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M A R C H 1 9 9 8
Government
March 1: By today, according to the Violent Offender Incarceration and Truth-in-Sentencing Incentive Grant Program, all participating states must submit to the federal Corrections Program Office plans for testing prisoners and parolees for drug use. The plans must cover how inmates will be selected for testing, how frequently random testing will occur, and what the "escalating range of responses" will be for those who test positive repeatedly. The plans may be modified after review by the CPO, and must be in effect by September 1. States that do not meet these requirements will be ineligible for federal prison funds. Although many states are already testing prisoners and parolees for drug use, this is the first time they have been required by Congress to do so.
Food
Wild-mushroom season begins this month, and record numbers of mushroom hunters
are likely to be on the trail: according to a recent poll of chefs, exotic
mushrooms are the "hottest" food in the country. Per capita consumption of
fresh mushrooms has increased sixfold since 1970. Mushroom-related poisonings
are also on the rise (last year more than a dozen people died or were
hospitalized after eating uncultivated mushrooms). Serious poisonings are most
likely to result from eating raw mushrooms; cooking neutralizes the toxins in
some varieties. There are those who go so far as to advise against eating any
mushrooms raw, even the familiar white cultivated ones: all mushrooms contain a
known carcinogen, albeit in minute amounts. Arts & Letters
March 29: A major retrospective of the American sculptor Alexander
Calder opens today at the National Gallery of Art, in Washington, D.C., to
celebrate the centenary of his birth. Calder, who had a degree in mechanical
engineering, is perhaps best known for his hanging and movable sculptures,
which brought the words "mobile" and "stabile" into parlance in the art world;
his 10-foot-high Steel Fish (1934) was one of the first "wind-driven"
sculptures ever made. Other works in the exhibit are Dog and Duck
(both 1909), completed when he was 11; his crank-driven Goldfish
Bowl (1929), in which the fish "swim"; International Mobile (1949),
made for the Third International Exhibition of Sculpture; and Southern
Cross (1963). Many have not been shown publicly since a 1943 retrospective
at New York's Museum of Modern Art. This exhibit will run in Washington until
July 12 and travel to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in September. Environment
Springtime greening is expected to start sooner than usual in the northern high
latitudes this year. Data from satellite observations made since 1981 show that
vegetation above about 45° N has been appearing earlier and earlier each
spring. This spring's "green-up" is expected to occur roughly a week ahead of
last year's. The phenomenon is part of a cycle known as the "temperature/snow cover feedback effect," whereby bare ground, having
absorbed more of the sun's radiation than snow-covered ground, grows warmer,
causing nearby snow to melt; this in turn raises air temperatures and
encourages plant growth. Because temperatures have been gradually increasing,
the effect has become more pronounced each year. Responses to the progressively
earlier springs in recent years include earlier nesting among birds in the
United Kingdom, changes in some migratory patterns, earlier thawing of some
Canadian lakes, and increased calving among caribou in the Arctic.Demographics
This month residents of a community that has been called "the town of the
future" will become, in a sense, consumers of the future. Citizens of the
technology-focused planned community of Celebration, Florida--a town built by
the Walt Disney Company--will begin carrying virtual cash in the form of
"stored-value cards" issued by Visa and SunTrust Banks. The cards, also called
"chip cards" and "smart cards," are embedded with computer chips that keep a
record of monetary sums. Unlike conventional bank or credit cards, stored-value
cards do not require connections to a network; instead, when purchases are
made, the amounts are deducted from the card itself and transferred to the
merchant. In addition, the cards can or may soon be used to feed parking meters
and vending machines and to store information ranging from frequent-flyer miles
to fingerprints and medical histories. This month's trial is the first to take
place in a planned community. The Skies
Daily information on the skies posted by Michigan State University's Abrams Planetarium.
March 1: The slim crescent Moon is visible above Saturn in the west at
dusk. 4: The half Moon passes in front of the red star Aldebaran early
this evening. 10: Mercury and the much dimmer Mars lie close together on
the western horizon at dusk. 12: Full Moon, also known this month as the
Lizard, Sap, and Awakening Moon and the Moon of Snow Blindness. 20: At
2:55 P.M. EST, the Vernal Equinox; winter ends. 24: Venus lies to the
left of the slim crescent Moon about an hour before sunrise. 75 Years Ago
Carl Sandburg, writing in the March, 1923, issue of The Atlantic
Monthly: "Poetry is an art practised with the terribly plastic material of
human language.... Poetry is a puppet-show, where riders of skyrockets and
divers of sea fathoms gossip about the sixth sense and the fourth dimension.... Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly the
air.... Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the
unknown and the unknowable.... Poetry is the cipher key to the five mystic
wishes packed in a hollow silver bullet fed to a flying fish.... Poetry is a
fresh morning spider-web telling a story of moonlit hours, of weaving and
waiting during a night.... Poetry is a pack-sack of invisible keepsakes.... Poetry is the capture of a picture, a song, or a flair, in a deliberate prism
of words."Illustrations by Laurent Cilluffo
Copyright © 1998 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; March 1998; The March Almanac; Volume 281, No. 3; page 14.
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