Articles by Katharine Wroth

How often do natural and unnatural flights collide?

A plane crashes into the Hudson River. By great good luck, all 155 people aboard survive. The cause of the accident? “A double bird strike.” So how often do birds, going about their wild-thing business, bring down our massive metal machines? More often than you might think — and yet, way less often than you’d […]

Survey says rich people want luxury!

According to an email we just received, eco-resorts have got to spiff up a bit if they want to attract "high spenders." Of 283 travelers surveyed, more than 60 percent would pay a premium for an eco-resort. But among the delicious tidbits: "Air conditioning and Internet access were the two most missed items if not available."

This comes courtesy of a company that's building "chic eco-homes" at the tip of a biosphere reserve in the Philippines. Sigh.

An ode to the sea kitten

Today we give a tip o' the carp
To the bitterlings at PETA
Who've thought of yet another way
To make us better eatas.

Agog at all our fishy friends
That on sharp hooks have bitten,
They've launched a cutesy-boots campaign
Called, yes, "Save the Sea Kitten!"

If fish were "kittens," so they say,
You'd view them differently --
Your tuna would change if today's lunch
Were Kitten of the Sea.

A review of natural and organic lip balms

When it comes to lip balms, I have a long and sordid history. It reaches back to the early 1980s when, as a young and curious grade-schooler, I would sneak into my sister’s bedroom to absorb what it meant to be old and glamorous. She, you see, was in high school — an unthinkably advanced […]