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New Books: Local Authors / Local Interest 
This is TNT’s annual holiday season round up of new books by local authors and new books on subjects of interest to our local community. For more local books published earlier this year, check out our summer reads list...
Mushroom Madness 
Fungi can cure or kill, nourish life, and also decompose it back into soil. Fossil evidence for fungi is limited, but the ability to analyze molecular data has led to revelations about the evolution of this extraordinary family of...
Fool’s Gold: The Myth of Tiburcio Vasquez 
“And still of a winter’s night, they say,  when the wind is in the trees, When the moon is a ghostly galleon  tossed upon cloudy seas,    When the road is a ribbon of moonlight  over the purple moor,    A...
Billions in Flight: Migratory Birds 
Autumn doesn’t officially begin until the equinox on September 22, but all across North America birds are already on the wing—billions of them. Migration times and destinations vary based on the species and variables like weather and food sources—some...
A Wee Bit Coin
Editorial

A Wee Bit Coin 

Bitcoin? Real estate tokenization? Nope. This real estate token predates the current craze for blockchain assets by a hundred years. This coin was struck by the promoters of the Sylvia Park Development Company in 1924, and it offered the bearer a piece of Topanga Paradise—with a few strings attached. We have the story. Cover concept and design by Urs Baur.

That is no country for old men. 

The young in one another’s arms, 

Birds in the trees—

Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, 

The mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, 

Commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect. 

—William Butler Yeats, “Sailing to Byzantium” 

This is a country that does not value age, or respect it, or have compassion for it when it robs our elders of their strength. It was inevitable that President Joe Biden would bend to the will of his advisors and supporters and bow out of the presidential race, and probably also necessary, in light of what appears to be rapidly declining health and mental acuity, but it is a somber moment in American history, and it carries with it the ominous feel of a major turning point, for good or ill. 

Instead of trying to read a future that could go in any number of directions, we would like to take a moment to look back, and thank the man who has worked so hard to repair the damage of the previous administration, restoring environmental protections, civil rights, diplomacy, and civility, despite having almost no support from a contrary and uncooperative congress. It takes courage and humility to know—in the words of another poet—when to fold, and when to walk away. 

It is easy to feel helpless and overwhelmed by the news cycle, but there is something we can all do to influence the outcome, and that is to vote in November.

A global technology outage last week created chaos and provided a stark reminder of how deeply intertwined with technology every aspect of our lives have become. The outage was caused by a faulty software update from Crowdstrike, a Texas-based cybersecurity company. It directly impacted computers running Microsoft Windows, but the outage caused a cascade that ultimately impacted almost everyone: cloud storage, hospital records, government services, airport computers, all went down, delaying everything from thousands of flights to critical medical procedures. The post-crisis mop-up was still underway when TNT went to press—just another hazard of life in interesting times.

Not all pollinators are bees or butterflies; this one is the Western calligrapher, Toxomerus occidentalis, a delicate and beautiful member of the flower fly family. T. occidentalis is native to Western North America. This is a beneficial garden insect—larvae prey on aphids—and an important native pollinator. Its iridescent wings make this one of the prettiest insects in the garden, but it is so small and speedy that it often goes unseen. Photo by Suzanne Guldimann

Humans aren’t the only ones experiencing stress. The Agoura Animal Shelter has been swamped this month with cats and dogs. The entire Los Angeles County Animal Care and Control system is overwhelmed this summer with animals that desperately need a second chance. In addition to cats and dogs, there may also be rabbits, guinea pigs, real pigs, goats, horses, chickens. and turtles up for adoption. Not only do these animals urgently need homes, but the shelters need donations of food, clean towels, toys, and beds to help make them comfortable. Visit https://animalcare.lacounty.gov to learn more. Donations can be left in front of the Agoura Hills Shelter: 29525 Agoura Rd, Agoura Hills, CA 91301

It is summer meteor season. On July 14, earth began to move through the debris field that trails the comet Swift-Tuttle, which completes its orbit around the sun every 133 years. Swift Tutle is the source of the Perseid meteor shower. 

Particles of dust and ice from the comet become superheated as they graze the Earth’s atmosphere, blazing into “shooting stars” for a brief moment before burning up. The Perseids peak around August 13, but shooting stars from this event are possible any time from mid July to early September.

There are two smaller meteor showers that overlap with the Perseids: the Delta Aquariids and the Alpha Capricornids, both of which will peak in the early hours of July 30. Neither of these meteor showers generate many visible meteors—the best place to view the Delta Aquariids is the Southern Hemisphere—but taken together with the Perseids, they increase the odds of catching a shooting star this summer.  If you do, dear reader, don’t forget to make a wish.

Stay safe, be well. Don’t forget to look for shooting stars.

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