Bye Bye Wild Thing and Other News of the Week
Our favorite of the various Maurice Sendak tributes wandering around Facebook this week. This comes to us via the Eric Carle Museum. (Illustration by Bob Englehart, the Hartford Courant’s editorial cartoonist)
Happy Friday morning, y’all! Just a quick Caterpickle this morning as The Five-Year-Old and I have a very important tea party to get to.
It’s always a good day for dinosaur news
First up, from our correspondent in Houston comes word that plant-eating sauropods may have – ahem – emitted enough methane to make the already warm Mesozoic climate just that little bit warmer. Like modern day cows, sauropods relied on methane-producing microbes to digest the tough plants they ate. According to Dave Wilkinson of Liverpool John Moores University, these super-sized dinosaurs “could have produced more methane than all modern sources – both natural and man-made – put together.”
Healthcare for the masses in 1810
Next up, healthcare for the masses as envisioned by Middlesex Hospital in 1810: Only those deserving poor who could get the appropriate letter of recommendation from a member of the board of governors for the hospital (or at the very least a patron with lots of money to donate) need apply. To receive care, all potential patients must report to the hospital promptly at 10 a.m. on Tuesdays.
An old disease makes a comeback
And finally, a whooping cough (pertussis) epidemic has been declared in Washington State. Some 1,200 cases have been reported already, and officials expect that number to climb to 3,000 by year’s end. Whooping cough outbreaks occur every once in a while in part because the vaccine’s protection wanes over time, and few adults realize they need to get a booster shot. An adult booster shot — called Tdap because it protects against tetanus, diphtheria, and acellular pertussis — has been available since 2005, but fewer than 1 in 10 adults have received it.
And now I’m off to be feted by a posse of three-, four-, and five-year-olds. If past experience is any guide, it’s going to be awesome. 🙂
Related Links
- Bob Englehart’s Maurice Sendak tribute (Hartford Courant)
- President Obama reads Where the Wild Things Are
- Maurice Sendak, Author of Splendid Nightmares, Dies at 83 (NY Times)
- Maurice Sendak Tribute Mural (mymodernmet.com)
- Caterpickles Consults Grandpa: “Is the Auburn mascot a tiger or an eagle?” (Caterpickles)
CATERPICKLES 
What are you thinking?