Image cropped for size from the one at the nocontextpics subreddit.

Road trips in (average) 70-degree weather

I like the "interior route" because it heads north from Madison, Wisconsin through Minneapolis to Duluth and then right past Leech Lake in northern Minnesota in the first week of June.  Perfect.

Those who live at these latitudes know that not only is the weather perfect then, but the twilight extends to way late in the evening.  For Leech Lake at the summer solstice, "civil twilight" extends to 9:45 pm, "nautical twilight" until 10:30, and "astronomical twilight" until midnight !

An outlet that will never again be built into houses

Identification at the HomeMaintenance subreddit.

One way to improve a "Little Library"

Via Twitter.

Vines are "smart"

This pipevine (planted seven years ago in a so-far-futile attempt to lure Pipevine Swallowtails) has extended above the adjacent trellis.  It used to grab hold of a tree branch and continue climbing but I pruned that branch off.  A single stem of the vine is too flexible to reach very high, but this one has braided itself using several strands, achieving a semi-rigidity that is enabling it to go ever higher looking for a grabbable site.

"Il Silenzio" (Maastricht 2008, Melissa Venema)

YouTube link.

This captivating 2008 performance of "Il Silenzio" features a 13-year-old Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands.

In a cemetery about six miles from the Dutch city of Maastricht lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in "Operation Market Garden" in the battles to liberate the Netherlands in the fall and winter of 1944–5. Every one of the men buried in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who tend the grave and keep alive the memory of the soldier they have adopted. It is the custom to keep a portrait of "their" foreign soldier in a place of honour in their home. Annually on "Liberation Day", Memorial Services are held for the men who died to liberate the Netherlands. The day concludes with a concert, at which "Il Silenzio" has always been the concluding piece.

Reposted for Memorial Day 2023.

Remembering the animal casualties of war

The sculpture in the photo is the Animals in War Memorial in Hyde Park.

The memorial was inspired by Jilly Cooper's book Animals in War, and was made possible by a specially created fund of £1.4 million from public donations of which Cooper was a co-trustee. The memorial consists of a 55 ft by 58 ft (16.8 m by 17.7 m) curved Portland stone wall: the symbolic arena of war, emblazoned with images of various struggling animals, along with two heavily-laden bronze mules progressing up the stairs of the monument, and a bronze horse and bronze dog beyond it looking into the distance.

The memorial focuses on service animals, but wartime also takes a substantial toll on pets:

The government sent out MI5 agents to watch animal rights activists, considered the mass euthanasia of all ‘non-essential animals,’ sponsored a clandestine anti-dog hate campaign and sanctioned the criminal prosecutions of cat owners for giving their pets saucers of milk.

The day Hitler invaded Poland, a BBC broadcast confirmed it was official policy that pets would not be given shelter. Panic-stricken people flocked to their vets’ offices seeking euthanization for their pets. That night, distressed animals cast out by their owners roamed the blacked-out streets, and five days of mass destruction followed.

London Zoo was also decimated. The black widow spiders and poisonous snakes were killed, as were a manatee, six Indian fruit bats, seven Nile crocodiles, a muntjac and two American alligators. Two lion cubs were put down, too.

The Animals in War Memorial has two separate inscriptions.  The large one reads:

"This monument is dedicated to all the animals
that served and died alongside British and allied forces
in wars and campaigns throughout time"

A second, smaller inscription notes:

"They had no choice"

 

Reposted from 2013 to accompany a standard Memorial Day post. 

If you are offended by a library book...

From Take Action for Libraries, via Kottke.

Related: School librarians face a new penalty in the banned-book wars: Prison

Two geography quiz questions

I missed two on my first read of the cartoon.  Answers are in the reader comments at the GoComics source.

Part two:  

Name the world capital closest to "Null Island" (0 degrees north, 0 degrees east) (five letters).

The number of letters is specified, because I encountered this while working the most recent Sunday NYT crossword puzzle.  Since I was on the clock, trying to finish in 20 minutes, I didn't take time to reason it out and wound up having to back into the answer via crossing clues.

More on Null Island.  You learn something every day.

Word for the day: sealioning

I encountered the term for the first time today in a post at Explain Like I'm Five.  Here are some comments from that thread:

It's a false pretense of an honest debate, it's very common in social media and basically a sub-set of trolling.  Basically the troll constantly peppers the victim with seemingly sincere requests for further discussion, further evidence, further reasoning without any desire to actually engage in a good-faith conversation. They're just trying to pester and annoy the victim to the point of frustration. If at any point the victim seeks to leave the cycle of debate the troll will declare victory, they they are actually the genuine "thinker" and that the victim was the troll or fool or wrong.

Wow, I had no idea this has a name. It's a pattern I learned to recognize after years on politics Twitter, and it made me trigger-happy to flee a conversation at the slightest whiff.  I have no way to prove it, but it feels like a lot of people who do this don't fully realize what they're doing - they've just stumbled upon the technique and realized it allowed them to "win" just about any debate through sheer hardheaded endurance. It's essentially just a variant of gaslighting.

It's also very successful as a performance, which is why you see it so much on Twitter or other discussions that feel more "public facing" than a comment buried 9 tiers deep in a Reddit threat. Not only do you "win," but people who are watching walk away thinking the other guy was a liar because he couldn't answer your questions.  That's a big part of why the alt-right loves it in particular, because almost all alt-right debates are intended to be performative. They want to change the minds of the people who are watching - they already know they probably can't change the mind of the person who is informed enough to know better.

Another term people use is JAQing off. "Just Asking Questions"

The cartoon embedded above is said to be the original source for the "sealion" reference.

Addendum:  a tip of the blogging cap to reader Bicycle Rider for locating Welcome to Advanced Trolling: Sealioning.

After the weekend, TYWKIWDBI will endorse a presidential candidate

It distresses me to no end to see that the news cycle is already going full-blast on the next presidential election cycle.  Everything I have read suggests that Americans are widely divided, and that even the major parties are unable to field candidates that appeal to the majority of voters in their own party - much less appeal across the blue-red divide.

After much thought I have decided that there is only one person who can bridge the gap that divides voters in this country.  I'll post their name after the weekend; you are welcome to speculate or offer your own choices in the Comments.

Jacqueline du Pré rocks the cello

Embedded above is her performance of Antonín Dvořák's Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191

A recently re-discovered recording of a concert held in tribute to the people of Czechoslovakia days after the Soviet Union invaded. Filmed live at the Royal Albert Hall in September 1968.

1. Allegro 0:00 

2. Adagio, ma non troppo 16:10 

3. Finale 29:01

Below is a tribute to her, assembled in 2017, 30 years after her tragic death (follow the link to YouTube).

While writing this post I decided I need to rewatch Hilary and Jackie, so I've requested the DVD from the library.

Excerpts from Mahler's Symphony No. 2 in C Minor

I don't believe I've ever posted any symphonic music by Mahler on the blog before.  It's time to correct that.  His "Resurrection Symphony" came to my attention during my collegiate years in the 1960s, and I was so smitten by the music that when my aunt and uncle got married, my gift to them was a boxed set of LPs of this symphony.  It is still among my all-time favorites.

Embedded at the top is the Allegro movement that opens this symphony, and here below is the end of the fifth movement that brings the piece to its triumphant close.

The nine intervening parts are also available online; just follow the YouTube link. Or just start the part 1 and let it autoplay through the subsequent parts.

Little-known animal facts

Nothing really new, but entertaingly presented.  Via Neatorama.

Cartoons about books

Three selections from The Ultimate Cartoon Book of Book Cartoons by the World's Greatest Cartoonists (Princeton Architectural Press, NY, 2019).  I was glad to find a Booth among the selections.