Summer Reading Meme

Contagion once again sweeps the geoblogs, this time in the form of a Summer Reading Meme; the original infection spread quickly from Suvrat to Brian, and currently threatens the whole of the Developed World. NOW DO YOU SEE THE DANGER OF THE ANTI-VACCINATION CROWD!?!

Anyway, I've obviously succumbed to the hellish meme-fever myself, 'cause here's my summer readin' list:

Beyond the Hundredth Meridian: John Wesley Powell and the Second Opening of the West, by Wallace Stegner, followed closely by:

A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell, by Donald Worster; I'm still on my Powell kick from LAST summer out in the Green River, and these two books are pretty much the definitive scholarly examinations of Powell's life, career, and his subsequent impact.

Bigfoot: The Life And Times of A Legend by Joshua Blu Buhs; I wrote about this one here, and from what I've heard, it's gonna be a pretty rad book, examining the myth of Bigfoot, the people who "study" it, and the role that the Big Hairy Ape plays in gender-class-race dynamics. Neato!

The Black Lizard Big Book of Pulps, edited by Otto Penzler: I've always loved the pulpy goodness of 20's, 30's and 40's magazine fiction, and this collection has 1100+ pages of Detective fiction from the pulps!

Now go wash your hands and drink some Orange Juice, lest ye be infected by the Meme!

More Damn Tafoni!

Michael has put up yet more Tafoni pictures, obviously still stinging from my earlier usurpation of the whole tafoni pictures thing. As such, I shall respond with yet more images of these artsy weathering pits in sandstones! The picture below is from the Ordovician St. Peters Sandstone, in Governor Dodge State Park, Wisconsin, where I was on a little camping jaunt earlier in the week.


Anyway, you might notice that Michael's pictures from the Santa Cruz Mtns are much better than my picture above; this is undoubtedly due to the fact that 1) His Rocks Are Better Than These Scrappy Ord. Ss from Humid Wisconsin; and 2) He Is A Better Photographer Than I Am. Both of these are rather unfair advantages, frankly, and Michael should be ashamed of himself for exploiting them so mercilessly like that.

A life-sized Whale, in the comfort of your own Home

Check this out! It's a life-sized whale, put up on your computer screen; you can click and drag all over the critter, and get a sense (sort of) of just how big it is. Those with access to really nifty huge computer screens will have the best views, of course, but still, kind of neat!

The whale is a part of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, and is part of a campaign to get people thinking about Cetacean conservation. It's kind of neat use of visual media, don't you think?

Earthquakes and the Wrath of God!!!!!!!!!!

It's not just our crazy, US, Christian-flavored fundies that have wacked-out ideas! The recent seismicity in Saudia Arabia has inspired some End-O-The-World, Koranic musings from the Saudi Gazette. Go here to read about the Wrath-o-Allah! My favorite quote, of course:

Their argument about earthquakes being the result of natural geological activity holds no more ground than a claim that this published article on paper or website is a result from the functioning of a machine (printer or computer) without any effort of a human brain behind it that has made it make sense.

Just kind of nice to see other folks getting in on the geo-madness, you know?