How strange that I should come across this article so soon after finishing Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer.

A century after blight began to bring down the majestic American chestnut tree, once known as the “redwood of the East,” scientists are tantalizingly close to reviving it.

Within a few years, using both traditional plant breeding and genetic engineering, researchers hope to have a variety of blight-resistant chestnuts to repopulate the tree’s native range.

If they succeed, the towering species that once accounted for one out of every four trees from Maine to Mississippi will be back, benefiting wildlife and humans alike.

My favorite bit:

He said the tree’s wood — amber-colored and extremely rot-resistant — is perfect for utility poles, fence posts, shingles and other exposed woodwork.

“If the chestnut was still around, everyone’s deck would be built out of its wood. We might not even need treated wood,” Powell said.

Imagine that.

Despite the American chestnut’s collapse, scientists and tree breeders refuse to write it off. They’ve been working for decades on blight-resistant varieties through several strategies.

By 2006, the American Chestnut Foundation hopes to have a hardy American-Chinese hybrid that has the height and shape of the native tree with the blight-resistance of the Chinese variety.

In another breeding campaign, researchers are interbreeding American chestnuts that have survived blight, trying to create tougher trees.

“It’s a slow process because it’s a tree, not a corn plant,” said Gary Griffin, a plant pathologist at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Va.

To speed things up, plant geneticists are working to create a blight-free tree by inserting fungal resistance genes from other plants directly into the chestnut trees.

Genetic engineering. Hmm…

In the book Prodigal Summer one of the characters is trying to restore the American Chestnut by creating a hybrid with the Chinese Chestnut. He’s old and sad that he’s not sure if anyone will cary on his work when he is gone.

The book also talks about the foolishness of men in the matter saying that as the trees were dying people rushed to chop the remaining healthy ones down for their good wood before it was all lost to the blight. As a result, even those few trees that might have survived the blight were killed for the most part. If not for that, according to the book, it is possible that enough naturally resitant trees might have survived that the species would have returned eventually.

Clara Callan: A Novel by Richard Wright.

I’ve read this before. I was just at a loss when I was at the library the other day - the book I wanted was out and I was too lazy and too cowardly to find anything new - so I thought i would pick it up again.

When I first started reading it for the first time, I didn’t think I would like it. Its text consisted mostly of letters and journal entries, and that sort of thing gets annoying after a time. It turned out to be quite all right in this case though.

Strangly I find that I don’t have much to say about it now, but it was a good book. I do have some quotations I wanted to copy down, but as I’d only marked them by dog-earing the pages (in a library book! I’ll burn in hell for this one, I’m sure), I’m not sure I can find them again.

Having been reading a lot of Canadian literature recently, I find it interesting to find certain places and such refered to again and again in various novels. In particular I am thinking of something called “The Normal School” now. One of these days I reall must find out what that was, besides the obvious.

Yahoo! News - Report: al-Qaida Ranks Swelling Worldwide

Al-Qaida is probably working on plans for major attacks on the United States and Europe, and it may be seeking weapons of mass destruction in its desire to inflict as many casualties as possible, the International Institute of Strategic Studies said in its annual survey of world affairs.

The report suggested that the two military centerpieces of the U.S.-led war on terror — the wars in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and Iraq — may have boosted al-Qaida.

Driving the terror network out of Afghanistan in late 2001 appears to have benefited the group, which dispersed to many countries, making it almost invisible and hard to combat, the story said.

And the Iraq conflict “has arguably focused the energies and resources of al-Qaida and its followers while diluting those of the global counterterrorism coalition that appeared so formidable” after the Afghan intervention, the survey said.

The U.S. occupation of Iraq brought al-Qaida recruits from across Islamic nations, the study said. Up to 1,000 foreign Islamic fighters have infiltrated Iraqi territory, where they are cooperating with Iraqi insurgents, the survey said.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not feeling any safer.

Well.. a little bit safer than many since I’m not in the US anymore.

Still too close though.

Wish I could get my parents to move up here.

Out of the woods

This reminds me of dreams I harbored as a child of running away and living in Forest Park.

It is heartening to see how much effort that police officer made to ensure that things were actually made better for them rather than just turning them over to get lost in the system.

It is still monday, after all.

- My mom has been and gone and her visit was good.
- My inlaws have been and gone (just two nights, and they left at six this morning), and their visit was good.
- Baby Girl can sit up by herself.
- The living room is finally cleaned up and all unpacked.
- I have wordpress installed and pretty much everything running again.

When she first was able to stay sitting upon being sat down, poor Baby Girl had no other recourse when she tired of sitting than THUMP! Then about a month or so ago she learned the art of gracefully leaning forward to put her hands on the ground then twisting her legs around so that her knees were under her.

Now she could go down as she pleased, but if she wanted to sit back up again, she was at a loss. Last Thursday (a week ago Thursday, that is) she finally figured out how to do the process in reverse and sit up again.

What a big, grown-up baby my girl is turning into.

Welcome to WordPress. This is the first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

So it is my first mother’s day as a true and tried mother with an acutal baby of my own.

I spent most of the day just lazing about by myself in blessed quiet.

I did spend a good bit playing with Baby Girl though. There was lots of giggling and rolling about and playing peek-a-boo. She’s been playing that for a month or so now all on her own. She pulls a blanket up over her face to hide, then whips it down and grins as she looks about to see who has noticed.

We went out to Padmanadi for dinner. Super yummy vegan food is always a treat.

I’ll be seeing my own mother in two days or so. She’ll be up to visit for a week.

http://content.health.msn.com/content/article/86/99061.htm?GT1=3277

(link via Hippycrites)

May 3, 2004 — Spanking kids younger than 2 years old greatly increases the chances of problem behavior when they reach school age, a Johns Hopkins University study shows.

One of the things that got me about this article are the statistics. It reports that 11% of parents spank within the 6-11 month age group. Six months! Maybe they mostly spank at the end of the age group and drastic changes occur by eleven months…

Baby Girl is eight months old now. Even if I believed in spanking, I couldn’t imagine doing it now. She is so little. And she isn’t capable of being bad. She can’t disobey me yet because she doesn’t yet know what I expect from her. There are certain things that she is not supposed to play with, but she learns about them by my repeatedly taking them from her or taking her away from them.

Why in the world would anyone spank a baby that young?

“For white, non-Hispanic children, those spanked at least once during a particular week were twice as likely as children not spanked to need parent-teacher meetings when they reached school age,” Slade tells WebMD. Children that were spanked were 40% more likely to be ranked by their parent in the top 10% of behavior problems.

“Spanking has the power to change a child’s perception of the parent,” he says. “Even in young children, spanking may change how children walk away from the experience of discipline. A lot depends on whether it is fair, whether it is consistently applied, and whether children are left with a strong sense of emotional security with their parents.”

Due to a misplaced keyboard and mouse, this is the first day that I’ve been online since the move. All went well. Or rather, mostly all went well.

It is so much nicer having professional movers to come pick up our stuff and bring it over rather than doing it u-haul style. Next time - which won’t be for many years - we’re using professional packers as well.

We moved Friday a week ago then spent the rest of the day doing the plumbing and electical for the new dishwasher so that I could use it; we were without a kitchen sink until the counters arived today, and dishes needed doing in the meantime. M left Saturday morning to go defend his Masters thesis (it went well) and didn’t return until late Wednesday night. The result of this is that most of our stuff is still in boxes. Have I mentioned that I hate moving?

At not-quite-eight-months it is probably just like-sounding sylables and a coincidence combined with my immagination, but I could swear that my daughter said “kitty” to the kitty today.