Anne Bouey

"Not so long ago, common ravens were uncommon in the Bay Area. A 1927 reference calls them "rare" except at Point Reyes. American crows lived mostly along the Marin County coast, not in the East Bay. In 1991, Audubon Christmas Bird Counts tallied 17 crows and 54 ravens in San Francisco; 60 crows and 23 ravens in Oakland. The 2011 San Francisco count reported 599 ravens and 566 crows; Oakland had 1,152 crows and 193 ravens. Remarkable, especially considering that crows, if not ravens, are highly susceptible to the West Nile virus. California Department of Public Health statistics show more dead crows than any other bird species testing positive for West Nile: 1,792 in 2008; 468 last year. (Raven mortality was minor.) The disease devastated crow populations in the East and Midwest, but California populations weren't dented. Much of the crow and raven boom is urban. Birder Josiah Clark has seen flocks of 90 ravens in San Francisco. City crows are hard to miss in Berkeley and elsewhere in the East Bay; they're certainly, noisily, all over our neighborhood." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Some of them would be fine, Anika :) We have so many crows in Vienna and not one raven (I've never seen one, and I look out a lot) - esther

"Birds and people will be flocking to Mare Island and the surrounding area this weekend to enjoy the 16th annual San Francisco Bay Flyway Festival.  The three-day event celebrates the return of more than one million shorebirds and hundreds of thousands of ducks, geese and hawks which migrate through or winter in the Bay Area. In addition to exhibitions, presentations and movies, there will be more than 50 regional outings, including a walk in the new Napa-Sonoma Marshland Wildlife Area led by biologists. “In 16 years Fish and Game has never led a walk — this shows their commitment (to the festival),” said event coordinator Myrna Hayes. Hayes has been involved with the event from its beginnings in the mid-1990s.  The Flyway Festival is focused on beginning and intermediate bird watchers. Napa resident Cheryl Harris, outreach chairman for Napa-Solano Audubon Society, said people will be able to see the recently opened new trails in American Canyon and on Mare Island.  “It’s an opportunity to see nature close by, and it’s a wonderful opportunity to learn about birds in our own backyard,” Harris said." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Who's providing John with couchsurfing space? - Spidra Webster

"The Lewis family’s journey began with a single question. One day in the fall of 2010, Jackson asked his dad, “Why aren’t we doing more to make a difference?” Taken aback, J. D. suggested they volunteer locally. But as he pondered his son’s query that night, he recalls, “I thought, ‘Let’s do 12 in 12—12 projects, 12 countries, 12 months.’” An acting coach and single dad who adopted both boys at birth, J. D. was a strong believer in exposing his children to other cultures, but he knew that taking a yearlong trip would require special expertise. Among the people he consulted was Esther Benjamin of the Peace Corps, who suggested safe destinations and worthy organizations. Next, he had to figure out the trip’s cost—and how to pay for it. He calculated a $100-per-day budget for food, lodging, and other necessities, plus $25,000 for transportation. J. D. used his savings and took out a loan. Friends organized fund-raisers, and through the family’s website, TwelveinTwelve.org, strangers... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Wow! - vicster

That's incredible! People amaze me! - Jeanine W.

"Chubby Checker is ticked off. But only in the very nicest possible way. The 70-year-old creator of the twist, the greatest dance sensation in history, doesn't feel the respect he thinks he deserves. He sits in his modest suite on the top occupied floor of the Thunder Valley Hotel and Casino, where he will perform that evening once again, trying to explain how he feels. "I have only one regret in my whole life," he says. "This is my greatest regret - that my music is not being played and more people aren't seeing Chubby Checker. That's very painful for me. Many nights I have tears in my eyes about that. While I'm praying to God and thanking him for all the good things, I ask, 'Why don't they play my music? Did I do something wrong? Is there something about it?' "It's not just any music - the No. 1 song in the world, the only song to be No. 1 twice - why don't they play my music? It's so painful. Why isn't Chubby getting his music played like the rest of the white boys?"" - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Let's Twist Again is one of the greats. :) - edythe from iPhone

Go Dragons! - Stephen Mack

FUS RO DAH! - Amit Patel

The year of the Water Dragon! - mina_sydney

Kristin (Andi) in The Diary of Anne Frank, 2005. - Anne Bouey

Kristin (Andi) in The Diary of Anne Frank, 2005. - Anne Bouey

sorry! - Melly Botts

"Edgar Allan Poe fans waited long past a midnight dreary, but it appears annual visits to the writer's grave in Baltimore by a mysterious figure called the "Poe Toaster" shall occur nevermore. Poe House and Museum Curator Jeff Jerome said early Thursday that die-hard fans waited hours past when the tribute bearer normally arrives. But the "Poe Toaster" was a no-show for a third year in a row, leaving another unanswered question in a mystery worthy of the writer's legacy. Poe fans had said they would hold one last vigil this year before calling an end to the tradition. "It's over with," Jerome said wearily. "It will probably hit me later, but I'm too tired now to feel anything else." It is thought that the tributes of an anonymous man wearing black clothes with a white scarf and a wide-brimmed hat, who leaves three roses and a half-empty bottle of cognac at Poe's original grave on the writer's birthday, date to at least the 1940s. Late Wednesday, a crowd gathered outside the gates of... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

:( - Brent from iPhone

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away, but did you know a bowl of tangerines can usher in good fortune for the Lunar New Year? In Chinese, their name sounds like the word for luck. The same double meaning holds true for oranges, which sound like the word for fortune, and pomelos, which sound like “to have.” This kind of symbolism is huge in decorating for Chinese New Year, where setting the stage for an auspicious year means surrounding yourself with things that look and sound like good fortune — a home-sweet-homonym approach. Red and gold are the dominant colors of Chinese New Year decorations, with gold signaling prosperity and red indicating life. (And the word for red in Chinese sounds like prosperous.) As the Year of the Dragon arrives on Monday, one way to mark the occasion is to hang paper banners printed with couplets expressing good wishes for the coming year. These can be found at Chinese markets and online. And if you have a steady hand, you can try the DIY approach, looking online for a template of the character “fu” — fortune — and copying it." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Etta James, whose powerful, versatile and emotionally direct voice could enliven the raunchiest blues as well as the subtlest love songs, most indelibly in her signature hit, “At Last,” died Friday morning in Riverside, Calif. She was 73. Her manager, Lupe De Leon, said that the cause was complications of leukemia. Ms. James, who died at Riverside Community Hospital, had been undergoing treatment for some time for a number of conditions, including leukemia and dementia. She also lived in Riverside. Ms. James was not easy to pigeonhole. She is most often referred to as a rhythm and blues singer, and that is how she made her name in the 1950s with records like “Good Rockin’ Daddy.” She is in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Blues Hall of Fame. She was also comfortable, and convincing, singing pop standards, as she did in 1961 with “At Last,” which was written in 1941 and originally recorded by Glenn Miller’s orchestra. And among her four Grammy Awards (including a... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

:´( - esther

"Thousands of people died needlessly and millions of dollars were wasted because the international community did not respond fast enough to early signs of famine in East Africa, aid agencies said Wednesday, while warning of a new hunger crisis in West Africa. Most rich donor nations waited until the crisis in the Horn of Africa was in full swing before donating a substantial amount of money, according to the report by aid groups Oxfam and Save the Children. A food shortage had been predicted as early as August 2010, but most donors did not respond until famine was declared in parts of Somalia in July 2011. The report even blamed aid agencies, saying they were too slow to scale up their response. "We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in East Africa and need to learn the lessons of the late response," said Oxfam head Barbara Stocking. The British government estimates that between 50,000 and 100,000 people died from the famine, mostly Somalis. Ethiopia and... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

:(( - Zulema ⋅ spicy cocoa tart

108 characters, mom on the left is GOOD. - Stephen Mack

"A frog that can perch on the tip of your pinkie with room to spare has been claimed as the world's smallest vertebrate species, out-tinying a fish that got the title in 2006. But the discoverer of another weensy fish disputes the claim. A tempest in a thimble, some might say. An article Wednesday in the journal PLoS One named Paedophryne amauensis (pee-doh-FRY-nee AM-OW-en-sis) as the world's smallest animal with a spine. The adult frogs are about three-tenths of an inch long, and a millimeter or so smaller than a carp found on the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The frogs are so small that Louisiana State University herpetologist and environmental biologist Christopher Austin had to enlarge close-up photos to describe them. But the males of a species of deep-sea anglerfish are about 2 mm smaller, said University of Washington ichthyologist Theodore Pietsch, who described them in 2006. The males don't have stomachs and live as parasites on 1.8-inch-long females. Austin discovered the... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

+ - mina_sydney

"The only thing more striking than the $32,000 diamond-encrusted eyeglasses on display at the Baodao Optical department store here is the bronze statue of Chairman Mao Zedong that greets shoppers entering what is billed as the world's largest eyeglass emporium. That is because Baodao Optical's owners are from Taiwan, the island whose governing party, the Kuomintang, fought a fierce - and losing - civil war against Mao's Communist forces before fleeing the mainland in 1949 with more than a million refugees. The rival governments have yet to sign a peace accord. But by choosing to display Mao's likeness and his famous credo "Serve the People" so prominently, Baodao Optical reveals how far some Taiwanese businesses will go to romance a Chinese market that many see as the wellspring of their future prosperity. Such gestures have become especially freighted as an estimated 200,000 people return to Taiwan for an election Saturday whose outcome could determine the future of a relationship... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Polls suggest that the race is too close to call, with a third candidate expected to draw around 10 percent of the vote, largely from Ma." Luuulz, hai there James Soong! - Jessie

Fun fact: "Serve the People" (wei renmin fuwu) seems to be more often quoted now as "Serve the RMB" (wei renminbi fuwu). ;-) - Jessie

"The University of California is banning cigarettes and all other tobacco products from its campuses over the next two years, in a move designed to both protect nonsmokers from secondhand smoke and prevent young people from developing the bad habit. Students and staff alike will be prohibited from smoking anywhere on a UC campus - including outdoor spaces, parking lots and private residences. There won't be any designated smoking areas. The main impetus for the policy is to reduce people's exposure to secondhand smoke, UC officials said. But a major benefit, they hope, will be an overall reduction in smoking among those who work or study on the campuses. "Our young students who come here as freshmen, who don't smoke but come to college and start experimenting, maybe they won't choose to smoke now. That would be a huge gain," said Trish Ratto, manager of UC Berkeley's Health Matters wellness program and a member of the committee that is developing the UC-wide smoking ban. Smoking has... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Capitalizing on one of the fastest-growing trends in law enforcement, a private company in Livermore has compiled a database bulging with more than 550 million bits of information that let police know when and where specific license plates of both innocent and criminal drivers were spotted. The technology has raised alarms among civil libertarians, who say it threatens the privacy of drivers. It's also evidence that 21st century technology may be evolving too quickly for the courts and public opinion to keep up. The U.S. Supreme Court is only now addressing whether investigators can secretly attach a GPS monitoring device to cars without a warrant. A ruling in that case has yet to be handed down, but a telling exchange occurred during oral arguments. Chief Justice John Roberts asked lawyers for the government if even he and other members of the court could feasibly be tracked by GPS without a warrant. Yes, came the answer. At the same time, police around the country have been... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

This is disturbing. - Kelli H. ☃ from Android

"Taiwan is holding presidential elections this week, and viewed from the United States it almost seems as if Ralph Nader has moved to the island. For Americans, the Taiwanese vote is not merely an interesting, distant piece of news. China remains fixated, even obsessed, with the island, determined to take it back one day. And while the United States is not obligated to fight on behalf of the Taiwanese, successive administrations for half a century have made it clear they would not tolerate a Chinese attack on Taiwan. Which brings us to Saturday's election. The incumbent party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, advocates peaceful interactions with China, and during President Ma Ying-jeou's four-year term, relations with China have steadily improved. But the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, or DPP, advocates formal independence rather than the deliberate ambiguity that prevails now. Beijing simply will not tolerate that. At the height of the campaign, Hu Jintao, the Chinese president,... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Weird, yeah my parents were talking about it like it was a done deal already. - ronin

"If you’re a smoker trying to quit, the good news is that there are a number of things that can help you kick the habit. The bad news is that they may not work long term. A new study confirms what many smokers already know — that quitting is really really hard, and even the latest smoking cessation strategies like gums and patches can’t curb the nicotine craving for very long. Researchers report in the journal Tobacco Control that nicotine gum and nicotine patches designed to help smokers quit aren’t any more effective than going cold turkey when it comes to keeping smokers off cigarettes for longer than a few months. Beyond that, their ability to curb the need for cigarettes isn’t as clear. “We were disappointed,” says Gregory Connolly, director of the Center for Global Tobacco Control at Harvard School of Public Health and a co-author of the paper. “We didn’t get the results we hoped we would get.” Connolly and his colleagues studied 787 adult smokers in Massachusetts who had... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Heh. - Anika

"The last time Mark Stella went to the dentist he didn't need an insurance card. Instead, he pulled out a Groupon. Stella, a small business owner, canceled his health insurance plan more than three years ago when his premium rose to more than $400 a month. He considered himself healthy and decided that he was wasting money on something that he rarely used. So when a deal popped up on daily deals site Groupon for a teeth cleaning, exam and an X-ray at a nearby dentist, Stella, 55, bought the deal — which the company calls a "Groupon" — for himself and another for his daughter. He paid $39 for each, $151 below what the dentist normally charges. Daily deal sites like Groupon and LivingSocial are best known for offering limited-time discounts on a variety of discretionary goods and services including restaurant meals, wine tastings, spa visits and hotel stays. The discounts are paid for upfront and then it's up to the customer to book an appointment and redeem a coupon before it expires.... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

+ - Amir

"Ten young whooping cranes and the bird-like plane they think is their mother had flown more than halfway to their winter home in Florida when federal regulators stepped in. Now the birds and the plane are grounded in Alabama while the Federal Aviation Administration investigates whether the journey violates regulations because the pilot was being paid by a conservation group to lead the cranes on their first migration instead of working for free. FAA regulations say only pilots with commercial pilot licenses can fly for hire. The pilots of Operation Migration's plane are instead licensed to fly sport aircraft because that's the category of aircraft that the group's small, open plane with its rear propeller and bird-like wings falls under. FAA regulations also prohibit sport aircraft — which are sometimes of exotic design — from being flown to benefit a business or charity. The rules are aimed, in part, at preventing businesses or charities from taking passengers for joyrides in sometimes risky planes." - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

"Operation Migration is part of a U.S.-Canadian partnership of government and private organizations trying to re-establish migrating flocks of whooping cranes. The cranes nearly became extinct, dwindling to only 15 birds in 1941. One flyway has already been re-established, but that flock of over 100 birds is vulnerable to extinction should a disaster strike, Duff said. The grounded... more... - Anne Bouey

"It’s one thing to make an object invisible, like Harry Potter’s mythical cloak. But scientists have made an entire event impossible to see. They have invented a time masker. Think of it as an art heist that takes place before your eyes and surveillance cameras. You don’t see the thief strolling into the museum, taking the painting down or walking away, but he did. It’s not just that the thief is invisible — his whole activity is. What scientists at Cornell University did was on a much smaller scale, both in terms of events and time. It happened so quickly that it’s not even a blink of an eye. Their time cloak lasts an incredibly tiny fraction of a fraction of a second. They hid an event for 40 trillionths of a second, according to a study appearing in Thursday’s edition of the journal Nature. We see events happening as light from them reaches our eyes. Usually it’s a continuous flow of light. In the new research, however, scientists were able to interrupt that flow for just an... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

Haha, Anika, probably true! - Anne Bouey

Technically it's a 2B, so that's like a double dose of go figure. - Heather

YAY! - Soup in a TARDIS

Yay! - The real Tam Shady

"Just 15 years old, Sahar Gul has become the bruised and bloodied face of women's rights in Afghanistan. The teenage bride's eyes were swollen nearly shut as she was wheeled into the hospital seven months after her arranged marriage. Black scabs crusted her fingertips where her nails used to be. According to officials in northeastern Baghlan province, Gul's in-laws kept her in a basement for six months, ripped her fingernails out, tortured her with hot irons and broke her fingers — all in an attempt to force her into prostitution. Police freed her after her uncle called authorities. The horrific images, captured by television news cameras last week, transfixed Afghanistan and set off a storm of condemnation. President Hamid Karzai set up a commission to investigate, and his health minister visited her bedside. Police arrested her in-laws, who denied abusing her. A warrant was issued for her husband, who serves in the Afghan army. The case highlights both the problems and the progress... more... - Anne Bouey from Bookmarklet

There's plenty wrong with US foreign policy but the US didn't introduce misogyny into that region. It's been there for a very long time. http://www.rawa.org/rawa.html - Spidra Webster