journal features

poaching tusks in Siberia

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2017.06.17

Poachers in Siberia are digging up mammoth tusks with pressurized water, making themselves rich but fouling the rivers.

It's impressive that they knew the skeletons were out there. Once in a while, when I read of one of these finds or some new archaeological (or anthropological) discovery, I think of all the things that must be out there in the ice or dirt or rook, waiting to be found.

It's a pity that these desperate drunkards will exterminate all the fish with this enterprise. It's kind of our thing, we humans. I read recently that when the Europeans – as drunken and desperate as these Yakuts – arrived Ontario we exterminated 17 species of fish from lake Ontario.

(Thanks to Audrey for the link to the story.)

Three good things that happened today:

My friend Adam had a son (well, last Saturday).

I submitted my first tweet of a car parked in a cycle lane to the copper in Toronto who's now ticketing cars for such parking.

I spoke with the two professional bicycle "wrenches" at the repair event last year. They said they had a great time and would like to do it again next year.

rand()m quote

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward—reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.

—Michael Crichton