Our Backyard

After the house buying episode (for those that don't know, we were going to build a house, and then decided not to), we have been particularly appreciative of our backyard. While we dream of a larger house that will come sooner rather than later, we love our backyard. In the summer, there's a great canopy of dense green. The fall is awesome and multicolored. Snow in winter makes it perfect and white, and Spring is full of all the blooming trees and shrubs.

We have had more than a few brushes with woodland wildlife lately. We always have the regular assortment of squirrels and chipmunks and a lot of different species of birds. But recently, we met a vole (above). We had gone for a walk, only to return to practiaclly every neighborhood child standing around our front flowers. For more about voles, visit: http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/PESTNOTES/pn7439.html. Apparently, they are a bit destructive, but as we are not growing crops, no harm no foul.

A few days later on a quiet, sunny Sunday, I glanced outside to see just about the largest woodpecker one will ever see, a pileated woodpecker. He spent about an hour just popping about looking for food or whatever he does.

Sadly, there is a clash of cultures in our woods. There are no less than 6 cats that roam our woods, no doubt wrecking havoc with the ecosystem. Our cats have supervised visits outside only. Today, while walking on the side of our house, I noticed one of these cats and shooed him away. When I got closer, I realized he was about to attack a baby bunny that could fit in the palm of one's hand. We've noticed the parents around a lot lately, so we're certain there's a family to be found. After trying to protect/guide the little thing back to safe areas of cover, we're hoping that a parent will soon return after we have cleared out. But we suspect the bunny's outlook will not be good with the cats "circling."

Your Government At Work

Now, don't YOU feel safer?!? (Sarcasm intended)

Scientist's Visa Denial Sparks Outrage in India
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff WriterThursday, February 23, 2006; Page A01
A decision two weeks ago by a U.S. consulate in India to refuse a visa to a prominent Indian scientist has triggered heated protests in that country and set off a major diplomatic flap on the eve of President Bush's first visit to India.
The incident has also caused embarrassment at the highest reaches of the American scientific establishment, which has worked to get the State Department to issue a visa to Goverdhan Mehta, who said the U.S. consulate in the south Indian city of Chennai told him that his expertise in chemistry was deemed a threat.
In the face of outrage in India, the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi issued a highly unusual statement of regret, and yesterday the State Department said officials are reaching out to the scientist to resolve his case.
"It is very strange logic," said Mehta, reached at his home in Bangalore early this morning India time. "Someone is insulted and hurt and you ask him to come back a second round."
The consulate told Mehta "you have been denied a visa" and invited him to submit additional information, according to an official at the National Academy of Sciences who saw a copy of the document. Mehta said in a written account obtained by The Washington Post that he was humiliated, accused of "hiding things" and being dishonest, and told that his work is dangerous because of its potential applications in chemical warfare.
Mehta denied that his work has anything to do with weapons. He said that he would provide his passport if a visa were issued, but that he would do nothing further to obtain the document: "If they don't want to give me a visa, so be it."
The scientist told Indian newspapers that his dealing with the U.S. consulate was "the most degrading experience of my life." Mehta is president of the International Council for Science, a Paris-based organization comprising the national scientific academies of a number of countries. The council advocates that scientists should have free access to one another.
Visa rejections or delays for foreign academics after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have led to widespread complaints by U.S universities and scientific organizations, but the new incident comes when things are improving, said Wendy White, director of the Board of International Scientific Organizations. The board was set up by the National Academy of Sciences and has helped about 3,000 scientists affected by the new policies.
"This leaves a terrible impression of the United States," said White, who has seen a copy of the consulate's form letter to Mehta. In an interview yesterday, she added that top scientists had worked with senior State Department officials to reverse the decision before Bush's visit next week. "We want people to know the U.S. is an open and welcoming country."
Mehta's case has especially angered Indians because he was a director of the Indian Institute of Science and is a science adviser to India's prime minister. He has visited the United States "dozens of times," he said, and the University of Florida in Gainesville had invited him to lecture at an international conference.
State Department spokesman Justin Higgins denied yesterday that the United States had rejected Mehta's visa and said the consulate had merely followed standard procedure in dealing with applicants with certain kinds of scientific expertise.
In his written account, the scientist said that after traveling 200 miles, waiting three hours with his wife for an interview and being accused of deception, he was outraged when his accounts of his research were questioned and he was told he needed to fill out a detailed questionnaire.
"I indicated that I have no desire to subject myself to any further humiliation and asked that our passports be returned forthwith," he wrote. The consular official, Mehta added, "stamped the passports to indicate visa refusal and returned them."
Higgins declined to address why the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi had taken the unusual step of saying it "regrets" that Mehta was "upset by the visa interview process."
In its statement, the embassy said: "At the United States mission in India, and to varying degrees at every U.S. mission worldwide, certain cases involving high technology issues are among those that require review before consular officers in the field are authorized to issue a visa."
White said that issuing a visa would solve the immediate problem, but that it would be more difficult to undo the damage caused by the dispute. Mehta is a high-profile example of the hurdles imposed by the new visa procedures. They require all applicants to appear in person for interviews that are done in only a few locations in large countries such as India, White said.
"If you tell an American, 'If you want a visa to go to India, you have to go to Dallas, Chicago, L.A. or New York, and while you are there, you are going to be fingerprinted, photographed and asked about everything you have done in your research for the last 40 years,' we would find this procedure untenable as Americans," she said.
Mehta said in his written account that he had been invited by the University of Florida, where he has previously been a distinguished visiting professor. White said she expected the International Council for Science, also known as the ICSU, to issue a statement today about the case involving its president.
White and William Wulf, president of the National Academy of Engineering, acknowledged that young American consular officers in foreign countries have been under tremendous pressure since the Sept. 11 attacks.
"Making the wrong decision would be career-ending, so they play it safe, not really understanding the macroscopic implications of their decision," Wulf said. "Denying a visa to the president of ICSU is probably as dumb as you can get. This is not the way we can make friends."

2,608

Two thousand, six hundred and eight. This is how many CD titles Jennifer, Clare and I have. To most, this seems like a lot. A few years ago, this seemed about right to us, but has increasingly felt like too few. After both working large portions of our lives in music stores, we have been out of the business for about 7 years. Jennifer and I have worked at: Believe in Music (Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo), Borders Books & Music (Novi and Charlotte), Music City (Grand Rapids), Media Play (Grand Rapids) and Schuler Books & Music (Grand Rapids). The last of these was Jennifer at Borders, which she left in early 1999.

As hard as we have tried, it's tough to keep up with the latest. Jen does it with the current pop stuff (which I still cannot for the life of me figure out how she knows the latest top 40 stuff given our lives' time contraints right now). I keep up a little bit, trying stuff somewhat on the fringes. Icelandic groups Mum and Sigur Ros are some of my tenuous threads to being on the ball. And for 7 years now, the promo fairy has not visited. Working in music stores means battling (pushing? deceiving? stealing?) for the promo copies that record companies dole out. The free stuff made growing a collection easy. It's harder now that we have to pay, and have yet to find an adequate used store in Indianapolis. (Is the used CD store going by the wayside due to downloads?)

So, 2006 has begun with a purge of old, unrecognizable (and in some cases unlistenable!) promos and purchases from the past. 2006 will be the year that, through smart purchasing of used CD's, the collection reforms and reshapes itself, filling in the blanks of the last seven years.