Cockfight chair

As eighteenth-century English printers produced increasing numbers of books and members of the upper classes read more, the private study or library and its furnishings became an important part of the domestic interior. This chair is one of the earliest examples of specialized furniture with functions specific to reading. Designed so a male reader could sit astride facing the adjustable book ledge, the chair features a candle holder in one arm and a tray for writing implements in the other. Curiously, this form also became known as a “cockfight” chair, and was depicted in illustrations of cockfights. One possible reason is that the chair allowed managers to safely sit, bird in hand, with the padded back protecting the user’s chest.

That explanation for the colloquial term for the chair is met with skepticism at the Encyclopedia Britannica:

Hope for a cure for multiple sclerosis

Twenty-three patients improve after being treated with stem cells:

The trial, which is the first in the world to show complete long-term remission from the debilitating disease has been hailed by experts as ‘exciting’ ‘unprecedented,’ and ‘close to curative.’...

The new technique, which is a treatment usually used to fight leukaemia, involves using chemotherapy to entirely eradicate the damaged immune system, before rebooting it with a transfusion of bone marrow cells. Out of the 24 patients who were given the treatment at least seven years ago, the majority have seen significant improvements. 70 per cent of patients saw a complete stop to the progression of the disease, while 40 per cent saw a reversal in symptoms such as vision loss, muscle weakness and balance loss...

A variation of this procedure has been used to treat leukaemia for decades, but its use for auto-immune diseases is relatively new. “This is very exciting. However, it is important to note that this therapy can have serious side effects and risks, and would only be appropriate for a small proportion of people with very active MS.” During the trial one participant died of liver failure due to the treatment and another required intensive care for liver complications. 

More details at The Telegraph (or better yet Google some key words)

World temperature data since 1850

Found in the Data is Beautiful subreddit, where there is some discussion.

I thought of sending this to a friend of mine who is a climate change skeptic, but I know his response will be that the changes reflect 1) instrumentation error and 2) normal cyclic variation.  *sigh*

Senior magician

CCC stonework at Interstate Park, Wisconsin

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Wisconsin's Interstate Park, located along the shoreline of the St. Croix River which separates Wisconsin and Minnesota (a corresponding Interstate Park on the opposite bank of the river is part of the Minnesota state park system).

I had finished walking a wooded trail and was driving out of the park when I glanced off to the side and spotted the chimney in the photo above.  That stopped me in my tracks, and I pulled off the road to investigate.  I parked in an empty lot serving two buildings that are apparently just used for storage.  Here's the awesome front of the other building:

It was immediately apparent to me that I had stumbled upon yet another example of the Civilian Conservation Corps stonework that I have featured in fifteen previous posts in this blog.  Here is the side of this building:

Delighted by this unplanned discovery, I proceeded on to the ranger station, and was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak to Julie Fox, a Naturalist and the park's resident historian.  She affirmed that the stonework was indeed a product of the CCC (and later the WPA), which had been instrumental in the improvement of the park as a public resource.

There is other stonework in a variety of locations in the park.  Some of it, such as the wall along this road, has been subject to a lot of wear and has required updating for safety reasons, so that what currently exists may not represent original CCC craftsmanship.

The same principal applies at other locations such as stairways and ramparts at viewpoints over the Dalles of the St. Croix River.  This one that I photographed at the end of the Pothole Trail is new construction completed within the past decade; the masons were asked to emulate the style of the CCC workers.

Ms. Fox directed me to a location I would not otherwise have found - a shelter at a picnic ground well back in the woods away from the current parking area. 

Structures like this are standard features on innumerable state and national parks, designed to offer shelter to picknickers and campers during inclement weather, and providing in this case two fireplaces for cooking.

What was unusual to my eye was the squared-off faces of the structural stones.  Even the finest craftsmen couldn't achieve this degree of regularity with hand tools, so I suspect the crew working on this building had access to some type of stone or masonry saw.

It's tidy and perfectly functional, but in my view lacks the charm and raw beauty of the rough stone used in the old park headquarters buildings, so I returned there for a closer look at the stonework:

One of the mandates of the CCC projects was the preferential utilization of local resources.  Julie Fox confirmed that the stone used at Interstate Park was the same basalt that forms the striking landscape of the park, and that it was in fact quarried within the boundaries of the park, using a methodology that dates back to prehistoric times (heating the rock with fire, then dousing it with cold water to fracture it into workable sizes.)

My eye is always drawn to the mortar as a reflection of the skills and experience of the builders.  The CCC gave employment (and taught skills) to a generation of young men from a depression-ravaged nation, taking them from city slums and rural towns where they most likely had never had relevant work experiences.

The CCC hired local stonemasons to guide (and train) the young men.  In the 1920s the building of stone walls and buildings was a respected profession, and I can sense in much of the CCC work the "eyes" and pride of lifelong stoneworkers in selecting colorful and interesting stones that are beautiful rather than just functional (see the stonework at Gooseberry Falls for an excellent example).

I'll be back to this park again the next time I travel to west central Wisconsin.  There's more stonework to find there (stairways for example) and some park buildings that I missed on my quick visit this week.  I hope to repost an addendum later this summer.

More information about Interstate Park in this video.

(As a reminder to readers, fully half the posts in the CCC category of this blog contain photos (from Alaska, Florida, New Mexico, New York) credited not to me, but to readers.  If you find good examples during your summer travels, snap some images and send them along).

Addendum: Forest Army has a report on the CCC work at Interstate Park, including the excavation of a bison skull (currently on display in the park's new headquarters building).  The post incorporates this image (apparently a contemporary postcard) -

- depicting the stonework along the roadside of the park (mortared at the dropoff, drywall on the right).

Context is essential

For many viewers the image is a touching portrait of parental care and affection. The reason that father and son were naked was because Fox had Salmonella poisoning for which he would soon after be hospitalised.

"Thomas had spent hours in the shower with him, trying to keep his fever down and letting the vomit and diarrhea rinse off of them both as it came," Whitten wrote in her post accompanying the photo.

"He was so patient and so loving and so strong with our tiny son in his lap... I stepped out and grabbed my camera and came back to snap a few images of it and, of course shared them."

But for some people the image is inappropriate at best and at worst has undertones of paedophilia. Whitten has been surprised by this reaction and was shocked when people posted negative comments about what was for her a beautiful moment.

"There is nothing sexual or exploitative about this image," she wrote in the initial post. "I was taken aback by how many people missed the story or didn't even look past the nudity to find the story."

More discussion at the BBC.

Diversity immigrant visa - the "green card lottery"

I didn't know such visas existed until I heard about them in an interesting podcast form This American Life.

The lottery makes available 50,000 permanent resident visas annually to natives of countries deemed to have low rates of immigration to the United States... They must satisfy general immigration requirements, such as means of support, no criminal background, and good health... Those born in any territory that has sent more than 50,000 immigrants to the United States in the previous five years are not eligible to receive a diversity visa...

[T]here have been arguments by longtime temporary legal residents in the United States against the fairness of the DV program. A situation where high skilled (H-1B and L-1 visas) workers and taxpayers remain on temporary visas in the US for years (in some cases, more than a decade) with no clear path to becoming permanent residents while 50,000 random people are picked around the world and handed permanent resident status questions the fairness of the US immigration system.

Wingsuit flying

YouTube link. 

Discussed at Reddit.

Safety glasses

The spear-shaped fragment embedded in the lens of the glasses came from a fragmenting angle grinder disc.

Res ipsa loquitur, with additional commentary from experienced users here.

Obama on guns

From comments during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana:

I just came from a meeting today in the Situation Room in which I got people who we know have been on ISIL Web sites, living here in the United States, U.S. citizens, and we’re allowed to put them on the no-fly list when it comes to airlines, but because of the National Rifle Association, I cannot prohibit those people from buying a gun.

This is somebody who is a known ISIL sympathizer. And if he wants to walk in to a gun store or a gun show right now and buy as much — as many weapons and ammo as he can, nothing’s prohibiting him from doing that, even though the FBI knows who that person is.

So, sir, I just have to say, respectfully, that there is a way for us to have commonsense gun laws. There is a way for us to make sure that lawful, responsible gun owners like yourself are able to use them for sporting, hunting, protecting yourself, but the only way we’re going to do that is if we don’t have a situation in which anything that is proposed is viewed as some tyrannical destruction of the Second Amendment. And that’s how the issue too often gets framed.

Note these comments were made last week, before the Orlando massacre.

Law enforcement sources confirmed that Mateen was on the FBI's radar but not necessarily on a watch list. But even appearing on the list wouldn't have necessarily prevented him from obtaining weapons. 

"Being on the watch list is not in itself disqualifying, under law. The disqualifying elements of the investigation may be classified," ABC News consultant and former acting Homeland Security undersecretary John Cohen said. 

According to Florida law, there is a mandatory three-day waiting period for handgun purchases, but no permit, registration or licensing is needed to buy or own rifles, shotguns or handguns. A permit is needed, however, to carry a handgun.

Respond to disasters with money, not goods

Excerpts from a Reddit discussion thread:

What advice do you have for the general public who want to help in the aftermath of the Orlando tragedy (or other crisis events)? 

Do not donate your used items, just give money and in this case blood When the Fort McMurray fire happened they were overloaded with used items that they had no use for and tons of warehouses in Edmonton are filled with people's used crap...

After the earthquakes in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2011, the Red Cross actually published ads in newspapers giving guidance about this. They said the reason they wanted money, rather than goods, was threefold: 1) Folks tended to give the wrong things, or too many of one thing and not enough of others (so, in Christchurch, lots and lots of tinned baked beans). If they give money instead the Red Cross can just buy the stuff needed in the right amounts; 2) All the wrong stuff that people give which can't be used has to be either (a) stored or (b) disposed of. Both cost money that could be better spent helping those affected by the disaster; 3) A flood of stuff from outside the disaster area destroys the local economy just when they need help the most. For example, my sister in law runs a corner store in Christchurch. Her family had opened that store every single day, including Christmas and Easter, for over 40 years. After the earthquakes so much food was donated that they ended up closing the store for three months as they had no customers...

Providing free goods and services damages the local economy. Ex-President Clinton admitted that the trade policy his administration imposed on Haiti destroyed Haitian farmers. Small farmers could not compete with U.S. agribusiness and went out of business. Now Haitians rely on aid to buy imported food.

In an article about aid to Africa : "Even what may appear as a benign intervention on the surface can have damning consequences. Say there is a mosquito-net maker in small-town Africa. Say he employs 10 people who together manufacture 500 nets a week. Typically, these 10 employees support upward of 15 relatives each. A Western government-inspired program generously supplies the affected region with 100,000 free mosquito nets. This promptly puts the mosquito net manufacturer out of business, and now his 10 employees can no longer support their 150 dependents. In a couple of years, most of the donated nets will be torn and useless, but now there is no mosquito net maker to go to. They'll have to get more aid. And African governments once again get to abdicate their responsibilities. In a similar vein has been the approach to food aid, which historically has done little to support African farmers. Under the auspices of the U.S. Food for Peace program, each year millions of dollars are used to buy American-grown food that has to then be shipped across oceans. One wonders how a system of flooding foreign markets with American food, which puts local farmers out of business, actually helps better Africa. A better strategy would be to use aid money to buy food from farmers within the country, and then distribute that food to the local citizens in need."

I'm sure one reason disaster areas are flooded with goods is that companies can donate merchandise that isn't selling, then deduct the value from their taxes as a charitable contribution.

Blogcation

Key Monastery (India)

More information here.

Oh, now I understand...

There have been a multitude of videos and stories coming out of Texas this week reporting on the record flooding there.  I was watching a national newscast of a reporter standing knee-deep in floodwaters with half-submerged houses and cars in the background; he explained the intensity of the disaster in these terms:

"The flow in the Brazos River is equivalent to 35 million water bottles a minute."

Photo credit: Jennifer Pettus Ellis

"It's got a leg like me"

YouTube link.

This 10-year old girl has had a prosthetic leg since she was 9 months old.  Her mother sent an American Girl doll to A Step Ahead Prosthetics, and they fashioned a prosthetic leg for the doll.

Via Neatorama.