Everything I Consume: Platypus: The Extraordinary Story of How a Curious Creature Baffled the World

A few weeks ago I was at the Museum of Natural History gift shop with Gwendolyn. I told her I wanted to get something for myself and she agreed that I needed something, too. We went up the stairs to the grown-up section of the gift shop and she picked this book by Ann Moyal. It was a good choice.

I'm a big fan of books that take an in-depth look at one thing and through that shows you so much more about the world. Two of my favorites are Calendar by David Duncan and Cod by Mark Kurlansky. I think everyone should read those books. Seriously, read them now! Dava Sobel's Longitude was pretty good, too. Platypus is a notch below those but it's still a good book.

After the platypus was discovered first seen by white people in 1799 it caused a huge dilemma into exactly what it was. A mammal? A reptile? A bird? Did it lay eggs? Could its young nurse? And if so, why didn't it have nipples? And how do you nurse with such a large bill? (I've tried it, it's not easy.) This all happened in the great age of scientific classification when Linnaeus and others were trying to classify all animals and decide where they fit in the Great Chain Of Being. The platypus challenged scientists belief in a neat, orderly animal kingdom and they struggled to classify it. Later, on his worldwide voyage Charles Darwin (maybe you've heard of him) saw a platypus and it greatly influenced him. Ironically, these debates were taking place among Europeans thousands of miles away and not Australians. The role of Australians was mainly to kill many, many, platypuses and send them back to England.

Still Kicking Him Around

Last week an amazing memo written by Richard Nixon in 1970 came to light. It describes his frustrations getting the American public to seeing his "warmth". Like so many insecure people in power (like Bobby Valentine or most of my ex-bosses) he finds a way set himself up to fail by demanding the public see human side but blocking any attempt to tell people about it. He rails again and again at his frustration that the world does not see his "warm items" like "breaking his back to be nicey-nice" to his Cabinet (his Cabinet!), the tears in the eyes of people he invites to White House church services and "the calls that I make to people when they are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody." To paraphrase Buffalo Bill Bittinger this memo better than 90% of the crap out there.

I really think if humanity make it to a Star Trek future 400 years from now, Hitler, the Beatles and Picasso will be practically forgotten, but they'll still be talking about Richard Nixon just like we're still talking about Henry VIII.