Hey Everyone! I invited David over to announce some exciting entomophagy news–a way to get all the past issues of the Food Insects Newsletter!   Here’s what David has to say:

“It’s a great day for those of us laboring in the salt mines of entomophagy: after many months of planning, a bound reprint of The Food Insects Newsletter is finally available to the public!

While some of it has been online for years, this volume includes a great deal of additional material, including editorial introductions and an afterward; nutritional tables; images; and four comprehensive indices catering to a wide range of interests.  And hey, just in time for the gifting season!  This volume represents a vital part of the available literature on the subject.  Do the world a favor: order yours today!

But Wait! There’s more!
This reprint is meant to be the prelude to a renewal of The Newsletter, meaning that new content will be forthcoming in 2010.

The editors – Dr. Florence Dunkel and I – are currently pondering various ways of making this happen.  While we have some articles and other material ready to be shared with the world, we are very interested in receiving almost anything that people would like to contribute.  This means from entomologists of course, but other folks too — including non-academics.  I’m talking about: technical papers, observations, essays, anecdotes, images, and other formats.

Similarly, we remain committed to exploring our subject from a wide range of perspectives: through the lens of entomology, anthropology, sociology, engineering, nutrition science, chemistry, marketing, history, ecology, etc.    Please email us if you are interested in contributing!

You can view instructions for getting your copy here: BookFlyer.pdf

Ann Fadiman. At Large and Small: Familiar Essays. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 2007.

Bug Rating:

I freely admit to being an Anne Fadiman fan-girl. Ex Libris is easily one of my favorite books. The Spirit Catches You is an amazing book about culture, epilepsy, immigration, and they way we don’t communicate.  So, I was pretty sure I would like this book.

When I got it, I discovered the end papers for the book are from a wonderful collection of vintage insect plates (ca. 1859), which you can now find on Google Books.  OMG!
And the very first essay, “Collecting Nature,” is about the joys of collecting insects. Sigh.

We’ve discussed before here at the Bug Blog the issue of insect collections, and the decision to not collect. This is covered in detail in Fadiman’s essay:

“When we were very young, my brother and I could not yet divorce our ardor for butterflies from our desire to flatten them in Riker mounts and hang them on the wall.  We threw away our killling jar not because we wished to stop causing pain–crushing an ant or a cockroach, which presumably had a nervous system similar to a tiger swallowtail, stirred few qualms–but because, unlike Alfred Russel Wallace, we grew uneasy with the pleasure it gave us.”

She does confess it was not an easy decision to make:

“I remember a period of painful overlap, when the light of decency was dawning but the lure of sin was still irresistible.  Like alcohol, nicotine, or heroin, lepidoptery is hard to renounce.”

There are also two very nice essays on Ice Cream and Coffee, both of which reflect personal obsessions of mine.

“I recently calculated (assuming an average consumption of one pint of ice cream per week, at 1000 calories per pint, and the American Medical Association’s reckoning of 3500 calories per pound of stored body fat) that had I eaten no ice cream since the age of eighteen, I would currently weigh -416 pounds.”

The final essay in the book, “Under Water,” is a stunning essay about being a witness to a drowning at the age of 18, and being unable to help.  Haunting.

Fadiman will teach you things you didn’t know, and entertain you while it happens.  Forget my hurried review–go check the book out and see for yourself.

Bug Rating:

Synopsis: Long-winded Libertarians lead the fight against an extra-terrestrial insectish species in this 1983 sci-fi novel.

I had such high hopes for this book. Its cover promised all sorts of awesome. And then, I discovered the author wrote the Star Trek “Trouble with Tribbles” episode.

Cheezy cover! History of Tribbles! Silly rhyming title!  (War/Chtorr)

Alas, it was not to be.

Like most sci-fi/fantasy books I’ve reviewed here, the biology is a bit muddled.  Although, really. When you have a post-apocalyptic world invaded by aliens, who’s going to quibble about a little bad biology?
(Well, besides me, anyway?)

The Chtorr are described as insects in several places, but also as having “purple skin and varicolored fur.”  Or as “giant, pink, fur-covered caterpillars.”  Or “a large, purple and red, man-eating caterpillar.”  An eye-witness account:

“It was huge! Nearly twice the length of a man, bright red and more than a meter thick at the head! Its eyes were black and lidless. It reared up into the air and waved its arms and made that chirruping sound again; its mouth was a flashing maw. “Chtorr!” it cried. “Chtorrrrrr!”

Perhaps the Chtorr are foreshadowing Lady Gaga’s wardrobe and career?

But I digress.

In 1998 the world is destroyed by a series of plagues, and only a few Americans are left. They are gathered into “re-education” locations and given mandatory civics classes on the duties of citizens in this new world.  Apparently, those classes make an impression, because fully one third of this 397 page book is the main character flashing back to high school discussions of wealth redistribution and federal abuse of power.

It is just about as fascinating as you would expect.

That’s a shame, because the fundamental concept of the book (which you figure out when you FINALLY arrive at page 213) is centered around invasive species displacing the native inhabitants of Earth’s ecosystems. Aliens are terraforming the Earth by ecological invasion.

That is a brilliant thing to build a novel around!  The invaders are more competitive ecologically. Alien plants change the light transmittance and oxygen level in water.  Alien insecty-things become the top predators in their new ecosystem.

Add to that the invaders can only be killed by fire or explosives, and you’ve got a firecracker of a book.
Um, unless you bog it down with tedious discussions of what money is, and how the state and individual power balance is maintained.

The portrayal of women in this book just adds to the Dismal.  All but one of the female characters in the book are “comfort women.” In fact, a topic covered in that high school civics class is the duty of all hotties under 18 to put out for the betterment of humankind.  Not the most enlightened future society, but if you’re going to kill everyone, I guess stockpiling nubile young women as well as weapons is to be expected.

Sigh.

So there you have it. Disappointing.

(As a final aside, one of the main characters is named Dr. Obama!)

My post on blogging anonymously was surprisingly popular, so I thought I would mention this news tidbit: A British policeman was recently outed as the author of the blog Night Jack, a 2009 Orwell Prize award winner for writing excellence in political science.

The Night Jack blog was also hosted here at WordPress, and has now been completely deleted.  The cop author was also recently reprimanded, although he will probably not loose his job:

“The 45-year-old detective constable with the Lancashire constabulary has been spoken to and received a written warning but will not be disciplined further “unless anything else was to come out”, a spokeswoman for Lancashire police said.

“We have conducted a full internal investigation and the officer accepts that parts of his public commentary have fallen short of the standards of professional behaviour we expect of our police officers,” she said.”

Sadly, even the posts chosen by the Orwell Prize Award Committee now link to deleted pages.  You can still read several of his posts at the Guardian.  (For who knows how long?)

The irony of all this that I haven’t seen mentioned yet is….
‘George Orwell’ was a pseudonym.

Eric Blair did not write under his real name.  In fact, Orwell also worked as a policeman, which lead to the essays in Shooting an Elephant.  Orwell/Blair was a teacher at a public school, part of the home guard, and worked for the BBC.  In fact, memos exist discussing whether it mattered that Blair was Orwell.

I think it’s safe to say that if he could have, Orwell would have blogged, he would have used a name different than his own, and that he would definitely have upset some people and risked his job.  In a commentary on the Night Jack case, it was suggested that:

“the best strategy, for those bloggers hoping to remain anonymous, is to be dull, trivial and inarticulate. Had Night not stirred his readers, to the point that he won the Orwell Prize, the Times would not have bothered with him.”

This is, unfortunately, accurate advice. You can write badly online and no one will care; if it’s truly awful and silly some people may occasionally link to you (“OMG look at this!”) but for the most part, no one will care who you are.

Is is better to be an outstanding writer, and risk being unmasked? At what price does art come, now that we are all on stage and digitally documented, 24/7?  Go read Shooting an Elephant. What would have happened if Orwell had put this on a blog, for all to see?

So…it’s Friday, and it’s supposed to be 70 degrees here in Michigan!! I have to work today, but I’m hopeful I can at least leave at 5pm and get some pea planting in before dark.

How about a little discussion while I’m gone?

Also, if you aren’t one of the cool kids following me on Twitter, you might have missed my posting this Phallic Phriday amazement from Judge a Book by its Cover.  (Keyboard safety/spew warning!)

Invert types will recognize that….object…. on the cover as some sort of Annelid worm, perhaps an oversized Oligocheate?  Or.  Um. Not.

Mr. Bug and I went to the discount book store after a traumatic tax session this afternoon. One section that’s always good for a laugh is the “Romance Fantasy” aisle, which anyone else would call “Girl Porn.”  This is not a genre known for it’s subtlety, as I demonstrate by Exhibit A at the Right.

Ellora’s Cave has some of the most consistently awful cover art around, and some hilariously bad prose inside.

Example: “Her nipples grieved for his touch.”
Honey. If you have bereaved nipples, you got bigger problems than your sex life.

Anyhoo, here’s what entertained me so much today: A common practice is to put quotes praising a book on the jacket cover.  Here’s the glowing recommendation of a book called “Border Lair”:

“This was an entertaining work of fiction that lacked grammatical errors and contained hot sex.”

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha.  Now THAT’s a recommendation!
And yes, I did buy it for $2.99.  How could I not? So far, it is clearly something Leonard Pinth-Garnell would love.

Also: if you want some additional fun weekend WTFery, check out the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books cover reviews. Very funny!

EDITED 4/12 TO ADD: WTF Amazon??? Amazon apparently is now no longer allowing LGBT books (fiction or non-fiction) to show in sales rankings, as well as some disability books.

A Perfect Red: Empire, Espionage, and the Quest for the Color of Desire.
Amy Butler Greenfield. HarperCollins, 2005.

Bug Rating:

I was really excited to find this book in my library, since I’ve written quite a bit about cochineal and it’s modern use as a food coloring.  The insect itself has a fascinating and complex history, and that’s exactly what this book covers.

(A brief review: cochineal is a red dye produced from an insect about the size of a lentil (Dactylopius coccus), that spends her life sucking the juice of prickly pear.  When squished, a bright intense red results.)

In addition to Elizabethan cloak and dagger intrigue, we also get empire, genocide, and alchemy in the search for riches in the New World.  This is a book for artists, history buffs, and bug lovers alike.

Red dye was very difficult to come by in Europe before the 1500’s. Red dyes were made from Madder (a plant root), which wasn’t really very red, or from Oak-Kermes scale insects.  Kermes scales did make a nice rich red, but were a pain to harvest, as was St. John’s Blood, another scale insect.  This made red dyes rare, expensive, and a sign of royalty and wealth.

When Spain invaded what is now Mexico and other areas of South America in the 1500s, they were dazzled by the local fiery red fabrics.  It was the little cochineal insect, that had been carefully bred for centuries by indigenous people of Central and South America, that was responsible.

Unfortunately, Spaniards killed and looted first, and asked questions later–so for some time the mystery of cochineal production was almost lost.  Eventually they sorted it out, and created a craze in Europe with the rich intense red dyes.  Spain guarded the secret of the dye very jealously–and all sorts of trans-global espionage resulted with the Dutch, French, and English trying to figure out first just what the heck cochineal was (animal? vegetable? mineral?), and how to produce it.

One of the details I loved about this book is finding out so many things that I recognize are indirectly tied in some way to cochineal and its European invasion. I love random factoids.

• Cochineal is mentioned by Voltaire’s Dr. Pangloss.
• It’s why some famous paintings are so intensely red.
• Joseph Banks, the man that imported prickly pear to Australia in a scheme to get rich off of cochineal, also sent Bligh and the Bounty on its voyage.
• Our modern food dyes are made from coal tar–and this is indirectly related to cochineal. In 1856 WH Perkins discovered a way to create synthetic dyes (as an accident; he was trying to make a malarial cure). This led to the rise of a huge chemical dye industry (which eventually began making pesticides, too).

I could go on listing cool little tidbits, but I don’t want to make this too long.  It’s a long, complex, and fascinating story, and my only quibble is that it left me wanting to know more.  That’s probably a good thing.

I really wish the author would return to this subject and pick the story up at the end, where the cheap availability of red dyed clothing led to the decline of red as a preferred color. Once everyone could afford bright colors, of course it became vulgar.  The discussion in the last chapter of red as the color of “other”–non-white, or a class symbol–was really fascinating, and I think there’s a whole other book there.

It won’t keep you up late, but it’s a fascinating read, and I can guarantee you will learn something you didn’t know.

Posted in Books, Entomology, Insects Tagged: cochineal, history ]]> http://membracid.wordpress.com/2009/03/30/book-review-a-perfect-red/feed/ 4 membracid coverred bee.jpg http://membracid.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/book-review-american-pests/ http://membracid.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/book-review-american-pests/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:00:05 +0000 Bug Girl http://membracid.wordpress.com/?p=3111 ]]>

American Pests: The loosing war on insects from Colonial times to DDT
Author: James McWilliams
Bug Rating:

I spent a VERY long time reading, and then re-reading this book. I really struggled with it, because some very unflattering things were said about entomologists that I learned to revere as pioneers in the field.

Did my reaction to the book come from the exposure of the smelly clay feet of my fore-entomologists? Or was it the actual content of the book?

In the end, I concluded it was both. Some of the reason I wasn’t keen on the book initially, despite my love of things historical and entomological, was that some early entomologists are portrayed in a less than flattering light. Of course, it’s hardly news that many early entomologists weren’t perfect, so I kept reading.

Much of what is said in this book is very true, and insightful. Probably the key thing to take from it is the concept of “path dependence“–that early decisions about the ways in which agriculture was pursued in the US created a path that made certain other decisions (monoculture and increased use of pesticides, for example) inevitable.

The problem with the book is this:
If you argue that certain early decisions (monoculture, clearing the prairie, etc.) make later choices and decisions inevitable, casting entomologists as villains working for “politically corrupt” regulatory agencies or greedy corporations becomes problematic.

The author presents early individual experimentation by local farmers as the best way for sustainable insect control–yet also acknowledges that only a formal, concerted effort at the federal level can deal with many pests, and that lack of that formal control led to failures in the past.

The book seems to contradict itself in this way consistently, at the same time that it is a valuable account of the development of early entomology in the US.

The story of early insect control is one that should make anyone’s hair stand on end. Here’s just a small list of things used on food crops to control insects:

Whale oil soap * Carbolic Acid  *  Arsenic (Paris green)  *  HCL gas * Kerosene   * Lead   * Lime (London Purple)  *  Copper Sulfate * Sulfur  *  Coal oil  *  Acetoarsenic   *  Cyanide

Yum.

The author does an excellent job of describing the historic spread of several devastating insect pests–Colorado potato beetle, San Jose Scale, and plum curculio, among others–and how the development of trains and other transport systems helped move pests around, exacerbating control problems.

McWilliams traces the way in which early Americans tried to control their environment at the same time they pursued economic goals that led them to undermine their ability to ever achieve that control.  They cleared land, stopped growing a mix of crops in favor of monoculture, and introduced species.  Americans fundamentally altered the dynamics of insect populations with their landscape changes–and thus, strategies of insect control also had to change.

McWilliams seems to wants to promote biocontrol and local production as alternatives for our modern chemical lifestyle, but he has trouble reconciling his romanticism of early farmers with the later hard choices they (and early entomologists) were forced into.

A few entomologists come off particularly badly in the book.  L.O. Howard practically seems like he should be twirling a villain’s moustache. He is described as having a “revisionist agenda”:   “The mosquito… revealed Howard’s ingenious ability to strategically and temporarily focus the Bureau of Entomology from agriculture to public health, a reorientation that favored chemical insecticides.” p.119

However, it was during Howard’s lifetime that the mystery of insects as disease vectors for some horrific diseases known was revealed. Changing focus to public health was therefore a fairly logical switch.   It was also during his tenure that entomologists became part of the military in WWI. The urgency of war meant that most efficient, fastest methods had to be used:  insecticides.  Cultural/biological controls took too long.

Was Howard a wanker? Sure. But that doesn’t mean he was also part of a sinister chemical plot.

In chapters covering the rise of chemical insecticides and chemical companies, McWilliams provides the most unsatisfactory coverage. For example, on p. 156:
“As objections to the use of insecticides became more strident, a well-oiled publicity machine lurched into motion to counteract the post-”poison apple scare” denunciations of chemical dependence.”

Who’s machine, exactly? It’s unclear.

The initial Food, Drug, Cosmetic act of 1938 contained a fatal flaw.  It allowed FDA to establish “safe” levels of insecticide residue, and to seize/destroy tainted crops. However, did NOT give them ability to investigate links between health and insecticides.  From this problematic beginning, it was easy for chemical companies to run amok.  However, eventually, that changed, in part thanks to the heroic work of Rachel Carson.

Unfortunately, the later sections of this book have a hurried quality that isn’t the same as the earlier chapters. It’s marked by secondary sources, unlike some of the lovely materials from Colonial farmers that are quoted extensively.

In his epilogue chapter, McWilliams makes this startling observation:
“the expense of winning approval from regulatory agencies (no matter how politically corrupt) are generally welcome developments in the insect wars.”   p. 221.

Um. Corrupt?

That’s a hugely sweeping statement. And while I will certainly not deny that the Bush Administration tampered mightily with science, the vast majority of federal entomologists and other scientists would not consider themselves corrupt!

Lastly, further undermining his credibility, McWilliams repeats the false information that early mosquito expert Dyar named an insect corpulentis after Smith, an early mosquito bio-control person, and that Smith named his next species dyaria. (p. 127). That is a false story, which I have covered here. It also points to the problem of using secondary sources, which I would not expect from a historian.

So, in summary:  Very interesting work on farming and entomology pre-1920s; after that, unsatisfactory,  incompletely sourced, and not internally consistent.

So, Blogroll Amnesty Day was February 3rd, and in proper Bug Blog tradition, I missed it.  B.A.D. is a day “to salute all of the great smaller blogs that don’t get the recognition they deserve.”

Frankly, I think nearly all the blogs I read would be defined as “small,” including the Bug Blog. If you have an Authority of less than 150 on Technorati, you are considered small.  But why worry about size queens?

So I proclaim today “Share The Love Day”:  a day to recognize pretty much random blogs that I find amusing,  entertaining, and interesting.

• Judge a book by its cover: Deconstructing pulp fiction covers in a most amusing fashion.
• The weirdest EVAR(?) nature book. Not a blog, but must be seen.
• Dr. Boli is sort of a Victorian Monty Python. Um.
  Sort of.*
• A very warped version of LOLcats: Your Argument is Invalid.
• DragonArtz Designs not only is an amazingly talented vector artist, but he/she posts all the work for Creative Commons use!! Yay!!
• I don’t think it meets the “little” criterion, but I do love The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation marks.
• For pretty photos of insects, you should check out Wild Light.
• Debbie’s Insects Blog. Normally I stay as far away from about.com as I can, but Debbie seems like a very good sort.
• There’s 2 feet of snow on the ground, and reading The Ant Hunter’s adventures in Brazil makes me feel…well, envious, actually.
• I can only read half of it, but the design and photos are lovely: agrent.blogfa.com
• Kolby Kirk: A dude with mad CSS design skilz. His insect blog is Bug ShutterBug!

Lastly–a request.
I know that there are people that I’ve meant to add to the Blogroll here, but I’ve been having a very hectic…well, year. My job is settling down some, but I tend to drop balls all the time. So, if you’d like to be added to the Bug Blog roll, please leave a comment!

I’m also open to new and better category suggestions for making order out of a rather long blogroll list.

—–

* Monty Python has its own YouTube Channel now.  And there was much rejoicing!

I am always interested in the ways in which insects infiltrate into pop culture, and here’s another comic book villain from the Golden Age (1951): Killer Moth!

He had a rather strange fashion sense, rather like the Red Bee (covered earlier @ the Bug Blog.)
Um.
Striped purple, lime green, and pink tights? With an orange cape?

Call the fashion police, because he’s a villain, all right.

According to the Batman Wiki (not making that up), Killer Moth sets himself up as the anti-Batman, including a Moth Cave, MothMobile, and infra-red Moth Signals for criminals in Gotham City to summon him.

(You can read a more detailed account of his origins at the fan site for Killer Moth. From what I can see of the MothMobile, it shares the….interesting… color scheme of Killer Moth himself.)

His powers? Err.

“Abilities As Killer Moth: Flight via suit”

Come on. Not even sweater destruction at a distance?  Oh wait, sorry. I missed this:

Weapons: Incapacitating cocoon gun

Killer moth returned briefly to Batman comics in the 90s and sold his soul to a demon to gain power. He changes into Charaxes:

“As Charaxes, Walker resembles a vaguely humanoid, giant brown moth. He consumes humans and spins cocoons in which to keep his prey. In a later story, Charaxes begins laying hundreds of eggs, all of which hatch into duplicates of Drury Walker. Charaxes despises his progeny, but is unable to destroy them.”

Well, that’s something, although I wonder if he knew his bargain with the devil would include a sex-change.

Killer Moth has also appeared on Television in several different incarnations, none of which are particularly flattering. He does seem to have toned down the pink and lime green a bit, though.