(From) HAIL TO DARWIN

Hail, Hail, the Hail's All Here: We occasionally get the odd bit of hail, but San Francisco had a truly freak hailstorm today--lasting a good five minutes with hail the size of peas, accompanied by a ten degree drop in temperature, and bracketed by rain. In my quick vid you can see my window fogging up because the temp was dropping so quickly, and that's the sound of it bouncing off the windowsill, not popcorn popping:

Half an hour of rain later, the hail was still in drifts in the tree beds and in the corners of the garage doorway.


Evolving Darwin: Following in the natural phenomena vein, the Oscars hoopla reminded me about "Creation" a film about Charles Darwin writing and struggling with "On the Origin of Species," and based upon the book "Annie's Box" by Darwin's great-great grandson that my friend Tom and I saw last month. It was a well-done period piece with interesting insight into Darwin and his marriage and family, but the premise that the twenty years delay between his voyage on The Beagle and publication were due solely to internal and domestic (Unitarian!) religious angst and family tragedy seemed simplistic. So it was serendipitous to find an old Smithsonian magazine in my doctor's office with a great article on how it took that long for him to fully grasp evolution. One unbelievable thing is that the film got such a small U.S. release because of anti-evolutionist concerns.