84 Charing Cross Road

An absolutely delightful movie, IMHO.  The embedded trailer has an unfortunate imbalance in the audio stereo channels, rendering the background music too loud, but will give a decent overview of the sense of the movie.  The movie has undertones of a "You've Got Mail" rom-com but without the stereotypical Hollywood Happy Ending.  Anne Bancroft won the BAFTA for this role in 1987, but the movie received mixed reviews in the U.S.  Many readers of TYWKIWDBI will be familiar with this movie, and are invited to leave reviews in the Comments.

Because of the subject matter, the movie came highly recommended in this book -

- which is very much a book for bibliophiles.  It begins with the obligatory chapter about Ben Franklin, then discusses The Old Corner (in Boston), mobile bookstores, Marshall Field, NYC stores, Nazi and alternative lifestyle stores, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, and Parnassus (Ann Patchett).  If you have ever wondered "what happened to Brentanos/Waldenbooks/Borders/B. Dalton," you can find the answer here.

Prairie strips on farmland

"The little tracts of wilderness grow on Maple Edge Farm in southwest Iowa, where the Bakehouse family cultivates 700 acres of corn, soybeans and alfalfa. Set against uniform rows of cropland, the scraps of land look like tiny Edens, colorful and frowzy. Purple bergamot and yellow coneflowers sway alongside big bluestem and other grasses, alive with birdsong and bees.

The Bakehouses planted the strips of wild land after floodwaters reduced many fields to moonscapes three years ago, prompting the family to embark on a once-unthinkable path.

They took nearly 11 acres of their fields out of crop production, fragments of farmland that ran alongside fields and in gullies. Instead of crops, they sowed native flowering plants and grasses, all species that once filled the prairie.

The restored swaths of land are called prairie strips, and they are part of a growing movement to reduce the environmental harms of farming and help draw down greenhouse gas emissions, while giving fauna a much-needed boost and helping to restore the land...

Researchers counted 586 acres of prairie strips on farmland across seven states in 2019. As of last year, they had spread to 14 states, filling 22,972 acres.

While the acreage accounts for a tiny fraction of the Midwest’s farm fields — Iowa alone has roughly 30 million acres of cropland — researchers said the strips had disproportionately positive impacts...

Soil erosion and surface runoff plummeted, as the prairie plants held soil in place and transpired water. Levels of nitrogen and phosphorus carried in surface runoff from adjacent cropland decreased by as much as 70 percent, absorbed instead by the prairie strips, resulting in less water contamination. The prairie strips created better conditions for helpful bacteria, resulting in dramatically lower levels of nitrous oxide, a powerful greenhouse gas generated by chemical fertilizer, compared to cropland without prairie strips. The strips also drew twice as many native grassland birds and three times as many beneficial insects, compared to fields that had not been rewilded...

In late 2018, the prairie strips initiative got perhaps its biggest boost when it was included in the federal Conservation Reserve Program. That meant that farmland owners who converted some of their acreage to prairie strips could collect money from the federal government. According to the Agriculture Department, the average payout for prairie strips is $209 per acre each year...

Still, federal payments for prairie strips can end up being less than revenue from livestock or crops. An analysis from Iowa State University found that even with government help, prairie strips generally cost farmers around $64 an acre a year, because of factors such as cost of conversion and taxes..."

Embedded image cropped for size from the original at The New York Times.

"Where the sun don't shine" (normally...)

Instagram influencers are promoting "perineum sunning" as a health practice.

“In a mere 30 seconds of sunlight on your butthole, you will receive more energy from this electric node than you would in an entire day being outside with your clothes on,” says an influencer, who goes by Ra of Earth. In a viral video that has racked up more than 35,000 views, he gestures toward the sun as three naked men lie down, point their backsides to the sky and make sounds of pleasure.

“[Thirty] seconds of direct sunlight injection to the anal orifice is equivalent to being outside in the sun all day!”

You can read more about this in the New York Post.

Addendum:  complication reported (anal tissue is very sensitive to sunburn)

Reposted from 2020 to accompany my new post on "sunscreen absolutism."

Solar skin damage

My father was a traveling salesman in the era before AC was common in cars.  I don't remember any facial asymmetry, but his left elbow was always more darkly pigmented than the rest of his body.  Via.

Reposted from 2021 to accompany my new post on "sunscreen absolutism."

"Put on some damn sunscreen already"

YouTube link.

"We showed people what they looked like in ultraviolet, & wondered aloud if they wanted to put on some damn sunscreen already."

Discussed and explained at Slate.

Reposted from 2014 to accompany my new post on "sunscreen absolutism."

Pondering "sunscreen absolutism"

An article in The Atlantic considers the possibility that Americans' fear of skin cancer has resulted in too much avoidance of sun exposure.

Then, in 2023, a consortium of Australian public-health groups did something surprising: It issued new advice that takes careful account, for the first time, of the sun’s positive contributions. The advice itself may not seem revolutionary—experts now say that people at the lowest risk of skin cancer should spend ample time outdoors—but the idea at its core marked a radical departure from decades of public-health messaging. “Completely avoiding sun exposure is not optimal for health,” read the groups’ position statement, which extensively cites a growing body of research. Yes, UV rays cause skin cancer, but for some, too much shade can be just as harmful as too much sun.

It’s long been known that sun exposure triggers vitamin D production in the skin, and that low levels of vitamin D are associated with increased rates of stroke, heart attack, diabetes, cancer, Alzheimer’s, depression, osteoporosis, and many other diseases. It was natural to assume that vitamin D was responsible for these outcomes... 

But sunlight in a pill has turned out to be a spectacular failure. In a large clinical trial that began in 2011, some 26,000 older adults were randomly assigned to receive either daily vitamin D pills or placebos, and were then followed for an average of five years. The study’s main findings were published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2018, and additional results were released in the same publication two years ago. An accompanying editorial, with the headline “A Decisive Verdict on Vitamin D Supplementation,” noted that no benefits whatsoever had been found for any of the health conditions that the study tracked. “Vitamin D supplementation did not prevent cancer or cardiovascular disease, prevent falls, improve cognitive function, reduce atrial fibrillation, change body composition, reduce migraine frequency, improve stroke outcomes, decrease age-related macular degeneration, or reduce knee pain,” the journal said. “People should stop taking vitamin D supplements to prevent major diseases or extend life.”..

Health authorities in some countries have begun to follow Australia’s lead, or at least to explore doing so. In the United Kingdom, for example, the National Health Service is reviewing the evidence on sun exposure, with a report due this summer. Dermatology conferences in Europe have begun to schedule sessions on the benefits of sun exposure after not engaging with the topic for years...

It turns out that UV light essentially induces the immune system to stop attacking the skin, reducing inflammation. This is unfortunate when it comes to skin cancer—UV rays not only damage DNA, spurring the formation of cancerous cells; they also retard the immune system’s attack on those cells. But in the case of psoriasis, the tamping-down of a hyperactive response is exactly what’s needed. Moreover, to the initial surprise of researchers, this effect isn’t limited to the site of exposure. From the skin, the immune system’s regulatory cells migrate throughout the body, soothing inflammation elsewhere as well...

That said, we now know that many individuals at low risk of skin cancer could benefit from more sun exposure—and that doctors are not yet prepared to prescribe it. A survey Neale conducted in 2020 showed that the majority of patients in Australia with vitamin D deficiencies were prescribed supplements by their doctors, despite the lack of efficacy, while only a minority were prescribed sun exposure. 

Much more at the link.  Please read the source material rather than relying on my selected excerpts.

Award-winning photographs of birds

Helmet shrikes Preparing to Sleep. Bronze Winner, Comedy Bird Photo. "We were on a safari, and returning to camp in Sabi Sands, South Africa, on a dark March evening. We stopped, having picked up some unusual sounds, although unsure what they were. Then we heard chattering and fluttering high above us. When illuminated with the lamp on the vehicle, we saw these helmet shrikes huddling together against a night that was starting to turn colder."

When Worlds Collide. Overall Winner and Gold Winner, Conservation. "Each year during spring and fall migration over 1.3 billion birds die in North America as a result of window collisions. A network of dedicated volunteers heads out each morning to pick up the pieces. For over 30 years FLAP (Fatal Light Awareness Program) volunteers have patrolled cities worldwide in search of birds that have collided with windows. While their efforts have saved an impressive number of bird collision survivors, the majority do not survive the impact. But the fallen birds are never left behind. Their bodies are collected and their lives honored in the annual ‘Bird Layout’. The Layout brings volunteers together to arrange the dead birds in an emotive and provocative display. While The Layout honors the fallen birds and brings closure for the volunteers, it is also a critical event that raises public awareness and highlights a global issue. I have volunteered with FLAP for four years and attend The Layout annually. From hawks to hummingbirds, this 2022 display includes more than 4,000 birds.

Images and text from The Atlantic, Winners of the Bird Photographer of the Year 2024.

"Finally, a new look"

The title of this post is the lede for a New York Times fashion review article, which noted that some clothes resembled "cumulus clouds of cotton wadding and people-swallowing structures that send the imagination soaring up, up and away, while ignoring certain exigencies like sitting down."  Another resembles a "hooded insectoid cape."

I am a self-admitted ignoramus when the subject is haute couture, so I have to defer to the columnist who noted "Abnormal is the new normal, which pretty much sums up the current design challenge. That’s why Mr. Anderson’s Loewe show was so powerful — he made unusual clothes that seemed like exactly what you would want to throw on in the morning."

Peronally, I'll stick to normcore.

Top image cropped for size, credit Comme des Garçons, spring 2025, Simbarashe Cha/The New York Times.  The other two are Courrèges, spring 2025.

An ALL-CAPS rant includes "execution of a baby after birth."

Top image credit Justin Sullivan/Getty Images via The Guardian.  Text image via Mediaite.

Seeking input from the Trump apologists who are readers here.  What does he mean when he refers to 
"Democrat demanded late term abortion in the 7th, 8th, or 9th month, or even execution of a baby after birth."??  This phrase can't be written off as "just joking" or "misquoted."  It's beyond hyperbole to the point of being outright fantasy.  

Word for the day: deranged.  Etymology from the French dérangé ("disturbed").  Definitions: 1) Disturbed or upset, especially mentally. 2) Insane.  3)Malfunctioning or inoperative.   Anagrams: grenaded, dangered, nadgered, gandered, gardened ("nadgered" apparently Britspeak equivalent to "knackered",  new to me).

Trapped in rubble

"Amid the chaos in Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, Irina, a waitress at Ria Pizza, becomes trapped under rubble after a devastating Russian missile strike. The attack on the bustling restaurant, a beloved gathering spot, claimed the lives of 13 civilians and injured 61 others."

Photograph: Wojciech Grzędziński/Siena international photo awards, via a gallery of photos at The Guardian.

A "quartet of chaos"

An article in The Economist expresses concern about four world leaders not because of their individual activites, but because there is evidence that they are coordinating their efforts.

Antony Blinken, America’s secretary of state, was unusually blunt on a recent visit to Europe: “One of the reasons that [Vladimir] Putin is able to continue this aggression is because of the provision of support from the People’s Republic of China,” he said. China was, he added, “the biggest supplier of machine tools, the biggest supplier of microelectronics, all of which are helping Russia sustain its defence industrial base”. American officials are reluctant to discuss details of what they think Russia is giving its friends, but Kurt Campbell, deputy secretary of state, recently said Russia has provided China with submarine, missile and other military technology. Separately, America says that Iran has been busy sending Russia hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles.

These revelations are examples of the growing military-industrial ties between China, Iran, North Korea and Russia. “We’re almost back to the axis of evil”, says Admiral John Aquilino, the recently-departed head of America’s Indo-Pacific Command, referring to the term applied by George W. Bush, a former president, to Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Others draw parallels with the Axis forces of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan and fascist Italy, with worrying conclusions. “Russia, China, Iran, and North Korea…have now been co-operating for a longer time, and in more ways, than…any of the future Axis countries of the 1930s,” warns Philip Zelikow, in the Texas National Security Review, a military and security journal.

The members of this new quartet of chaos—whose ideologies range from Islamism to hardline communism—are riven by distrust, and they have very different visions of the world. Yet they are united by a shared hatred of the American-led order, and are keen to deepen their economic and military-industrial links. Their relationships amount to a kind of “strategic transactionalism,” says an American administration official. That is, the four regimes share a systematic intent to conduct bilateral deals that are in each participant’s narrow self-interest, and sometimes in the collective interest too.

The article continues at The Economist.  It's not a fun read.

Helene update

Whenever hurricanes occur, I always turn to Tropical Tidbits.  This is the latest update; the next one will be posted about midday Thursday, right before landfall.  Florida officials are warning residents that storm surges of 10-15 feet are "not survivable."  Note also the inland impacts at the end of the video.

Helena update

I couldn't resist the juxtaposition with the hurricane post above.  I'm getting ready to start season 5 after having thoroughly enjoyed the first four seasons.  Helena has become my favorite clone.

The topmost video is the least NSFW of the group (re gore).  And all contain potential spoilers.

For those unfamiliar with the Orphan Black series, go to Seeking Advice on Orphan Black and watch the trailer for season 1. 

Addendum:  I just finished binging all five seasons, and I loved the series, but I do need to point out one "movie mistake" which slipped by all the fact-checking:

This is a screencap of the medical record of the little Afghan girl who was brought to the village because her Wilms' tumor offered special research possibilities.  But notice her blood pressure:  90/138.  

I'm glad the teacher graded this with a smiley

Via Miss Cellania.

Geoglyphs damaged in Chile

The embedded screencap from The New York Times tells the story in a nutshell.

Vehicles — also including trucks from mining operations — run roughshod over the geoglyphs in Alto Barranco and other zones of the desert, scarring them with hundreds of tracks.

“When we saw the drone footage, we couldn’t believe it,” Dr. Pimentel said, noting that several key figures were now barely recognizable. The worst part, he added, is that “the damage is irreversible.”..

Marcela Sepúlveda, president of the Chilean Society of Archaeology, noted that big signs had been placed around archaeological zones to prevent damage, meaning that drivers should be fully aware of what they’re heading into. “The geoglyphs are gigantic,” she said. “No one can claim they didn’t see them. That’s impossible.”