I wanted to write about this tropical honeymoon in part because I had the most drastically terrible honeymoon.
People from the rest of the state tend to hate Phoenix, with that typical resentment of the boroughs and the towns for the big city.
The Safari Club International has worked the legal system hard to try to keep polar bears - threatened primarily by climate change, but also by hunting - on the list of creatures people can import as trophies after shooting.
More than two million years ago, mammoths and Asian elephants took different evolutionary paths - and around the same time, according to DNA research, so did their lumbering relatives in Africa.
About half of all potential future global warming emissions from United States fossil fuels lie in oil, gas and coal buried beneath our public lands, controlled by the federal government and owned by the American people - and not yet leased to private industry for fuel extraction.
The question of one versus two species of African elephants isn't about settling an arcane DNA argument; it's about life or death for these majestic, extraordinary creatures.
If Oak Flat were a Christian holy site or, for that matter, Jewish or Muslim, no senator who wished to remain in office would dare to sneak a backdoor deal for its destruction into a spending bill - no matter what mining-company profits or jobs might result. But this is Indian religion.
I've seen a few wild grizzly bears, mostly in Alaska and British Columbia, and always from a distance. But each grizzly I've caught sight of was as fearsome and sublime as the last. You never get used to their raw power and massive bodies, or the mysterious intelligence in their dark, close-set eyes.
When 'Watchmen' was published in 1986, the vast majority of comics readers deemed it a watershed in comics history. The 12-part serial comic book was widely acclaimed as a genius subversion of the superhero genre, and it did much to popularize comics to adults.
We were a Seuss family. As a child, I read almost all of his books, but the one I loved best was 'The Lorax.'
Shouldn't the cascades of extinction and rapid planetary warming register in our literature?
What makes 'The Lorax' such a powerful fable is partly its shamelessness. It pulls no punches; it wears its teacher heart on its sleeve.
Fiction should be an ethically safe space, free of fancy ideas. It should be dedicated modestly to relationships or escapism or the needs of luscious voyeurs.
Work-wise, I try not to repeat myself too often. And I have to love whatever I'm doing.
My motto is, if you love something, don't set it free. No matter how hard it struggles. That would be stupid.
If I can't find a way to love it, I let it go. Kind of the opposite of the popular homily.
'Dept. of Speculation' contains numerous enviable lines.
The comic novels I did when I was in my 20s had a harder edge - less sympathy for people. Or a sympathy that was harder to detect: Characters' foibles and obsessive bents were unrelenting, like caricatures.
You need not fear my extinction. Fear my proliferation! I've already reproduced!
I think that young readers have very strong stomachs.
