the media is too liberal to present? Steve Benen points to a poll conducted by the University of Maryland Program on International Policy Attitudes that finds:

Those who watched Fox News almost daily were  significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe that: ƒ

* most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses (12 points more likely)
* most economists have estimated the health care law will worsen the deficit (31 points)
* the economy is getting worse (26 points)
* most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring (30 points)
* the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts (14 points)
* their own income taxes have gone up (14 points)
* the auto bailout only occurred under Obama (13 points)
* when TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it (12 points)
* and that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States (31 points)

Don't think it was only Fox News that earns Jon Stewart's contempt; he has little respect for other 24 hour news networks as well. He points out they exist for 9/11—the big, breaking news story that affects everyone and that everyone ought to drop what they're doing and immediately tune in to. 

This gets to the heart of the problem, that networks are in the business of making money, and the only way they can get viewers, thus increase their ratings and profits, is to sensationalize what news stories there are. I didn't see wall to wall coverage of Weinergate, but I understand it happened, just as the US networks aired much more coverage of the royal wedding than the networks here. Two subjects that affect very few, if any, Americans. (Hint: If you can put a "gate" on the end of it, it's probably not worth your time.)

I'm sure you could come up with many examples where the media, and in particular Fox News, prefers to cover wieners and weddings rather than, say, the economy and unemployment and the actual provisions of the ACA. To get facts about the Affordable Care Act you have to go to bloggers like Ezra Klein at The Washington Post, or Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic. 

Fortunately those people exist, because for some of us, ignorance is not bliss. I really like knowing that my taxes won't go up when the rest of America gets health care, including my 22-year old daughter. I like knowing that I won't have to pay more taxes if I sell my house. I like being able to read a Nobel laureate's analysis of the Eurozone's financial difficulties, even though I have no idea what the Taylor rule is. I don't like knowing that most scientists agree that climate change is occuring (and call me a snob, but I think peer-reviewed studies are worth more than someone's opinion when it comes to science).  

This is the sort of stuff—the sort of truthiness—that doesn't get covered on Fox News, and gets short shrift on other networks as well. It's ironic, but not surprising, that it takes a comedian to point this out. 

Mark Twain would be proud.

London, 1949

Via Twitter, I found these interesting photos of London taken in 1949. Not that unusual—after all, Mathew Brady was photographing the American Civil War. But these look as if they were taken yesterday, with my brand new Nikon. In fact, they're probably better than anything I'd take. 

Check them out: 

 

I liked this one, showing the Gold Flake cigarette sign. I've been searching for one of those signs at all my favorite antique haunts, but so far haven't found one in good condition. This one looks like you could just snatch it from the storefront in perfect condition, doesn't it?

The photos were taken by Chalmers Butterfield in 1949 and are in high-res colour. His son holds the rights and asks merely to be credited if the photos are used. So here's to Chalmers. 

The rest are posted at How to be a Retronaut, a cool blog if you're the slightest bit into retro. I suggest you click there to see the images as posted. 

I was surprised at first to see most of the cars (cabs?) were from the thirties, not the forties, but then not many cars were produced during the forties. My dad had a 1947 Buick Roadmaster convertible, one of the first to be produced after the war. With rationing still going on in England, I imagine new cars were about as common on the streets as new nylons. 

Go on, go check them out. And read the comments, too, for an idea of where they were taken.

Friday Cow Blogging

Cows Eating Stuff You Don't Want To Smell 

On Twitter last night, I read this: "@chilternrailway Due to cows on the line, we currently have ticket acceptance with Virgin WC, LU, FGW and LU on any reasonable route."

Cows on the line? I wondered why I haven't seen my cows lately. They must have been out playing on the tracks.

Actually, it's been a relief that the cows haven't spent much time in the back pasture. Sparky isn't yet sure if they're friend or foe. The bull especially freaks him out. He runs to me, makes a u-turn, and runs to the door, as if to say "Come see what I saw outside! You'll NEVER believe it!" Sometimes it's a squirrel, occasionally a fox, and other times, the cows have over-excited him. 

On our walks, we're careful to not go to places where livestock graze, since Sparky can't be trusted off lead near them, and too often footpaths come out in pastures where he could easily slip under a fence. 

All this is to say, Friday Cow Blogging has suffered since Sparky arrived. So when I realized today was Friday I decided to look through my photos and see if there were any interesting cow images. I had to go back a ways. These were spotted near Coleshill in the Chilterns, sometime last winter. I can't describe the smell. Rotting hay in the winter is a scent unique to the countryside. Think formaldehyde. Or is that "farm-aldehyde"? I've discovered what goes in the front end of a cow isn't much more pleasant than what comes out the back end. 

But I hear @chilternrailway has ticket acceptance on any reasonable route with Virgin. Brighton sounds very reasonable to me.

What were those cows doing on the train tracks? 

A Picture Tells the Story

While I have writer's block and can't find anything to blog about, I thought I'd post some photos of the last few weeks. A lot has happened. 

In May we went to Massachusetts to see Daughter Number Two graduate. This is Talbot House, her home for four years. Houses at Smith College are like residence dorms, and during her senior year, DNT was house president. 

We were very proud of her accomplishments, of course, but perhaps my proudest moment as a parent came when I entered her house and asked someone where to find my daughter. They pointed to the sign behind me:

Oh boy. All the academic achievements pale compared to the outpouring of love I saw from her classmates. Four years well spent, though from my end the months between visits seemed like decades. 

Being back in the States was a culture shock. It had been over a year and a half since I'd been on my native soil. We rented a car and drove through Boston. In the Ted Williams Tunnel the sight of a Lincoln Continental, a Ford Crown Victoria and a Cadillac stunned me. I thought those had all been mothballed long ago. Why do Americans like their landboats? And why do they all have to squeeze into the tunnel at the same time?

Northampton, on the other hand, is a crunchy little town. I'd love to live there. Vegan food is readily available, and everyone seems happy. They call it the Happy Valley; I can see why. Although I did see a lot of tears when we left on Monday...I suspect this guy has seen a lot of those: 

Talbot House mascot

Oh, and lookie here, my writer's block seems to be cured. 

Someone was happy to see us when we got back home: 

 

That's one happy dog. He's still tweeting, by the way. No writer's block for him.

Big summer ahead. I'll try to post more as we go along, since it's probably our last summer here. 

Goodbyes all around, it seems.