An unfortunate juxtaposition

I almost never watch live television, so I did not see this misadventure, reported by the Daily Mail:

NBC has become the centre of a race storm after airing an ad featuring a monkey performing gymnastics, right after showing the performance of Gabby Douglas, the first African-American to win Olympic gold. The network has since apologised for the advert's poor timing, explaining: 'No offense was intended.'

The controversy ignited as sportscaster Bob Costas wrapped his analysis of her incredible routine during the all-around competition last night. Costas said: 'There are some African American girls out there who tonight are saying to themselves: "Hey, I’d like to try that too." More from London in a moment.'

The broadcast then went to a commercial break, showing an advertisement featuring a monkey wearing a gymnastics uniform and performing a rings gymnastics event.

For grammar nerds only

An Atlantic Wire column discusses the punctuation used in Obama's campaign slogan.  Should a period be used after a one-word slogan?  Alternatives to the period might carry different connotations:

Forward!
Forward?
Forward ...

You can read the rest at the link, but what caught my eye was a sentence in the final paragraph:

Whomever is right and whomever is wrong, you have to give the Obama campaign credit for one thing, at least: They did spell the word right.

The boldfaced phrase seems wrong.  It's neither the subject nor the object of the sentence, but my instinct is that each "whomever" should be replaced by "whoever."  Can someone offer a definitive pronouncement here?

"Which international head of state snubbed Jesse Owens after his triumph at the 1936 Olympics?"

 

YouTube link. 

It wasn't Adolph Hitler, although that misunderstanding has been propagated endlessly.  For a lighthearted and entertaining explication of the answer, spend 3 minutes viewing the QI segment embedded above (skip to 31:30 if it doesn't autostart there)(the link under the embed goes to one that autostarts at the right spot, but for some reason I can't configure my embed to start at 31:30).

Those in a hurry who want the TL;DV answer can find it beneath the fold, but you'll miss the wise crack about the "far right."

Cheerful photo of the day

"I went through a serious surgery one day before my friends wedding. This is what I woke up to at the hospital one hour before they said yes to each other.

When I realized they were actually there, the first thing I asked was what time is it. I started screaming at them, telling them that they are crazy and that they will be late to their own wedding. They were incredibly relaxed and the bride told me these exact words "don't worry they can't start without us anyway". 

Numerous appropriate comments at Reddit.

"... that our flag was still there..."

YouTube link. 

Oops.

Reminder - Curiosity lands (or crashes) on Mars tonight

Streaming coverage on NASA TV begins Sunday 8/5/12 at 8:30 PM Pacific Time (8/6/2012 3:30 AM UTC).

Link to NASA TV stream.

Discussion re coverage here.

The first images will be from Curiosity's forward backward HazCam taken on the surface after landing. Bandwidth will be limited as Curiosity will communicate to Earth via satellite Mars Odyssey orbiting Mars (plus Mars Express and MRO).

It's possible we get first HazCam thumbnail (128x128) already during Odyssey's first orbital pass within minutes after landing, and bigger images (1024x1024) during Odyssey's second pass. More and better images will follow in sol 1 (next day).

Protecting foliage plants against herbivores

Those who farm or garden in rural areas or at the edges of suburbia know the challenges of deterring predation by rabbits and deer, a situation made worse this year by widespread drought diminishing wild sources of food.

We use fencing to protect some of the flower beds and part of the vegetable garden, but that's not practical (or visually acceptable) in a woodland garden.  In that setting, the traditional control methods are usually repellants rather than barriers.  Some success has been claimed for tucking human hair swept from barbershop floors into the base of plants; commercial products include wolf/lion/etc urine and other irritants, most notably capsaicin (the active ingredient in hot pepper).  I've had a modicum of success placing mothballs near plants when they emerge (but that doesn't seem to protect the upper leaves).  The problem with virtually all repellants is that they have to be recurrently applied, since they are not weatherproof and may wash off the leaves after rain.

When I was in the woods today, I found it interesting that the rabbits are just devouring the stems, leaving the leaves scattered nearby.  Perhaps the hosta tries to concentrate some intrinsic repellant in its leaves, but I think more likely is that the water content of the leaves is very small during our drought, and higher in the stems.

This week while driving I heard on the radio the tail end of comments by a Wisconsin wildlife biologist on this topic.  Of greatest interest to me was a description of a new product that was approved last year and is now on the market.  Repellex is a "systemic" capsaicinoid that is absorbed into the leaves of the plants. I found some details in the Blog of an Ancient Gardener:

The tablets protect ornamental plants from these browsing animals: deer, rabbits, voles, moles, gophers, groundhogs, feral hogs, dogs, and cats... “Water dissolves this product in soil, where it is absorbed by roots and moves up through the plant. Once absorbed, rain or watering cannot wash off this internal protection. Even new growth is protected against animal browsing for the entire growing season."

Application: “Place tablets in soil or growing medium of plant. Position 2-3 inches away from root crown, and push 1-3 inches below the soil surface. When more than one tablet is applied at once, evenly space them around the plant. Activate the application with irrigation or natural rainfall. Do not over water. For containerized plants, use enough water to wet the potting soil thoroughly without causing water to flush out from the bottom of the container.”

Application rate is based on the sum of the height and width of a plant. A plant that’s 3-feet wide and 3-feet tall would need six tablets. The label explains that fast-growing plants may need more than one application per year.

Cost: The company website currently lists several size bottles of tablets (30, 150, 300). Prices range from 40¢ a tablet in the smallest bottle to 33.3¢ a tablet in the larger sizes...

Multiple tablets per plant makes this product rather expensive, but it certainly would be worthwhile for selected plants.  It obviously cannot be used in the vegetable garden.

I'm curious whether any readers with horticultural backgrounds have comments, and whether any of you have actually used this product.

Yes, I KNOW "MobileMe" has been discontinued

I never used it anyway.  Now, how do I tell my iMac that it doesn't need to remind me with this furshlugginer pop-up every time I load images on the computer or start up iPhoto.  Surely I'm not the only one plagued by this annoyance.

Addendum:  Problem solved.  See comments.

Swimmers attacked by otters

Twice this summer, swimmers in Minnesota lakes have been attacked by otters.  From the StarTribune:

In less than a month, unusually aggressive otters have attacked two Twin Cities women swimming in lakes about 60 miles apart. They're two of the three attacks reported to the state in the past three months, puzzling experts who say otters are generally meek, playful creatures.

The latest victim, Carol Schefers, 38, of St. Michael, was swimming at her family's cabin on tiny Ude Lake near Aitkin last weekend when something suddenly nipped her beneath the dark, rum-colored water.

"The first thing you think is fish are attacking," she said Thursday. "I thought, 'Wow, these fish are feisty.'" She tried to shake off the attackers, but they kept biting, seemingly trying to pull Schefers, wearing a life jacket, underwater.

"All of a sudden, bam, bam, bam," she said. "I thought, 'We've got big muskies here.'" She began struggling, screaming as she flipped on her back. That's when she saw the otter's eyes and whiskers...

The other attack happened last month in Duluth, where Leah Prudhomme of Anoka was training for a triathlon on Island Lake. An otter peppered her with 25 puncture marks, some 2 inches deep, its fangs shredding her wet suit.

More at the StarTribune.

A recent sighting of "Nessie"

Nessie hunter George Edwards has waited 26 years for this sight, and he now believes he has the best picture ever taken of the Loch Ness monster. He spends around 60 hours a week taking tourists out on his boat Nessie Hunter IV, and has led numerous Nessie hunts over the years. But this image has convinced him that there really is a monster - or monsters - out there. It shows a mysterious dark hump moving in the water towards Urquhart Castle. After watching the object for five to ten minutes, Mr Edwards said it slowly sank below the surface and never resurfaced. 

If that thing is moving, the waves would suggest to me that it is moving away from the castle. 

Photo: George Edwards/CASCADE NEWS

"In real life there is no such thing as algebra"

That quote, attributed to humorist Fran Lebowitz, will serve as a good title for these excerpts from a recent New York Times op/ed piece that asks "Is Algebra Necessary?"

Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t... Algebra is an onerous stumbling block for all kinds of students: disadvantaged and affluent, black and white...

California’s two university systems, for instance, consider applications only from students who have taken three years of mathematics and in that way exclude many applicants who might excel in fields like art or history. Community college students face an equally prohibitive mathematics wall. A study of two-year schools found that fewer than a quarter of their entrants passed the algebra classes they were required to take...

Nor is it clear that the math we learn in the classroom has any relation to the quantitative reasoning we need on the job... Nor is it clear that the math we learn in the classroom has any relation to the quantitative reasoning we need on the job...

Of course, people should learn basic numerical skills: decimals, ratios and estimating, sharpened by a good grounding in arithmetic. But a definitive analysis by the Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce forecasts that in the decade ahead a mere 5 percent of entry-level workers will need to be proficient in algebra or above...

Medical schools like Harvard and Johns Hopkins demand calculus of all their applicants, even if it doesn’t figure in the clinical curriculum, let alone in subsequent practice. Mathematics is used as a hoop, a badge, a totem to impress outsiders and elevate a profession’s status...

Instead of investing so much of our academic energy in a subject that blocks further attainment for much of our population, I propose that we start thinking about alternatives.

This is a thought-provoking essay, best read in toto at the New York Times.

Getz/Gilberto perform "Ipanema" and "Desifinado"

YouTube link. 

This is another record album that has traveled with me for 50+ years from Minnesota to Massachusetts to Texas to Kentucky to Indiana to Missouri and finally to Wisconsin.  Now I'll save two cuts of it here before saying goodbye to it.

"The Girl From Ipanema" was made popular by a short 45-rpm version that zoomed in the pop charts, but I prefer this more detailed and nuanced presentation from the album.

[The album] won the 1965 Grammy Awards for Best Album of the Year, Best Jazz Instrumental Album - Individual or Group and Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. "The Girl from Ipanema" also won the award for Record of the Year in 1965. This was the first time a jazz album received Album of the Year. It was the last jazz album to win the award until Herbie Hancock's River: The Joni Letters 43 years later, in 2008.

The other cut I'm saving is this version of "Desifinado":

YouTube link.

I never knew what the Portugese title or lyrics meant until writing this post (translation here).

A Paleolithic "Lion Man" statuette

"On August 25, 1939, archaeologists working at a Paleolithic site called Stadelhole (“stable cave”) at Hohlenstein (“hollow rock”) in southern Germany, uncovered hundreds of mammoth ivory fragments. Just one week later, before they could complete their fieldwork and analyze the finds, World War II began. The team was forced to quickly fill the excavation trenches using the same soil in which they found the ivory pieces. For the next three decades, the fragments sat in storage at the nearby City Museum of Ulm, until archaeologist Joachim Hahn began an inventory. As Hahn pieced together more than 200 fragments, an extraordinary artifact dating to the Aurignacian period (more than 30,000 years ago) began to emerge. It was clearly a figure with both human and animal characteristics. However, only a small part of the head and the left ear had been found, so the type of creature it represented remained a mystery..." 

You can read the rest of the story about the recovery of additional pieces and the reconstruction of the figurine in the March/April issue of Archaeology.

"I mow my lawn by walking on it"

Comment overheard this week, spoken by someone living through this year's drought in the Midwest.  The sentiment will be understandable to anyone who has walked on a lawn and heard the grass go "snap, crackle" instead of "squish, squish."

Concierto de Aranjuez (the adagio movement)

YouTube link. 

The Concierto de Aranjuez is a composition for classical guitar and orchestra by the Spanish composer Joaquín Rodrigo. Written in 1939, it is probably Rodrigo's best-known work, and its success established his reputation as one of the most significant Spanish composers of the twentieth century...

The Concierto de Aranjuez was inspired by the gardens at Palacio Real de Aranjuez, the spring resort palace and gardens built by Philip II in the last half of the 16th century and rebuilt in the middle of the 18th century by Ferdinand VI...

Rodrigo, blind since age three, was a pianist. He did not play the guitar, yet he still managed to capture the spirit of the guitar in Spain... 

I'm in the process of transferring all the music I own to digital format, so this week I am bidding a fond farewell to this vinyl album, purchased at the time of its release in the early 1960s.

[Miles] Davis plays flugelhorn and later trumpet, attempting to connect the various settings musically. Davis commented at rehearsal, "The thing I have to do now is make things connect, make them mean something in what I play around it." Davis thought the concerto's adagio melody was "so strong" that "the softer you play it, the stronger it gets, and the stronger you play it, the weaker it gets", and [Gil] Evans concurred.