This represents a baby step towards sanity. If we're fortunate, pressure from the scientific community will continue until this insanity is completely resolved. Watch this space.

I'm somewhat sad to have to acknowledge the demise of Home Movies, my favorite show on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. Fans were circulating petitions to keep it on the air, but the last episode was so clearly a fond farewell by auteur Brendon Small to his alter ego, Brendon Small (if you haven't seen the show, don't ask) that I can't imagine that the end was planned only by Cartoon Network programming execs with no input by the show's creators. (I personally think it was an ode to puberty and other bursts of hormones; Melissa became obsessed with makeup, Jason seemed more assertive, Walter and Perry seemed more in love with each other than ever, Fenton and Eugene reached new heights of sarcasm, there were hints that Paula and John were thinking about actually dating, and the final accidental crushing of Brendon's camera certainly signaled a major life transition.) May HM have a long life in repeats and on DVD. I missed the earliest episodes because I was a latecomer to fandom, and though I rarely buy DVDs of films or TV shows, that's one I'll probably grab as soon as it becomes available.

Other transitions in the works: I have a phone interview lined up for tomorrow. The third manuscript from my dissertation is just about ready for re-submission. And, after many years, I've just re-read Robert Frost's Departmental with fresh compound eyes. The funeral for the worker ant is both humorous and quite touching, even if Frost committed the cardinal entomological sin of making the worker a male. What Frost seemed to think of as extreme compartmentalization, though, is something that a social-insect biologist would merely term "polyethism".

Also, while walking in the park near sundown, I watched some Prenolepis imparis engage in trophallaxis on a tree trunk. Frost was right: Ants are a curious race.