All posts by Lenny Flank

Editor, Red and Black Publishers.

Earth’s First Mountains

The area of the Minnesota/Canada border has an interesting early geological history.

Voyageur_Fig4
Granite layers in Voyageurs National Park                              photo from NPS

Continue reading Earth’s First Mountains

A Necessary Political Interlude

The very fine people in the Florida State Legislature have in their infinite wisdom introduced a bill into the Assembly:

“Florida Sen. Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) wants bloggers who write about Gov. Ron DeSantis, Attorney General Ashley Moody, and other members of the Florida executive cabinet or legislature to register with the state or face fines.

Brodeur’s proposal, Senate Bill 1316: Information Dissemination, would require any blogger writing about government officials to register with the Florida Office of Legislative Services or the Commission on Ethics.”

https://www.wfla.com/news/politics/florida-bill-would-require-bloggers-who-write-about-governor-to-register-with-the-state/

Continue reading A Necessary Political Interlude

“Soon May the Wellerman Come To Bring Us Sugar and Tea and Rum … “

Alright, unless you’ve been living on a deserted island and have never seen TikTok (or if you don’t know any fifth-graders), you’ve probably heard this song and clapped along with it. “The Wellerman” was a viral sensation that broke the Internet in 2021 and has since spawned what seems to be a million different versions in all sorts of musical styles (there is even a version by the Vienna Boys Choir). Though written at least 150 years ago, the catchy little earworm managed to hit the Number One slot on the music service Spotify in 2021.

But “The Wellerman” has an interesting story behind it.

Continue reading “Soon May the Wellerman Come To Bring Us Sugar and Tea and Rum … “

Florida’s Terror Birds

Most people today know that modern birds are the evolutionary descendants of dinosaurs, and survived the great mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous period that killed off all the non-avian dinos. But few people know that, for a brief time in what is now the Americas, after the dinosaurs were wiped out, it was birds that assumed their position as super-predators at the top of the food chain.

Titanis skeleton at the Florida Museum of Natural History

Continue reading Florida’s Terror Birds