Given that the unemployment rate for people with disabilities is more than twice that of people without disabilities (7.3% vs 3.5% in 2019) there are two major explanations. One, people with disabilities lack the essential skills to gain employment, and two, workplaces are not accessible to people with disabilities (remember that unemployment rates only considerContinue reading “Questioning Rehabilitation”
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The Righteous Mind: a Critique
Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind: why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion is roughly divided into two parts. In the first, Haidt makes the case for social intuitionism, the theory that moral judgements are primarily the product of automatic intuitions rather than conscious reasoning. The main form of evidence for this is so-calledContinue reading “The Righteous Mind: a Critique”
Over-monitoring and “The Anxiety Toolkit”
This is an unusual topic for me to take up in this blog. For the most part, I write about plants and fungi, occasionally books and movies. But today, for some reason, I feel like taking up a psychological concept, “over-monitoring,” which I’ve encountered in Alice Boyes’s book The Anxiety Toolkit. I took up thisContinue reading “Over-monitoring and “The Anxiety Toolkit””
Backyard Naturalism: The Grey Catbird.
Taking a break from fungi today to explore a sound I’ve been hearing since the season of morels and mayapples. (Unfortunately, it turns out you can’t upload audio content to wordpress without a premium account, but “Susan’s in the Garden” has got us covered over on youtube!) At first, we thought we had a babyContinue reading “Backyard Naturalism: The Grey Catbird.”
wait wait…one more coral fungus!
Came across this guy too late for yesterday’s post. But that’s ok because it deserves it’s own. Clavaria zollingeri can’t be confused for anything else. Its purple color and antler-like tips are truly distinctive. Like the Crown-Tipped coral fungus it is “saprobic,” meaning it grows on decaying organic matter. It usually grows in moss (theContinue reading “wait wait…one more coral fungus!”
Tree of Heaven: Tree Identification with your Nose
It’s interesting how much of an impact street names have on our knowledge of trees. Pretty much everyone knows that Oaks, Hickories, Walnuts, and Elms are trees, even if most people can’t identify them. I am reminded of the chapter called “Place-Names” in Proust, how some words exist that no longer refer to anything particular,Continue reading “Tree of Heaven: Tree Identification with your Nose”
Chicory
On my morning bike ride to work one day I spotted some electric blue flowers in my neighbor’s yard—which he has yet to mow this year. Then I saw them a couple other places on my morning route. I took a mental note and resolved to come back during my lunch break and photograph themContinue reading “Chicory”
What is a “deer mushroom”?
Show anyone you meet out hiking a fairly nondescript brownish-grey mushroom and they’ll probably tell you it’s a “deer mushroom.” But what actually is a deer mushroom, other than a catch-all term for things we can’t otherwise identify? It’s actually fairly simple. A deer mushroom (Pluteus cervinus) has three key characteristics: 1) it’s growing fromContinue reading “What is a “deer mushroom”?”
Garlic Mustard: it’s everywhere, why not eat it?
Eating Garlic Mustard is often urged as a way of fighting an invasive plant, but there’s another reason it’s worth a try: history. Ever come across those startling, seemingly inexplicable details when reading something older than the 20th century, such as that people used to sleep in two four hour shifts, or put eggs inContinue reading “Garlic Mustard: it’s everywhere, why not eat it?”
Nature the Bizarre
Today I’m going to show you some of the stranger things I’ve found hiking. Starting below, with some kind of coral fungus I haven’t managed to quite identify. I’ve seen this several times now, usually while poking around for signs of morels. The fungus above has become lichenized, which results in the green tint. AllContinue reading “Nature the Bizarre”
recycled paper clips 