Bonobo pulls fire alarm

Can you blame Panbanisha, the ape in question, for doing anything she can to make her day interesting. It sounds just like a child: I want what I want, and I want it now! We really need to conserve the wild habitats of these creatures so they can survive and prosper, both for their sakes, and for what they teach us about ourselves.

Vietnam Diary

I just heard this story on NPR about the wartime diary found by an American soldier of a young Vietnamese doctor in the North Vietnamese. In a roundabout way, it took nearly forty years for the diary to be returned to her family. The soldier, Frederick Whitehurst, later became an FBI agent. All those years he felt the diary should be published and Dan Thuy Tram's family found.

This is another powerful example of the unknowns that are unleashed in every war. I like Whitehurt's comment at the end of the story: "I'm not a pacifist, I'm not at all," he says. "I come from a military family. I'm a company man. But I've always known since in Vietnam when I did it, when you put a bullet into a human being you cannot take back that thing called life. You cannot get it back, and Dang Thuy Tram describes so deeply what that thing is, that thing called life. And a bullet went right through her forehead and in that instant, she was gone. Can we think of another way to do this?"

Do national leaders every really know what they are getting into when they take their countries to war?

Pictures, With Map and Pushpin Included - New York Times

Pictures, With Map and Pushpin Included - New York Times

I think geotagging photos is the next big thing. I have used the Flickr geotagging with the Yahoo! maps for my pictures here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/p_linehan/map/

It works well. I particularly like seeing other pictures people have taken around my photos. I have also tried a tool to geotag pictures in Flickr to appear on Google maps. But I haven't used it much since the Yahoo maps connection became available. Maybe I should try it out more?

I do use Picasa2 to look at pictures on my local drive. Google has established an online catalog for it that also links to Google maps, I think. I can't try everything though.

I really would like to tag photos to Google Earth some time though. Now, that would be great.

Mayflower

I just finished Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. Here is a link to the book information. It is a retelling of the history of the settlement of Plymouth Plantation minus the hero worship that we all  learned in school. It makes the story even more amazing to see how easily the colony could have failed without the happy accident  of the Pilgrims meeting up with Chief Massasoit and his strategic decision to help the Pilgrims to provide himself with allies in his weakened state.

The story is a tragedy however, with the start of King Phillips' war 50 years later, when according to Philbrick, the descendants of the the first colonists and the Pequots forgot that they needed each other to prosper.

Alot of this material was also covered in less detail in 1491, by Charles C. Mann. These are both great books.

There are two great TV shows on tonight, at least if you like science fiction.

• Dr. Who is on at 8. This is the new series. They have updated the special effects, but they still retain the essential British wackiness.
• Battlestar Galactica follows at 9. The season premiere takes up with the Cylon occupation of New Caprica. Both of the battlestars escape, so I assume that they will fight on and eventually kick the cylons out.
  

I am writing this with the new online word processor, Writely. I can see some intriguing uses for sharing and editing documents. Also, you can publish it on the web.

Tigger's New Hiding Spot

This past summer Tigger disappeared in the middle of the day. It took me a while to look up throught the mulberry tree and find him in the soffet of the shed behind us.

Falwell Comments

CNN.com - Falwell: Hillary Clinton beats devil in drawing No votes - Sep 24, 2006 Jerry Falwell is the gift that always keeps giving. But he is right. Although he claims to be joking, if Hillary Clinton is nominated for president in 2008, she will be treated as the devil incarnate. It is curious though. If you look at her personal life, she leads a very traditional lifestyle. She has stayed with her husband even when she had all the justification she needed for a divorce. She is in no way the fire-breathing dragon she is painted to be.