The Bagel Depot has evidently been sold to make way for “Margo’s Polish Bistro & Deli.” Apparently, Margo is going to still offer bagels, along with some Polish specialties like Pierogis, Stuffed Cabbage and Hunter Stew. This is in the basement of the old roller rink, where Blue Jeans Pizza is located. The Deli is next to Dean’s outlet for local beef and pork. Apparently, a lot of the food will be prepared at home and microwaved on site, so it may also be a good outlet for takeout Polish.
There’s a good short article on dragonflies in the Georgia Wild newsletter. I’ll second the recommendation of Giff Beaton’s field guide to the dragonflies and damselflies. It’s a beautiful book, beautifully designed and photographed.
http://www.georgiawildlife.com/node/4217
Finally, I thought I’d post what the Audubon Society is sending around with its requests for donations. It’s eight common sense actions that nearly everyone with a yard can do to help birds and the environment. The most important are probably to reduce pesticide and herbicide use, plant as many native plants as you can (insects can’t eat most aliens and birds need insects), and remove invasive plants. But they’re all good suggestions.
I think this is heartening. For one thing, it boils it down. For another, I’ve been reading the Library of America volume of Aldo Leopold’s writings, and one thing it makes clear is that the three biggest problems facing the environment movement are that same as they ever were. The first is that people can still wreck their land without a trace of social stigma or disapproval. The second is that people expect the government to save the environment, without having to do anything painful themselves. And the third is that the conservation interests are represented by a welter of organizations with special causes – ducks, birds, grouse, trout, forests, wilderness, native plants. Even if they aren’t actually fighting bitterly with each other, these organizations rarely cooperate or coordinate much with each other. The result is that while preservation speaks with a number of conflicting voices, greed continues to speak only with one. I think it’s heartening that instead of leaving the call to plant native plants to the Native Plant Society, the Audubon people are joining it. To me, that’s progress, and sometimes I wonder if we’re making any.
I also found the latest issue of Trout Unlimited’s magazine heartening, because it focuses on the renewed threats to our public land, which boil down to the idea that we ought to transfer them to the states so the states can sell them off without encountering the opposition that a national sale would encounter. Heartening, because in view of the more than 50 bills introduced in Congress that threaten the national forests and parks, they have the nerve to call it a land grab of epic proportions. That’s straight talk that unfortunately doesn’t seem to fly very well on the local level. Perhaps this issue will wake some people up.