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It’s tax season, with the filing deadline looming, so we’ll keep this short.
The crowns are out of work too. House of Bavarian History - Museum (Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte - Museum). Crown of King Ludwig II. of Bavaria (König Ludwig II. von Bayern) Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
If you heard the ivory-billed woodpecker is dead, you heard wrong. Maybe.
Biologists Challenge Federal Conclusion that the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker is Extinct
Possible rediscoveries of vanished charismatic fauna always get the blood flowing - and debates raging.
Here we go again. Let the wild ornithological and ecological rumpus begin.
"Multiple lines of evidence indicate survival of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker in Louisiana." That's the title of a pre-peer-review paper posted on April 8 on bioRxiv - the free online archive and distribution service for unpublished biological research operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
The finding, coming from a 10-person team led by researchers at the National Aviary in Pittsburgh, is particularly dramatic given that, just last September, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service included this resplendent and long-vanished woodpecker, Campephilus principalis, in a batch of 23 species it planned to remove from the Endangered Species Act because they are gone forever. Case closed.
I hope the little ivory-billed woodpecker is alive and well in Louisiana! The article at the link give you a full rundown on the evidence and the debate.
The Daily Word Counts of 19 Famous Writers discusses exactly that. If you’re a writer, articles like this can be either inspiring, intimidating, or merely interesting. Here are a couple of the writers mentioned:
Ernest Hemingway: 500 Words
Of course, Hemingway is no longer alive, but when he was he would stick around writing about 500 words a day. “When I am working on a book or a story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that,” Hemingway said.
Stephen King: 2,000 Words
In his book On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft, King speaks on his writing speed. He would set a daily goal of about 2,000 words. This would add up to about 180,000 words in three months of writing. He also said that three months was the maximum amount of time it should take someone to finish a first draft. If it takes longer, it will get tougher and tougher to delve back into the story with the right frame of mind. In addition, King can often become involved in marathon writing sessions. He wrote The Running Man in one week.
We also get word counts from Jack London, Mark Twain, Tom Wolfe, Michael Crichton (10,000 words!), and several other names you would recognize. And several I didn’t.
The main thing I get from this article is I need to get my word count up. Right after I finish my taxes.
What do out of work royals do all day? I’m semi-fascinated by all the deposed royal families still floating around Europe — unwanted kings and queens whose former or would-be realms either don’t want them (Greece, France, Albania, etc) or simply don’t exist anymore (Austro-Hungarian empire, numerous defunct German kingdoms). Yet many of these royal families carry on with their whole royalty thing, pretenders to thrones that aren’t there.
So this article caught my eye: Among Europe’s Ex-Royals
Across Europe, royal families are variously seen as tourist attractions, embarrassing artifacts, spiritual leaders, and symbols of national identity. Several countries that exiled their monarchs in favor of fascism, communism, or military rule—Greece, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, and of course Albania—have now allowed their royal families back home, making uneasy pacts with history. They are royal but not royal, monarchs without thrones, caught between the past and the future. A surprising number of them have gone into politics. What do their countries want from them?
Thea article mainly profiles the current heir to Albania’s royal family, Prince Leka, and Karl von Habsburg, current head of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine. You wonder what they’re all waiting around for.
By the way, fun fact: Europe has 12 remaining monarchies, including three principalities and a grand duchy. Can you name them all without looking it up? I did!
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