{"id":537,"date":"2011-03-21T13:55:24","date_gmt":"2011-03-21T18:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/?p=537"},"modified":"2011-03-21T13:57:28","modified_gmt":"2011-03-21T18:57:28","slug":"justice-and-spring-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/2011\/03\/21\/justice-and-spring-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Justice and spring birds"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few short weeks ago I posted a blog entitled “I’d rather be blasting homeopathy<\/a>“, and provided two letters that I had written. One was addressed to my local Nebraska congressman, and asked that he be considerate of science and the NIH budget. The second was an irate response to an unjust parking ticket that I received when attending a dance performance in downtown Omaha.<\/p>\n

I challenged OT readers and colleagues to take my multiple choice question, and speculate which of the two letters (both, none, either) would receive a response. While I think most of my fellow scientists have been saturated with exams over the years and did not feel compelled to answer, those that did invariably predicted a response from the congressman, but not from my appeal to the parking ticket collection agency.<\/p>\n

Well–good news and bad news. My parking appeal was accepted–albeit without an apology or personal note. But $63 is–well, $63. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On the other hand, no response from my congressman–who I understand did not vote for a more favorable NIH budget. The situation for scientists is becoming rather frightening here in the US, and perhaps we need to join up with the “Science is Vital” campaign as suggested by Stephen Curry<\/a> and Jenny Rohn<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Finally, I can’t resist another nerd<\/del> bird photo<\/a>, and request the help of my superior qualified ornithologists with this one. Unlike the downy woodpecker I posted last month, this one is considerably larger. Although it looks like a hairy woodpecker in size, it has a full red nape (but not head), and the unmistakable “red mustache” that I thought<\/em> was typical of certain flickers. Can anyone help me out? Kristi? grrlscientist? Ricardipus?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few short weeks ago I posted a blog entitled “I’d rather be blasting homeopathy“, and provided two letters that I had written. One was addressed to my local Nebraska congressman, and asked that he be considerate of science and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[91,50,1],"tags":[168,166,164,169,163,106,133,165,167,107],"class_list":["post-537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","category-science","category-uncategorized","tag-budget","tag-congressman","tag-flicker","tag-help-scientists-in-need","tag-mystery-bird","tag-ornithology","tag-parking-ticket","tag-red-nape","tag-supporting-science","tag-woodpecker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/35"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occamstypewriter.org\/stevecaplan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}