Gaza (war) and Turkey (earthquake)

Two of the "photos of the week" from The Atlantic.  Credits and some details at the link.

"Prophet Song" (Paul Lynch)

This is a powerful book, winner of this year's Booker Prize (best work of fiction in the U.K. and Ireland).  The setting is an alternative version of modern Ireland, the country stressed by inner turmoil, an authoritarian government in place.  The protagonist whose thoughts we enter is a young professional woman whose husband has been "disappeared" for political reasons.  She is trying to protect her four children and an intermittently-demented father in the face of chaotic changes, which ultimately devolve into civil war.  Herewith several extended excerpts (boldface added):

"She has not moved, her eyes have dropped to watch her feet when she hears it fall from her mouth, the truth about [her son's] father, she is explaining the illegal arrest and detention, the efforts being made to get him before a judge, the fact that nothing will happen before Christmas.  Her heart grows pained as she watches the boy's frowning disbelief, the sliding look in his eye, how his mouth slopes and then he buckles silently to the floor ringing his arms about his knees.  What she sees before her is an idea of order coming undone, the world slewing into a dark and foreign sea.  She holds him in her arms, seeking in her whispers to rebuild for her son the old world of laws that lies broken at his feet, for what is the world to a child when a father without word can be made to disappear?  The world gives to chaos, the ground you walk on flies into the air and the sun shines dark on your head..." (45)

"She finds herself staring into a face that does not alter from its single expression, the colourless eyes, the mouth and what it says although the mouth does not speak - your husband is in detention, Mrs Stack, you have been deemed a security risk.  It is then she is struck with the sense that some wild animal has entered behind her and is pacing the room, she takes the form and slowly folds it, places it into her bag, watching the supervisor leave the chair hearing the silent steps of the animal, sensing its rank breath on her neck, she is afraid to turn around.  The silent, seated faces gaping into phones." (53)

"The detective inspector looks across and finds her gaze and there is a moment between them where he puzzles at her and then he smiles and it is the smile of somebody you know to say hello to on the street, a husband, a father, a volunteer in the community, and yet behind that smile lies the shadow of the state..." (60)

"... let me tell you, whatever-you-call-yourself, your husband is where he is because he is an inciter, an agitator against the state during a time of great threat to this country, you people have no idea what's happening outside in the world, what is coming our way, you will see us all destroyed, this should be a time of unity for our nation but instead there's civil unrest up and down the country and we have to face down the likes of you, get out of my house this minute.  Eilish sees in the woman's face the superior look of the party..." (63)

".. maybe there's two men in a car and one of them doesn't like how you look, maybe you're just wearing white [a protest color] because you like the look of it or maybe you're trying to say something else, something provocative, something the man doesn't like, maybe he stops and gets out and takes your name and address and creates a file with your name on it, maybe you'll be quiet or maybe you'll say the wrong thing and instead of taking your name and address he takes you, puts you in the car, and where's that car going to, Molly, have a think about that, maybe its going to where all the other cars go, the unmarked cars that pull up silently and lift people off the street because of one thing or another, the people who do not return home again, you think because you're fourteen years old you can do what you like that the state isn't interested in you, but they arrested those boys and those boys haven't yet been released and they're your age, you think I'm not doing anything, that I'm just standing about waiting for your father to return, but what I am doing is keeping this family together because right now that is the hardest thing to do in a world that seems designed on tearing us apart..." (76)

"What she sees outside are three men in the driveway, a white SUV parked with a running engine.  Something is thrown against the porch glass and there is a bang behind her as the bedroom door meets the wall, Molly tumbling into her arms shouting about men trying to get into the house... Through the curtains she watches a man climb the Touran, tattoos emblazoning arms and throat, another man bent to the side of the car.  The man brings down a bat upon the windscreen then takes out his sex and urinates on the car, the apish laughing teeth as the man zips up and jumps dow onto the gravel.  Across the street a bedroom light turns on and then off again as the SUV powers away." (138)

"She drops the clothes in the basket and looks down at her hands and does not know why she remains so calm, another door has been opened, she can see this now, it is as though she were looking out upon something she has been waiting for all her life, an atavism awakened in the blood, thinking, how many people across how many lifetimes have watched upon war bearing down on their home, watching and waiting for fate to come, entering into silent negotiation, whispering and then pleading, the mind anticipating all outcomes but for the spectre that cannot be directly looked at.  The electricity stutters and the lights grow dim..." (182)

Reviewers sometimes compliment novels by saying they couldn't put down the book.   This one had quite the opposite effect on me - I often had difficulty continuing even to finish a chapter before the intensity of the drama forced me to "take a break."  By the time war breaks out it is almost a relief to deal only with physical trauma rather than the relentlessly looming terror and anxiety.

The protagonist Eilish reminded me in many ways to Dorothy ("Dot") in the recent fifth season of Fargo - a woman whose intense devotion to preservation of family is likened to a mother tiger that even a sin-eater can't defeat, as she braves sniper fire to find medical help for her shrapnel-injured 12-year-old son.  And at too many moments in the story we are confronted by the fact that some of the worst terror in dystopic times comes from bureaucracy itself and its insistence on forms and IDs.

The excerpts I've embedded should give a sense of the fluidity of Lynch's prose, somewhat reminiscent of a Faulknerian stream of consciousness and how it conveys a sense of menace that reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's novels (without McCarthy's incredible vocabulary).

This was the best book I've read in several years.  It's not an "enjoyable" read, but I can recommend it without hesitation.

Bioluminescence ("Sea Sparkle")

The photos above were taken at the Gippsland Lakes (Victoria, Australia), where in 2007 fires and floods resulted in massive amounts of nitrogen being washed into the lakes, which resulted in an algal bloom...

But this was not the blue-green algae that had appeared in the lakes before. Early analysis identified the cause of the green tinge as an algal outbreak of Synechococcus... As summer took hold at the end of 2008, what happened surprised everyone – a new species called Noctiluca Scintillans began to prosper, by feeding on the Synechococcus.

In contrast to the widespread bright green of the Synechococcus, Noctiluca Scintillans was visible during the day as localised murky red patches, often building up on sections of shoreline facing the wind during the day. At night though, Noctiluca Scintillans produced a remarkable form of bioluminescence (popularly referred to as ‘phosphorescence’) – the water glowing brightly wherever there was movement – in the waves breaking on the shore, in ripples in the water and wherever people played in the water.

You can read the rest of the story at Phil Hart's webpage and see additional photos in his gallery (via Neatorama).

Massive blooms of bioluminescent organisms can produce "milky seas" that can be seen from satellites, as shown in this image from Chemical and Engineering News:

"Generated most likely by the bacterium Vibrio harveyi, this awesome display of flamboyant biological chemistry happened on a vast scale: The researchers estimate that it took a bloom of 40 billion trillion (4 X 10²²) bioluminescent cells to generate the milky sea that the Lima had encountered."

Reposted from 2011 to add this video of bioluminescence in the Wadden Sea.

Addendum 2024:  A tip of the blogging cap to reader James, who sent to me the following photos, apparently harvested from the Bioluminescence Tasmania Facebook Group -

- and a link to a very useful site: Tasmania Geographic's The Definitive Guide - How to Find and Photograph Sea Sparkle Bioluminescence.

Looks like phocomelia ("T. rex arms")...

... but it's just an optical illusion.  The mother has normal arms.  Look closely.

Phocomelia.

Via.  Reposted from 2018 because I encountered it again while searching for something else and was fooled again.

Yet another optical illusion

For this illusion to be effective, you need to view a gif, and since I've never learned how to embed gifs, I'll just link it here.  After 22 seconds, the static image above changes for 2 seconds to this black-and-white one -

- which your brain will see in full color (reversed from the top embed). 

The effect is probably similar to the Troxler's fading that I blogged back in 2011.

I thought I had blogged this one before, but I couldn't find it in my archive of optical illusions (84 to date, but some are undergoing linkrot over the years, so don't delay forever in browsing them).

Betting on the Super Bowl (and Taylor Swift)

The Super Bowl has always been the most heavily bet sporting event in the United States.  There are endless "prop bets" not determined by the winner of the game, including a bet on the coin flip to start the game: 

One bettor at Caesars Sportsbook is looking to win big on a $100,000 bet, paying out at -105, which would profit $95,238.10 if they are correct.

It's possible to place "prop bets" on every aspect of the game, including player statistics, but also on the color of the Gatorade bath and the duration of the national anthem.

This year there is an added element: Taylor Swift

Bettors at TheScore Bet can also wager on the odds of Swift being shown during the national anthem (-200), during the halftime show (+120) and more than 5.5 times on the CTV broadcast (+120). Another popular Swift prop across Ontario sportsbooks is the odds of her being mentioned during the Super Bowl MVP's speech after the game.

Update:  Here's how the conventional prop bets paid off. 

Dolly Parton explains and performs "I Will Always Love You"

A song made world-famous in 1992 by Whitney Houston - 

Whitney Houston recorded a soul-ballad arrangement of the song for the 1992 film The Bodyguard. Houston's version peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a then-record-breaking 14 weeks. The single was certified diamond by the RIAA, making Houston's first diamond single, the third female artist who had both a diamond single and a diamond album, and becoming the best-selling single by a woman in the U.S. The song was a global success, topping the charts in almost all countries. With over 24 million copies sold, it became the best-selling single of all time by a female solo artist. It was also the world's best-selling single of 1992.

- but written by Dolly Parton back in 1974, when it reached #1 on the Billboard country charts.  Author Curtis W. Ellison stated that the song "speaks about the breakup of a relationship between a man and a woman that does not descend into unremitting domestic turmoil, but instead envisions parting with respect – because of the initiative of the woman."

After the 1974 release, Elvis Presley asked to record the song, but his manager told Dolly she would have to sign over half the rights to it.  She declined.

I said, 'I'm really sorry,' and I cried all night. I mean, it was like the worst thing. You know, it's like, Oh, my God… Elvis Presley.' And other people were saying, 'You're nuts. It's Elvis Presley.' …I said, 'I can't do that. Something in my heart says, 'Don't do that. And I just didn't do it… He would have killed it. But anyway, so he didn't. Then when Whitney [Houston's version] came out, I made enough money to buy Graceland. 😀

Here's the Whitney Houston version [1.5 billion views] 

Understanding the Ottomans

When our new next-door neighbor turned out to be from Turkey, I decided I needed to learn something about Ottoman history and culture.  This book from our library was an excellent read, clear and concise and lavishly illustrated.  It covers history and geography, religion, science and medicine, literature, music, art and architecture, food, and more.  Here are some notes I jotted down while reading:

The Ottoman empire was perhaps the most cosmopolitan in the world; its 30 million subjects were from seventy ethnic groups, speaking twelve major languages. (30)

"In Aleppo in the mid-1700s, women constituted up to one-third of all commercial property buyers and investors... property laws in the Ottoman Empire were more favourable to women than in Western Europe." (49)

England became an ally of the Ottomans in the 16th century after the pope excommunicated the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I.  She initiated trade relations with the Islamic world, sending exotic gifts, including clockworks.  They returned perfumes and silks.  England then exported tin and lead, which they stripped from Catholic churches and monasteries.  The Ottomans used the lead and tin for weaponry against Catholic Spain, which delighted the English. (53)

The Ottoman empire implemented a meritocracy rather than a hereditary aristocracy.  "Rustem Pasha [was] originally a Catholic Croat swineherd... he became Suleyman the Magnificent's longest-serving grand vizier and married Suleyman and Roxelana's only daughter, the Princess Mihrimah - then the richest woman in the world." (74)

"During the 1845-52 Irish Potato Famine... the Ottoman sultan declared that he was ready to send £10,000 to help Ireland's farmers.  Queen Victoria... asked that the sultan send no more than £1,000, since she herself had sent only £2,000.  He complied, to spare her embarrassment, but in secret also sent five ships laden with food." (79)

"Images of women in the Ottoman Empire have been distorted by Western fascination with the harem... In practice, however, only about 2 per cent of marriages in the empire were polygamous... usually involved the taking of only two wives... and was often used as a good way of looking after widows or orphans who would otherwise have no support and nowhere to live.  In most Christian European societies, the solution was usually the convent or the asylum for the elite, and the street for the rest." (88)

"... coexistence and compromise between different manifestations of religious belief and practice is one of the abiding themes of Ottoman history... Orhan's Christian wife... was allowed to remain a practising Christian while at the same time being given the power to endow Muslim religious establishments." (90-1)

"Christianity, as well as Islam, was a religion that originated east of Europe, and there is no reason why Islam could therefore not be considered a European religion in the same way as Christianity." (92)

"... in 1830 Sultan Mahmud II had declared: 'I distinguish among my subjects, Muslims in the mosque, Christians in the church and Jews in the synagogu, but there is no difference among them in any other way.  My affection and sense of justice for all of them is strong and they are indeed my children.'" (99)

The most famous Ottoman admiral was Piri Reis, known now for his cartographic skillls, including his 1513 map - one of the oldest in the world to depict the Americas. (111)

Ottoman court music was played by several instruments "according to open-ended modal systems" and was never written down.  "This absence of notation encouraged improvisation and allowed a certain freedom in performance." (148)

The medical scholar Aksemseddin described microbe theory 200 years before van Leeuwenhoek: "It is incorrect to assume that diseases appear one by one in humans.  Disease infects by spreading from one person to another.  This infection occurs through seeds that are so small they cannot be seen but are alive." (170)

"The sultan's 'walled' tent palace was so large, according to the French traveller Antoine Galland, writing in 1673, that 600 camels were needed to carry the various parts." (259)

"The Turkish word kosk (our word "kiosk") is a natural extension of the tent culture, evolving gradually into a kind of garden pavilion.. [and tourist information booths]... The key piece of furniture in the Ottoman home was a padded upholstered seat or bench, without arms or a back, that in most Western languages is still known as an 'ottoman'." (261)

"The Seljuks are thought to have been responsible for the introduction of the tulip bulb into Anatolia from Central Asia, where the flowers grew wild... on the China-Kazakhstan border.  By the 15th century the flower was regarded as the symbol of the Ottomans.  It is still prominent in Turkish culture (stamps, coins, emblems, flags).  The word for tulip in both Persian and Turkish is lale, often used as a girl's name.  When written in Arabic script, lale has the same letters as 'Allah,' which is why the flower also became a holy symbol..." (266)

Open letter sent to President Biden by a coalition of young voters

Dear President Biden -

We are a diverse group of leaders, spanning race, class, and geography from youth organizations who mobilize our generations and build political power for young people. We mobilized the record youth turnout in 2020 that pushed your ticket over the finish line in key swing states. Many of us worked to provide the critical source of support for Democrats in the 2022 midterm elections that prevented the Red Wave. We have been preparing to mobilize the youth vote again as you face your re-election. We are experts in youth voting behavior who have worked tirelessly across the years to generate Generation Z and Millennial enthusiasm for civic action under a variety of circumstances. We share your conviction that the 2024 election will be one of the most important in American history. We write to you to issue a very stark and unmistakable warning: you and your Administration’s stance on Gaza risks millions of young voters staying home or voting third party next year. We are pleading with you to use every tool available to you to broker a ceasefire, now, and to revive the peace process. 

As we write this, over 1,400 Israelis, 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, and 100 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have been killed. We came of age during two decades of endless war that cost thousands of American lives and millions of lives around the world. We know that the longer you allow the siege of Gaza to continue, the greater the risk of this spiraling into a broader regional conflict, potentially pulling U.S. troops into combat or occupation. This would be both a moral and political disaster.

There is no way for a Democratic presidential nominee to win without significant youth voter enthusiasm and mobilization. Young people are a cornerstone of a winning Democratic coalition, and the vast majority of young people in this country are rightfully horrified by the atrocities committed with our tax dollars, with your support, and our nation’s military backing. We did not spend hours upon hours knocking doors and making calls to turn out the vote so that you could support indiscriminate slaughter of civilians and violations of international law. We fear that it will not be possible for those committed to turning out the youth vote this election to recruit the volunteers, organizers, staff, and donors needed to deliver the margins for Democratic victory down the ballot. Young people across the country are terrified, we are grieving, and we need to see the Biden administration stand up against all human rights violations.

The polls reflect what we are seeing in our communities and organizations over the last month:

*According to a recent Quinnipiac poll, young voters are deeply disturbed by your position on the war. Amongst voters under 35, 65% oppose “sending more military aid to Israel and only 22% approve of your handling of the Israel/Hamas war”. 

*The same poll found your favorability rating among voters under 35 has fallen to just 25%. While young people are particularly opposed to handing the Israeli military a blank check, 80% of Democrats and 66% of all likely voters support a ceasefire. 

*In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin the number of Muslim and Arab voters exceeds the margins you won by; your pollster Lake Research Partners found that support for your administration has “cratered among Muslim, Arab, and young Democrats in Michigan”, a state you won by only 150,000 votes in 2020.  Now, just 61% of Michigan Democrats under 30 support your re-election, with 21% opting to vote third party. 

*A New York Times poll shows you trailing Trump in 5 out of the 6 critical swing states by an average of 48-44%, which is in huge part driven by the fact that you currently are favored by voters under 30 by only 1 percentage point. 

*You are “bleeding support” among young Black and Brown voters in particular, who powered your victories in the key swing states that delivered you the electoral college.

You cannot win this election by only telling our generation that you are the lesser of two evils. The position of your administration is badly out of step with young people and the positions of Democratic voters, who have been shown to support a ceasefire by supermajorities in multiple polls. This is already becoming an issue we are hearing about from thousands of young people across the country. We cannot explain your position to the people of our generation.

For the sake of Palestinians, Israelis, morality, humanity, your own political future, and American democracy itself: we urge you to do everything in your power to stop the current cycle of violence and move from the path of war towards the path of peace and justice. Call for a ceasefire and a safe return for all hostages. Stand up for humanity on the international stage. Do not continue to enable war crimes through word, deed, or dollars.

While we have not always agreed, we have always appreciated your administration’s willingness to listen to our voices and include our interests as a vital component of the coalition you represent. Doing so helped to make you President, deliver a Democratic trifecta in 2020, and prevent a Red Wave in the 2022 midterms. However, we believe you are failing to hear us on this issue, and we are deeply concerned about the potential consequences. The decisions you have made thus far surrounding Gaza have made it harder for us to convince our communities to organize and get out the vote in 2024. We urge you to reverse course as quickly as possible. No more innocent people should be killed. We deeply understand that America and the world cannot afford another four years of far-right leadership. However, that is the path you are risking. Stand on the right side of history. Your legacy hangs in the balance.

Signed,

Natalie Fall, March for Our Lives, Executive Director 

Victoria Hammett, GenZ for Change, Deputy Executive Director

Elise Joshi, GenZ for Change, Executive Director 

Aidan Kohn-Murphy, Gen Z for Change, Founder and Senior Advisor

Jack Petocz, GenZ for Change,  Mobilization Coordinator

Varshini Prakash, Sunrise Movement, Former Executive Director

Geoff Simpson, Justice Democrats, Campaigns Director

Aru Shiney-Ajay, Sunrise Movement, Executive Director

United We Dream Action 

Evan Weber, Sunrise Movement, Former Political Director

Michele Weindling, Sunrise Movement, Political Director

Google Doc source (boldface added by me). Discussion at NBC News.  Comments closed.

Pink Floyd's "The Great Gig in the Sky"

YouTube link.

And I am not frightened of dying. Any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it – you've got to go sometime.

— Gerry O'Driscoll, Abbey Road Studios janitorial "browncoat"

I've been listening to this all week, wondering what the faint spoken words were.  The above sentiment is expressed at 0:38 and "I never said I was frightened of dying" (by Patricia 'Puddie' Watts, wife of road manager Peter Watts) at 3:33.

Fittingly, this "sky" song is the one that (coincidentally) plays during Dorothy's ride in the tornado in "The Dark Side of the Rainbow."

And, as I've always suspected, the sexual connotation of the vocals was intentional, as David Gilmour indicated in a Rolling Stone interview: "We wanted to put a girl on there, screaming orgasmically."

Reposted from 2013.  Most of the few regrets I have regarding my life are not about things I did, but about things I missed out on doing.  One of those regrets is that I never took the time to find and attend a Pink Floyd concert.  IIRC, my attitude when young was that it would be better to buy albums I could listen to many times rather than attend concerts once live.  In this case, I should have opted for the latter.

Just found the 1994 concert remastered:

I used to drive around with my windows down and this playing loudly in the car, enjoying the puzzled reactions of passers-by.

Unprecedented

A screencap from this evening's weekly weather forecast.  I've highlighted the historical seasonal norms for emphasis.  I spent most of my youth in Minnesota and the last 20 years in Wisconsin, and I cannot ever recall sustained warmth like this at the start of February.  All kinds of businesses and recreation are being devastated (snowmobiling, skiing, ice fishing, outdoor hockey, ice sculptures, winter festivals.  Some climate change skeptics are having to change their arguments from "not happening" to "nothing we can do about it."

Addendum:  Here's a graph of the ice covering Lake Superior (50-year-average blue vs. this year red).  (Other Great Lakes at the link are similar). Holy cow.

Addendum: a multifactorial (temps+snow) "winter season severity index" comparing this year to historic norms (for Minnesota):

If you are a snowshoe hare who turned white for the winter, you're in a bunch of trouble in a brown landscape.

Addendum:  A tornado was reported in Wisconsin on February 8, 2024 for the first time in recorded weather history.  Temperatures were in the 50s.

Yet another addendum (might as well keep adding these to the old post rather than start new ones):

Ocean surface heat continues to astonish seasoned observers and raises the prospect of intense storms later in the year. The hurricane specialist Michael Lowry tweeted that sea surface temperatures across the Atlantic main development region, where most of the US category 3 or stronger hurricanes form, “are as warm today in mid-February as they typically are in middle July. Incredible.”

More updates March 2024: end-of-season numbers and El Nino relationship: 

Nine consecutive record-setting months:

Revisiting the second season of Fargo

I was so impressed by this recent fifth season of Fargo that I decided to binge-watch season 2, which was previously my favorite.  I spent three delightful evenings enjoying the remarkable characters, the various twists and turns of the plot, and literally laughing-out-loud at some points.  Later this year I may redo 1&3, but not 4.

Introducing the sidebar

Not long ago I realized that not all readers of TYWKIWDBI know that there is a "sidebar" on the right of the main column of posts.  Apparently some prefer to access this blog only via the small screen of a phone, and are thus unaware of other resources located beyond the phone's screen.  The top part of the sidebar has "meet and greet" stuff (thumbnail description, search box, bio, list of followers, feed links etc).  Below that...

... is an expandable archive extending back to 2007 - useful on those not infrequent days when I don't have time to post new material and you'd like to browse some TYWKIWDBI posts without scrolling backwards forever from the front page.  I recently spent part of an everning revisiting 2015 and found several items to repost.  And below that...

... is the much more useful "Categories" index.  That's where I refer newbies who are visiting for the first time.  I suggest they pick out a topic of interest to browse, rather than trying to go back sequentially through pages that are individually a mish-mash of multiple topics (most new visitors reflexly click on "humor.")  The topic list is twice as long as the embed above.

Below that is material that is generally useless - a list of my sources for material, which is way outdated and full of dead links.  I should either revise or delete it.

New information about lepidoptera

New for me, at least - and quite interesting.  The commentary by Ze Frank is occasionally hard to hear, so clicking subtitles might be helpful.  Embedded below are a couple screencaps.  You can fast-forward through the one-minute advertisement at 7:14.  Via Neatorama.

Don't eat sprinkles if they are moving

Photo credit Molly Rutten, cropped for size from the original in a gallery at Bored Panda.