Stewart skewers Beck

John Stewart fears for Glenn Beck's internal organs:

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Brilliant.

Friday photo

Coyote. Yellowstone National Park, July 1992.

This photo comes from one of my favorite moments, ever. I was hiking near Hellroaring Creek and sat down on a rock for a brief rest, when I spotted this coyote. He (or she, I didn't look that closely) began to trot straight toward me, apparently rather curious about this stranger. But not too careless, despite the curiosity - as I raised my camera to take a photo, the motion startled him and he ran off. Dang, I thought, lost a chance at a good shot.

But the critter didn't go very far and I decided to wait around and see if he would get used to my presence. For the next hour or so, I walked around, scuffed rocks, sat down, and generally did everything I could think of to convince the coyote that I had my own business to mind and that it didn't include him. Meanwhile, he amused himself trying to snatch flying insects out of the air.

Eventually, I was able to edge closer and closer, still avoiding eye contact or direct movements in his direction. It worked perfectly and the coyote lost all concern over me. In fact, he finally flopped down in the grass and closed his eyes. I had set up the camera on the tripod and, every time his eyes closed, I would scootch the camera closer and take a couple more photos, up to about eight feet away, when I decided I probably shouldn't push my luck any further.

As I began to reach the end of the roll of film (and realized I didn't have a spare, dammit), I started testing the animal's calm by scuffing the ground noisily. His head would jerk up, he'd quickly look around, then stare at me and put his head back down. That "Oh, it's just you" look is what you see in this photo.

I'm too much of a rationalist to get much into "being one with nature," but there's no denying that I usually feel more of an outsider than I wish when I encounter wildlife in their own habitat. At this moment, though, with a wild coyote that showed no hostility or fear toward me (or begged any food), but viewed me as a tolerable part of the landscape - I felt just a little less alien.

Grizzlies on the plains

From Ralph Maughan's Wildlife News:

Grizzlies home on range – again. By Karl Puckett. Great Falls Tribune Staff Writer.

Is anyone interested that grizzlies are abundant enough and northern Montana empty enough that grizzlies are spilling out onto the plains?

Friday photo

Turkey Run State Park, Indiana. July, 2007.

Turkey Run is a beautiful state park in west-central Indiana, full of forests and sandstone canyons. It is probably the best-loved park in the state, also, but I've rarely found it to be oppressively crowded. More than anything else, my childhood vacations here probably set the stage for my love of nature.

On this occasion, I brought the tripod but forgot the shoe to attach it to the camera. The photo was handheld in low light and so isn't quite as sharp as I would prefer.

The sandstone is the remnants of a river delta from about 300,000,000 years ago, whose sand deposits eventually compressed into rock. More recently - way more recently - the retreating glaciers of the late Pleistocene era created heavy stream flows that carved out these gorgeous gullies. The water flow is pretty light nowadays, but it doesn't take much to make for some treacherous footing on the trails.

Indiana's game

Indiana has long claimed basketball as their very own game. Oh, sure, it was invented in Massachusetts, but that's just a trivial accident. Would Gene Hackman star in a film called Bay Staters? Hardly. Indiana is basketball's true home and we all know it.

Want proof? Check out this map from the Atlas of American Sports, tracking collegiate basketball players per capita from 1958-1988, by county of origin:


Okay, it's 20 years old now, but look at that Hoosier dominance! Yeah, baby!

By comparison, here's the same mapping of collegiate football players, showing a preponderance of southerners, who labor under the delusion that any other game could be better than basketball :

(Sorry for the blur - I only had my phone camera with me)