Continents

As a comparative newcomer to this country, I have been increasingly puzzled by recent events. Perhaps language difficulties cloud my understanding of the word hero, but would someone please explain why one is hailed as a hero by a wide range of people from the President on down, and extolled in verse and fawned upon by certain members of Congress when one has, crippled and nearly paralyzed that same President; violated important laws passed by Congress;...

In the arena of human indolence, the male of the species has no equal. It's why he invented the couch, television, underwear and holidays, all of which combine to allow him to lie on his primary creation wearing only boxer shorts and watching other primates bat, kick, pass or lob balls of varying sizes for his delight and edification. What man considers both comfort and enjoyment can be achieved on any weekend day, but tradition has a special tug when it's a national holiday, an occurrence that he feels has been created especially for him to laze.

California has become home to so many immigrants that it is perhaps only fitting that the land on which they dwell is also composed of immigrants. The mountain ranges that make this state one of the most spectacular regions in the world are relatively young, but many of the rocks from which they are built came here long ago and formed far away.

I was shocked on reading your paper (Nov. 11) to find that debate had been under way whether to censor the comic strip "Doonesbury." Garry Trudeau's comic strip is an American masterpiece. It reminds me of former President Ford's quote: "There are only three major vehicles to keep us informed as to what's going on in Washington: the electronic media, the print media and 'Doonesbury'--not necessarily in that order."

The first map to name America as a continent will be put on display in July at the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C., which has finally collected $10 million needed for its purchase. This is the only known copy to survive of the 1,000 printed from 12 wood blocks. German cartographer Martin Waldseemueller, who created the map in 1507 as part of a project begun in St. Die, France, named the continent after the Venetian explorer Amerigo Vespucci.

Geologists in Mexico have discovered fossils of a crocodile and a dinosaur that they say date back 100 million years. The findings, particularly that of the dinosaur, could change current views on the geological formation of the American continent because such remains had only been found in Canada, the United States and the northeastern Mexico state of Tamaulipas, on the border with Texas, according to the scientists, from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Having been born to one of the most famous couples of this century--America's greatest modern writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his talented flapper wife Zelda Sayre--Scottie Fitzgerald was thrust a heavy mantle, particularly as their only child. Add to that the heady cocktail of parental alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, numerous failed suicide attempts and schizophrenia. Talent and tragedy were genetically passed on to Scottie as surely as her blond hair and blue eyes. Until now, very little was known about the Fitzgeralds' daughter beyond her school days.

PRUNING trees and shrubs to form hedges is as old as gardening. In the great estates of the past, hedges framed views, defined borders and marked transitions to wilderness. In modern Los Angeles, an average lot is a sixth of an acre. A hedge allows homeowners to soften the transition to the street or blot out an eyesore, be it an alley, a McMansion, a crack house, a neighbor's kitchen window, a jalopy or junkyard dog. Increasingly, hedges no longer frame views. They are the view.

A Belarus fisherman who invaded a beaver's space paid for it with his life. The 60-year-old man in Belarus was with friends on a recent fishing trip when he tried to approach the beaver to be photographed with it, according to the Daily Telegraph. The beaver attacked, biting him twice and severing an artery.  The friends of the unidentified man "tried to bandage him and find a doctor in a nearby village," a local wildlife official told the Telegraph.  But the man died from blood loss before help could arrive.

Are we crazy, or what? On a recent Saturday, we were among eight women--friends and colleagues--who raised iced tea glasses to toast a rather buxom, middle-aged Swedish woman whom only one of us had met. Each of us wore one of her designs. The luncheon table was set with place mats and napkins in two of "her" colors, sea green and bright pink, and the cake's icing mimicked a Gudrun pattern. Even the dog was festooned with a scarf from an old Gudrun outfit.