Happy 100 Years, Arizona!

On the morning of Feb. 14, 1912, the headline of The Arizona Republican read "The 48th State Steps into the Union." George P. Hunt became the state's first governor shortly after Joe Melzer and Hazel Goldberg became the first couple to get married in the new state. Phoenix only had 11,300 people back then, slightly smaller than Tucson's 13,900. 100 years later, Phoenix has grown to 1,445,632 people; 520,100 folks call the Old Pueblo home, including us.

It's a cloudy morning in Tucson, 53 degrees, quail sing in the chaparral. Clouds cover Tanque Verde and Rincon Peak and a train creeps parallel to Interstate 10 in the distance. The Catalina Mountains rest in fog. A Gila woodpecker is raiding our hummingbird feeder. A wet winter called the flowers and leaves back early, a pair of cactus wren are building a nest in an abandoned woodpecker hole high up on a saguaro. They're lining it with mourning dove feathers. Just like they did in 1912. And 1812. And 1712.

The Arizona Republic, still the state's flagship newspaper despite the slight name change in 1930, celebrates the state's birthday again after 100 years. Read all about it!

Happy New Year!

Hope you had a wicked rad 2011 and that 2012 is even wickeder and radder.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays to our friends, especially our families in chilly New England.

I might add this is my 300th post to Making Owls Cool. 

Thanksgiving

Happy Earth Day!

First off, I should apologize for being a negligent blogger lately. The ol' PhD is catching up with me and I've got tons of work to do. I have all sorts of good blogging ideas and no time to write them.

But today is Earth Day and even a lazy nature blogger cannot let a day specifically designed to remind us of the ecological and environmental needs of our planet pass without hopping online and writing a few lines in support of preserving our natural world.

When I think of Earth Day, I'm reminded of anthropomorphic ambassadors from my childhood. Woodsy Owl, Smokey the Bear, and Ranger Rick. Each spouted an easy-to-remember aphorism. "Give a hoot! Don't pollute. Plant a tree today" or "Only you can prevent forest fires." Yet, as one half of our government fights to destroy and exploit our natural environment and the other puts up a flaccid, lackluster defense (or outright caves), I can't help but think that all the logic, all the public relations campaigns mounted by environmental groups, all the cartoon animals giving sound advice, and all the anger of people like me and probably you can't compare for one second to nature's own ambassadors, the spectacular and sublime features of our planet.

So, for Earth Day, this humble blogger isn't asking you to vote, petition, go vegan, recycle, ride a bike, or change your lightbulbs. If you do those things, wonderful...I do too. But I would like to ask you to go outside. Take your kids for a walk in the woods. Visit a national park. Go to the beach. Hike up a mountain. Or just feed some birds in your yard. If you don't know what we're losing to greed and idiocy (idiocy means you, climate change deniers), then you had better find out before it's gone.

Oh, and when you get back inside, read Edward Abbey's account of Glen Canyon or John Muir's of Hetch Hetchy before they were dammed. You can't go to those places anymore. Both men are great writers, but neither provides a satisfying substitute for the reality of standing in a place, smelling the air, hearing the wind and the birds. I think you will agree that one visit would be worth all the descriptions, films, and photographs of each of these places that have been taken from us by our parents' and grandparents' generations. We can to better than that. Let's start now.

April Fools

For April Fools I pulled the most taboo prank of them all and told my wife I was pregnant. Just kidding. That joke was bad, I know, but I have noticed some good April Fools Day jokes around the Internet and I thought I'd take a quick second and share a few.

1. The editors of Scientific American Magazine agree to include Creationism and Intelligent Design in their articles. The post is called "Okay, We Give Up" and it's actually from April 1, 2005. Funny nonetheless.

2. Google introduces G-Mail Motion, a way to control G-Mail without using outdated technology, such as the mouse and keyboard.

3. In another Google prank, try search for "helvetica" in Google.

4.The American Spectator announces that PBS hired Anne Coulter to host a show. Lots of other fake PBS material too.

5. Hulu is in 1996.

Happy Birthday, Arizona

Not only is today Valentine's Day, it's also Arizona's 99th birthday. President Taft officially made The Grand Canyon State the 48th in the Union on Feb. 14, 1912. Feb. 12 was originally slated as our first day as a state, but it conflicted with Lincoln's birthday.

I don't know why, but this picture looks like a perfect metaphor for Arizona's 99th birthday. I like it.

Happy Valentine's Day

Hey! Happy Valentine's Day everybody.

This photo is from the Feb. 1963 issue of Arizona Highways. We used to have these cacti in our yard in Tucson. The flowers were really that color, too.

Make my day and follow Making Owls Cool on the new Facebook page.

Happy Birthday, Charles Darwin

Two-hundred and two years ago today, Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. Fifty years later, he published "On the Origin of Species," a work proposing and outlining his theory of natural selection. Like Galileo and Newton, Darwin figured out a piece of knowledge that allowed us to truly understand of the workings of the natural world. Though the religious community still tries to paint Darwin as a divisive figure, the scientific community has expanded on his work in myriad ways.  One could even argue that we've learned more about biology and natural history in the last 150 years since the publication of "On the Origin of Species" than in the previous millennium.

Some dedicated Darwin fans have come together in an attempt to establish International Darwin Day. Democratic representative Pete Stark of California has even introduced House Res. 81 to establish Feb. 12 as Darwin Day. The idea of Darwin Day is not only to celebrate Darwin's birthday, but also to remember "the importance of science in the betterment of humanity." That's something I can get behind. Read the text of Stark's beautifully crafted resolution here.

Check out the International Darwin Day website see what the movement is all about.

Winterhaven Christmas

When you move to Arizona from a climate with snow, the first Christmas is hard. Outside looks basically like it does in August, but with a few fall leaves here and there. It's sweater weather. Once you've been here for a while, you start to enjoy the traditions that mark Christmas in the desert. Our favorite Arizona Christmas tradition we've acquired is visiting the Winterhaven neighborhood in Tucson. The residents of Winterhaven have been putting putting on an elaborate lights display since 1949. It's called the Winterhaven Festival of Lights. You can read the history of that tradition here. Here's some pictures we took this year.

Best Easter Wishes

My family sent me this great postcard from 1908 for Easter. Obviously, the picture is really funny (rabbit as beast of burden!), but I also love the font. I'm no designer or anything, and I don't generally notice fonts, but I really like this one. Thanks guys!

I also like the handwriting on the reverse as it's very easy to read. Here is goes:

"Dear Mother,
We are so glad to hear you and Father are both well, and I will write you a long letter next week.
With Love,
Lillie H."

Sent to:
Mrs. James M. Hayes
1218 S. Walker St.
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

The postmark is from San Francisco. It's both sad and wonderful to think that this postcard has been sent not once, but twice, by families separated by great distances at Easter time. Unlike Lillie, I suppose I have the luxury of calling my family on the phone, rather than waiting until next week to write a long letter, but I wonder if the technological convenience really makes me feel any closer to home than Lillie felt a century ago...

Happy Easter, folks.

Happy New Years!

Only two more years until the end of the world. Live it up.

all things stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face

blizzard_20, originally uploaded by martin.jessica.

We're headed back home to Massachusetts in the morning and we'll get there in the evening.  It didn't take long for the desert to thin my blood and I'm not so weather-worthy as I once was...

Preach it Mr. Bradford...

"And for the season it was winter, and they know that the winters of that country know them to be sharp and violent, and subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search an unknown coast. Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wild beasts and wild men--and what multitudes there might be of them they knew not. Neither could they, as it were, go up to the top of Pisgah to view from this wilderness a more goodly country to feed their hopes; for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to the heavens) they could have little solace or content in respect of any outward objects. For summer being done, all things stand upon them with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hue."
- William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation

Happy Thanksgiving

"They now begane to gather in ye small harvest they had, and to fitte up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health & strength, and had all things in good plenty; for as some were thus imployed in affairs abroad, others were excersised in fishing, aboute codd, and bass, & other fish, of which yey took good store, of which every family had their portion. All ye somer there was not wante. And now begane to come in store of foule, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came first (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besids water foule, ther was great stor of wild Turkies, of which they tooke many, besides venison &c. Besids they had aboute a peck a meale a weeke to a person, or now since harvest, Indean corn to yt proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largly of their plenty hear to their freinds in England, which were not fained, but true reports." 

 - William Bradford, "Of Plymouth Plantation" Chapter XII. Anno 1621