West African masquerade

Selections from a Skidmore College collection of 34 remarkable photos by Phyllis Galembo. Via Harper's.

"Exquisite Corpse...

... the game in which each person adds a sentence to a story based only on the previous sentence, and when the wine bottles are empty the pages are passed to an Irishman who reads out the accumulated story in a velvety brogue."

Sounds like fun.

The importance of hippopotamus poop

From the June issue of The Atlantic, a report on the slow death of African lakes following the poaching of hippos:

Now, on one side of the lake are fighters from one of the two rebel groups, a band of Hutus from Rwanda. They shoot elephants, hack off the tusks, leave the mutilated carcasses to scavengers, and swap the ivory for munitions. But as the elephants dwindle, the rebels have turned increasingly to tilapia and catfish for their food and income, plundering the lake’s rivulets—spawning ground long off-limits to village fishermen.

On the other side, members of a local militia called PARECO are slaughtering hippos. They sell the teeth as ivory and the flesh as prized bush meat. In the 1970s, some 29,000 hippos lived in the park. By the end of 2006, their numbers had plummeted to only a few hundred—that year, militia fighters massacred thousands. The lake water, as in the biblical plague, washed the shore red.

The killings have had an unanticipated side effect. A hippo’s defecation feeds the plankton that feed the larvae that become the fish on which the villagers rely. A single pachyderm’s 60 pounds of daily dung delivers a gargantuan bacterial feast; now, even isolated killings of the animals wreak havoc on the fragile geometry of the lake ecosystem.

More at the link. I think humanity's relentless devastation of Africa joins the worldwide devastation of the oceans as the saddest stories of our lifetimes.

Flag etiquette

"The flag should not be used as a drapery, or for covering a speakers desk, draping a platform, or for any decoration in general. Bunting of blue, white and red stripes is available for these purposes."

"When the flag is displayed in a manner other than by being flown from a staff, it should be displayed flat, whether indoors or out."

Shame on Sarah Palin for this callous and unethical appropriation of our national flag for her own personal glorification.

Photo from the RunnersWorld slideshow, via The Daily Dish.

Repairing a flat tire

I recently had one tire losing pressure, so I took it to Car-X, where I've previously received prompt and effective service. They found that a nail had penetrated the tire. Years ago I remember tires being fixed by taking a rubber "noodle," heating it I think, and using a needle-nosed pliers to punch it into the hole. The Car-X people told me that what they do is place a patch on the inside of the tire because that's safer.

I wonder if it is safer, or whether I was suckered into a more expensive procedure. It's not a big deal, because it was just $10 for the patch and $30 for the labor, but I'm a little suspicious because they also suggested flushing the coolant because of "high levels of nitrate in the current coolant" and when I declined they quickly lowered the price for that from $130 to $100. I still refused, and I'm always wary when refusing a service results in a lower price being offered. I know nothing about nitrates in coolant as indicators.

Any comments re the best (or safest) way to repair a tire puncture would be appreciated, and any experiences you-all have had with Car-X.

"Future crime" - predicted by Lewis Carroll

The Mad Hatter has been imprisoned by the White Queen because of an anticipated future crime:

“It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,” the Queen remarked.

“What sort of things do you remember best?” Alice ventured to ask.

“Oh, things that happened the week after next,” the Queen replied in a careless tone. “For instance, now,” she went on, sticking a large piece of plaster on her finger as she spoke, “there’s the King’s messenger. He’s in prison now, being punished, and the trial doesn’t even begin till next Wednesday: and of course the crime comes last of all.”

“Suppose he never commits the crime?” said Alice.

“That would be all the better, wouldn’t it?” the Queen said, as she bound the plaster round her finger with a bit of ribbon.

Blogged because of allegations reported in the Telegraph that police in Britain are arresting children in order to collect their DNA for a database.

A Metropolitan Police officer made the claims after figures were released showing that 386 under-18s had their DNA taken and stored by police last year in Camden, north London.

The officer said: "Have we got targets for young people who have not been arrested yet? The answer is yes. But we are not just waiting outside schools to pick them up, we are acting on intelligence.

"It is part of a long-term crime prevention strategy. If you know you have had your DNA taken and it is on a database then you will think twice about committing burglary for a living.

More at the link. Extensive discussion of future crime databases here. Credit for Lewis Carroll text and print here.

Tanuki woodblock prints from the 19th century

The tanuki, or Japanese raccoon dog, is a canid famed for having large testicles and scrotum. The two woodblock prints above are selections from a collection of 18 posted at Pink Tentacle. They were created in the mid-1840s, and show the tanuki using their scrota in innovative ways - fishing and weightlifting depicted above, the others at the link.

Via Salon.

"Host in the Post" - Sending Jesus through the mail

Literally. Those who believe the consecrated wafer and wine are the actual body and blood of Christ can now have those items mailed to them at home, without having to attend church to partake of the communion:

In recent years the communion wafer has been made available in a variety of forms - including patterned, wholemeal, crumb-proof and gluten-free - to satisfy the demands of modern life. Soon, altar bread will become even more convenient and accessible with the advent of the "host in the post".

The new service, from the Open Episcopal Church, is aimed at people who either cannot attend Eucharist, through age or ill-health, or those who have drifted away from church.

Although the pre-consecrated wafer is free, there will be a charge for postage and packing. Receiving one host costs £2; receiving 500 costs £10.

Incisive commentary at this Guardian editorial.

The Unken Reflex

A month ago I blogged a piece about a caterpillar with unusual behavior. It was eventually identified as a Catocala, which pupates into the better-known underwing moth. The one I found had coloration to match the bark of an oak tree; for excellent cryptic coloration, look at this one that matches a lichen-encrusted twig.

The unusual behavior was a quite violent thrashing about, flipping upside-down to reveal what I thought were holes in its abdomen, but were just colored patches. The same behavior is mentioned here, and I've seen it described at other links.

I had thought the behavior was just a way to startle a potential predator, or to wriggle under leaf litter. Recently while reading about aposemitism, I encountered the term "Unken Reflex" and decided that must be what the caterpillar was manifesting. The Unken reflex is a defense mechanism of amphibians ("unken" is German plural for "toad"), which involves exposing a brightly-colored body part that is normally hidden. Bright colors are worldwide cross-species signals of poison and toxicity, used by prey to warn predators against unnecessary attacks. The salamanders in the two photos are displaying their orange and yellow bellies to indicate that they are unpalatable. The amphibian thus has the advantage of crypic coloration for general daily camoflage, but bright coloration for use when attacked or threatened.

I've not seen that term used in association with caterpillars, but I think that's what he was doing when I encountered him - thrashing inverted to show his color spots as a way of saying "don't eat me." It worked. I didn't.

Fairy ring

A fairy ring, also known as fairy circle, elf circle or pixie ring, is a naturally occurring ring or arc of mushrooms. The rings may grow over ten meters in diameter and become stable over time as the fungus grows and seeks food underground. They are found mainly in forested areas, but also appear in grasslands or rangelands…

Fairy rings also occupy a prominent place in European folklore as the location of gateways into elfin kingdoms, or places where elves gather and dance…

Their names in European languages often allude to supernatural origins; they are known as ronds de sorciers ("sorcerers' rings") in France, and hexenringe ("witches' rings") in German. In German tradition, fairy rings were thought to mark the site of witches' dancing on Walpurgis Night, and Dutch superstition claimed that the circles show where the Devil set his milk churn. In Tyrol, folklore attributed fairy rings to the fiery tales of flying dragons; once a dragon had created such a circle, nothing but toadstools could grow there for seven years…

Scandinavian and Celtic traditions claimed that fairy rings are the result of elves or fairies dancing. Such ideas dated to at least the mediæval period; The Middle English term elferingewort ("elf-ring"), meaning "a ring of daisies caused by elves' dancing" dates to the 12th century. In his History of the Goths (1628), Olaus Magnus makes this connection, saying that fairy rings are burned into the ground by the dancing of elves…

Most often, someone who violates a fairy perimeter becomes invisible to mortals outside and may find it impossible to leave the circle. Often, the fairies force the mortal to dance to the point of exhaustion, death, or madness…

Text from Wikipedia. Photo via the excellent moqo-moqo.

The 50 greatest movie trailers of all time

Not the greatest movies, mind you, but the greatest trailers, according to the website IFC. The ranking itself isn't that important; more useful is the fact that the list has links to the actual trailers, which will allow you to waste a lot of time looking at old favorites and exploring some unfamiliar ones.

Car damage caused by chunk of blue ice

These incidents typically occur near airports when the plane descends into warmer air, which loosens the mass. When I lived in Dallas, my apartment was right under the flight path for Love Field, but we never experienced anything like this. Luckily this one didn't hit a person.

Photo credit, via Arbroath.

And an explanation of "blue ice" for those unfamiliar with it.

Lists of books

There is no end of making lists of books to read, books for other people to read, books you should have read, books you wish you had time to read, and so on. Newsweek has done a sort of metaanalysis by combining the book lists of others:

The complete list of 10 previously published lists that we drew upon includes The Telegraph’s 110 best books/The Perfect Library, The Guardian’s top 100 books, Oprah’s Book Club, the St. John’s College reading list, Wikipedia’s list of all-time bestsellers, the New York Public Library’s books of the century, the Radcliffe Publishing Course’s list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, The Modern Library’s 100 best novels and 100 best works of nonfiction, Time’s 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present, and NEWSWEEK’s own list of current top 50 choices, which is being published this week.

Their resultant list of 100 top books is at this link. I won't comment any further except to wonder why Ulysses keeps making it to "best books" lists.

In a slightly different vein is a list of Science Fiction Books that Launched Their Own Genres. Utopia, apocalyptic futures, time travel, first contact, alternate history, space opera, cyberpunk, steampunk, and Gothic.

The scent of Marlene Dietrich

The March issue of Vanity Fair has an article ("It happened at the Hotel de Cap") about Marlene Dietrich, focusing on her relationship with Joseph P. Kennedy. It details her role as the prototypical sexually liberated woman of her era, a role which included trysts or affairs with such celebrities as Yul Brynner, Adlai Stevenson, Frank Sinatra, Joseph Kennedy (and later Jack), Erich Remarque, Edward R. Murrow, and Edith Piaf.

Dietrich, on the other hand, was an intrepid and pliant lover. When her daughter asked her later in life why she had had so many sexual partners, Marlene responded with a shrug and said, “They asked.” She clearly thrived on pleasing her partners and didn’t believe in condoms, finding men “so grateful when you tell them they don’t have to wear it.” Once she discovered diaphragms, she called them “the greatest invention since Pan-Cake makeup.” Until then, she had sworn by her secret weapon against pregnancy: douching with ice-cold water and wine vinegar, which she carried with her by the case everywhere she went. (Decades later another of her co-stars and grand amours, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., warmly recalled their “lovely liaison,” adding, “You know, sometimes when I am in a restaurant and a waiter walks by with a salad vinaigrette, I’ll find myself thinking fond thoughts of Marlene.”)

You can read the full article at Vanity Fair online.

Photo credits: Dietrich by Eisenstadt, vinaigrette dressing.

Google Earth typography

Pix of Slovenia. The most difficult letters (B, R, and Q) actually are rather well represented.