Moonlight Breeze

I think there are some really important discussions to have about why disclosing aspects of personal identity can be challenging but important for all kinds of people, why the concept of “coming out” has appealed at times to a wide variety of groups (including people who are poly or kinky, sex workers, people with HIV, atheists, and people with mental illness), and why other groups using that language can be harmful to people in the LGBT and queer communities. But it’s going to take me some time to really be able to address all that.

This is the one time of year that I love wasps.

Not because the wasps themselves get any nicer. They’re horrid little creatures year round. No, it’s because I have a couple of big apple trees out back, and late August, early September is when the apples start ripening.

Now, if you don’t harvest your own fruit, there are two things you need to know about apples.

The first thing you need to know about apples is that, when apples get ripe, they tend to fall from the tree at the slightest breeze.

I often work late at the office; by the time I get home, there are piles of apples scattered everywhere - and sure enough, the wasps are out in force, gorging themselves on the fruit. When I go to clean up the windfallen apples, the wasps naturally do the “rawr, I’ma fuck you up!” routine for which wasps are known.

The second thing you need to know about apples is that they ferment very rapidly in the late August heat.

So: the wasps try to come at me, but they’re too drunk to fly. They get about an inch off the ground, then faceplant directly into the turf, flip over onto their backs, and lay there, legs twitching in the air as they try in vain to find something to sting.

Perhaps I’m a man of simple pleasures, but I bust up laughing every. single. time.

India replaces the Ice Bucket Challenge with the much more sustainable Rice Bucket Challenge 

After seeing the dramatic results from the Ice Bucket Challenge, Indian journalist Manju Latha Kalanidhi was compelled to start something similar, but with an Indian slant. “I felt like doing something more locally tangible. Rice is a staple here,” Kalanidhi told CNN. “We eat it every day, we can store it for months. Why not donate rice to someone who is hungry?”

The amazing problem-solving skills of crows — measured by science!

Here, one of these smarty-pants birds is being put to the ultimate test: get a basket of food out of an upright cylinder with a single straight wire. And get it she does, in a feat of intuitive problem solving.

Want to know why crows are so smart? Check out this talk from TEDxRainier by bird researcher John Marzluff, on the wildly fascinating intricacies of the bird brain. (Take that one out of your insult bucket.)

Watch the talk here »