Tasha's Blogging What-not: March 2008

Twitter

Well, I missed Rhett and Link live on Thursday. It was on at 6 and I was out to dinner with inlaws. So Ardara and I watched it together on Friday afternoon and I was persuaded to join twitter.com Of course, I don't have many followers yet. No one on my email account had twitter. So, anyone who wants to follow my twitter, my profile name is tashabouvier and you are welcome to follow me.

"Oh Give Me a Home Where the Buffalo Roam and the Deer and the Antelope Play"

I am really sad lately about the pronghorn antelope that live near our house. We live way out of town and we see them all the time in the big fields we drive through on our way back in to town. But they just started building a new highway that cuts right through the fields where the antelope roam. And since the very first day that they broke ground the antelope have been acting so strange. I have never seen them running or acting skiddish in any way until I drove past them that day. They were running kind of confusedly back and forth like they didn't know where to go. In case you don't know, pronghorn antelope can't jump fences like deer, and they can't be transported because they have heart attacks from the shock. So, their dwelling place is slowly shrinking and they have no escape. I saw one dead on the highway recently. I cried. I'm not a conservationist, but I sure do wish something could be done for these beauties. I will be sad when they are all gone.

Here is a clipping from a 2002 article about the problem. I'm trying to find out more about the current status of the Sonoran pronghorn in Arizona and if anyone has noticed what this highway in particular is doing to them.

"The reason we’re hitting animals is obvious: Our roads are built in their territory, overlaid on the landscape without regard for existing ecological patterns," says Tricia White, transportation associate for Defenders of Wildlife in Washington, D.C. "And with the exception of a handful of endangered species, the direct mortality of animals as a result of vehicle collisions may be the least of the problems that roads inflict on our native wildlife." Take the Sonoran pronghorn, for example, a unique and elegant North American antelope that once numbered in the millions. Although pronghorn are faring well in many western states, the Sonoran subspecies is on the brink of extinction. Fewer than 100 individuals remain in the United States today. Drastic loss of habitat has confined this species to a small fraction of its natural and necessary range. The Sonoran pronghorn roadkill is not at significant risk of being killed on a road. Their particular behavioral traits keep them from approaching -- let alone crossing -- roads. But the presence of a road presents a formidable barrier to movement, effectively walling off whatever habitat may exist on the opposite side. This limits the availability of food, water and shelter, impedes dispersal and divides populations into smaller, more isolated units less able to withstand a catastrophe such as disease or fire and more prone to inbreeding and other genetic problems." (From "Killer Roads" by Susan Cerulean, Defenders magazine Winter 2002 issue.)

Rhett and Linkast LIVE!

Forget television. I already did. But I am going to be watching Rhett and Link, LIVE on Thursday Nights at 9:00 EST, which I think is 7:00 AZ time. I'm just going to tune in every hour starting at 5 to make sure I don't miss it. click here to check it out Here's a clip....

"Enter the New Country"

by Henri Nouen "You have an idea of what the new country looks like. Still, you are very much at home, although not truly at peace, in the old country. You know the ways of the old country, its joys and pains, its happy and sad moments. You have spent most of your days there. Even though you know that you have not found there what your heart most desires, you remain quite attached to it. It has become part of your very bones. "Now you have come to realize that you must leave it and enter the new country, where your Beloved dwells. You know that what helped and guided you in the old country no longer works, but what else do you have to go by? You are being asked to trust that you will find what you need in the new country. That requires the death of what has become precious to you: influence, success, yes, even affection and praise. "Trust is so hard, since you have nothing to fall back on. Still, trust is what is essential. The new country is where you are called to go, and the only way to go there is naked and vulnerable. "It seems that you keep crossing and recrossing the border. For a while you experience a real joy in the new country. But then you feel afraid and start longing again for all you left behind, so you go back to the old country. To your dismay, you discover that the old country has lost its charm. Risk a few more steps in the new country, trusting that each time you enter in, you will feel more comfortable and be able to stay longer."

C3P0's wisdom

"Its better to have loved a fire hydrant than never to have loved at all"

Michael Stipe Came Out?

I just read that Michael Stipe of R.E.M. came out of the closet on St. Patty's Day. I don't think anyone in the world is surprised. This isn't really news. Any kid who is struggling with his sexual identity in 2008 is too young to have Stipe as a role model anyway. I think he did this for publicity for the new album. I hope the album would stand on its own without this. I do love me some R.E.M.

I'm such a reject!

I have been getting lots of rejection letters back lately for poetry I have submitted. Its pretty discouraging. I am starting to wonder if I actually have any talent at all. I mean, with all the literary magazines in the world and all the poetry I have written, it would seem like someone would want to publish something. But no.

Anyway, this web page cheered me up.

http://rejectioncollection.com/