Sunspots 613

Things I have recently spotted that may be of interest to someone else:

Christianity: Relevant on avoiding the Gospel of Comfort.

A Washington Post columnist on what the Bible says about immigration. (Some Christian leaders say it has nothing to do with that subject!)


Food: Relevant says that Valentine candy may be supporting exploitation of the poor in other parts of the world.

Health: The National Gardening Association has posted a Garden Planting Calendar. You enter your location.

Scientific American reports that being affected by a traffic jam makes it more likely that you will engage in domestic violence.

History: Scientific American points out that people of African descent, including women other than those shown in Hidden Figures, have been part of space exploration for decades.

Humor: (not really) ListVerse reports on why we are afraid of clowns.


Politics: FiveThirtyEight points out that raising the minimum wage usually doesn't affect waitresses and other workers who depend on tips.

Relevant reports that Amnesty International claims that 17,000 people have been wrongfully put to death in Syria, by the court system, from 2011-2015.

FiveThirtyEight discusses four types of constitutional crisis, with examples.

Science: National Public Radio reports that scientists have begun using DNA that wild pigs leave behind, to find out where they live, so that they can be destroyed. They are serious pests.

Image source (public domain)

Wild hogs, aka wild boars, aka wild pigs

My wife and I recently saw, for the first time for either of us, a wild hog. It was road kill, on Georgia 181, just across the Georgia-South Carolina border, near Hartwell Dam. That got me to searching for information about these animals. I have linked to four such sources, below. In one sentence, their numbers are expanding rapidly, there doesn't seem to be any way to stop this, and they can do a lot of damage to property and the environment. Some of the problems are because hunters want hogs brought in so they can be hunted.

A Fox News local TV station in Alabama has an article about a boy who killed a giant hog, weighing over a thousand pounds, and was over nine feet from nose to the base of the tail. There's a photo.

The State newspaper (Columbia, SC) has an article on what the animals are doing in South Carolina, and how hard they are to control.

The Charleston, SC Post and Courier has a similar article.

There's a fascinating article, in the Atlantic, about the history of the animals, hunting them, a wild hog festival in Georgia, wild hogs and Republican domination in local politics, and many other things.

None of the above articles are current, (one was from 2013, the others somewhat older) but all were of considerable interest.