Did you really bird with the late Murray Gell-Mann?Yep. And it was a lot of fun, too. WC wonders if all Nobel Prize winners, if all quantum physics geniuses, are that much fun. There’s even an earlier blog post about it. Which is worse, the Idaho Legislature of the Alaska Legislature?Wow, that’s a really hard…
Probably forty years ago now, WC was defending a permafrost house case. (Notes for nor non-Alaskans: permafrost is permanently frozen soils, often laced with lenses of ice. When the permafrost melts, anything built on it is likely to collapse. If a house is built on permafrost, the results are often catastrophic. Because it can take…
December is done. 2022 is done. It’s time to pick through the rubble and snowdrifts to see at least part of what WC may have missed. As always the Magpie Principle applies and absolutely no journalism has been committed in writing this blog post. WC has written earlier about Juli Mazi, who was indicted by…
Yes, a second blog post today. Sadly, the good folks at WordPress – a company called Automatic, Inc. – charge WC for hosting Wickersham’s Conscience. WC attempts to pay that bill, as well as subsidize his camera equipment, with photo sales from his photography business, Frozen Feather Images. So, yeah, a brief advertisement. WC reminds…
Today marks the 14th birthday of this blog. In celebration, WC will offer some statistics and a few thoughts. At this date, there are 4,975 published blog posts. All but seven of them written by WC. That’s a lot of words. In fact, at an average length of about 750 words, that’s over 3.7 million…
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
WC had his follow up examination with his orthopedic surgeon recently, including follow up x-rays of the “appliance” now residing in WC’s right knee. At the risk of over-sharing, WC offers this update. These are iPhone photographs of the doctor’s computer screen, and aren’t ideal. WC and his phone are reflected in the background. You…
WC had total knee replacement surgery on his right knee Tuesday. The good news is that in a few months WC should be walking without pain for the first time in two years. The bad news is that the surgery has WC pretty banged up. As a result, WC’s ability to research, write and publish…
Neil Gaiman is one of WC’s favorite writers, partly because you never, ever know what Gaiman’s next book or creative effort is going to be about. In a long interview (paywalled) of Gaiman in the New York Times on August 1, David Marchese asked him about fan expectations after Gaiman’s hugely popular, hugely influential Sandman…
WC is huddled by an air conditioning vent, working through an endless list of busted software and failed data transfers attendant to upgrading to a new computer and a modern Mac operating system. It’s put WC in just the right mood to sort through the stockpile of email questions from kind readers, ignorant critics and…
What, again? Yep. Blog posts will continue at least for a while as WC is away; a few are pre-written. But WC will be off the web for a few days, and it’s uncertain where, when and what quality access WC will have to the internet. So comments won’t be immediately approved and feedback will…
Blog posts will continue while WC is away; they are pre-written. But WC will be off the web for a few days, so comments won’t be immediately approved and feedback will be unaddressed. WC promises to get to all that when he is back.
Sadly, yes. But WC does not intend a sharp turn to the right.
WC’s Return of Bird of the Week usually appears on Saturdays. But by the vagaries of the calendar, the next two Saturdays are holidays, with their own special blog posts. Return of Bird of the Week will . . . return . . . on January 8, 2022.
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
It’s been a while since WC answered readers’ questions. Some are asked (or implied) in comments, some in emails and a few in feedback. Here are some selected questions and answers: What do you think of the electoral college after the 2020 election?The electoral college was a compromise when it was made. Some constitutional delegates…
WC is off chasing birds. Blog posts may be a little irregular or even absent for a bit, because WC will be avoiding the internet in a belated effort to preserve his sanity. If the effort turns up anything interesting, and WC has access to the Web, there may be posts from time to time.…
It’s been a while since WC sorted through his mail and shared the printable questions and comments with readers. As expected, the NRA series provoked a lot of poorly written, obscenity-laced emails and comments, all of which WC has deleted. WC isn’t about to have a battle of wits with an unarmed, illiterate man and,…
The COVID-19 pandemic is sickening tens of thousands of Americans, killing thousands of us and Americans can’t even agree to the most elementary steps to controlling the pandemic. The country has hopelessly screwed up management of the disease, and tens of thousands have died as a result. The experts in the federal government who might…
There will be some changes coming to Wickersham’s Conscience over the next few weeks and months. What happened is that WC’s free WordPress plan ran out of storage space. Yes, WC has been writing this blog since November 2008 using WordPress’s free plan. Well, it was “free” to WC but WordPress makes money on the…
WC is off chasing birds. Unless there is internet access in places WC doesn’t expect, blog posts will resume in a few days.
WC remembers how excited he was to have 1,000 posts. This is the 4,000th post on Wickersham’s Conscience. It a number that seems starkly incredible to WC, who started this blog in late November, 2008 on a lark. As WC does when the odometer rolls over like this, here are some highlights from 12.5 years…
About all you can say is that it is better than the alternative. If I knew I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself. – Mickey Mantle NB: You want the sign to the right; not the one on the left. Not yet, anyway.
WC is going to be off chasing birds for a while. Blog posts will be spotty, because WC’s access to the intertubes will be spotty. Regular blog posts will resume when WC gets back from birding.
WC has neglected the email bin for a bit. After deleting the outright spam, the threats by MAGA-heads who disagree with WC’s politics and the messages where obscenities outnumber the non-obscenities, there are a few very nearly serious questions to address. Why is it “Return of Bird of the Week”? Where is it returning from?…
As WC writes this, it is snowing lightly outside. A Brown Creeper is working the spruce tree trunk just outside the window. Mountain Chickadees, Red-breasted Nuthatches and Lesser Goldfinches are working the bird feeders, bringing flashes of color to a monochrome winter landscape. It all serves to remind WC that there is much to be…
Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep. As…
From time to time, WC will get in a debate with some faceless person over the internet. It usually starts when the other person makes a foolish or outlandish statement. If WC is sufficiently dyspeptic at the moment, WC will take the fool to task. This happened recently. A climate change denier annoyed WC enough…
WC is off chasing birds. Again. Access to the intertubes will be intermittent, at best. Regular posts will resume in a bit. And this time, can we maybe try not collapse Alaska’s economy and burn the nation down while WC is away?
Regular blog posts will resume when WC finds ’em.
Wickersham's Conscience 
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