Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
When someone asks me to explain JavaScript's quirks: pic.twitter.com/gf0xAwopU8
— Reginald Braithwaite (@raganwald) July 4, 2016
I find that “funny” license plates usually run the scale from trying too hard to idiot identifier, but this one is an exception. (Always had a soft spot for a VW Bug ever since my dad got one of the first ones in New York City. Just before his family increased from three kids to six… )
Apart from fond memories, what’s on the agenda for the evening?
Happy Great Auk Day, Juicers. Can we have just one day a year when we remember the many incredible species that our own has driven from existence? I propose today, July 3, because while every extinction story is tragic, none, in my mind, surpasses that of the great auk for sheer pointlessness, ignorance, and brutality. But more on that in a moment.
The great auks suffered mightily at our hands, even by extinct-animal standards. As Elizabeth Kolbert reports in her Pulitzer Prize winning book The Sixth Extinction, they numbered in the millions and could be found throughout the North Atlantic. Unfortunately, they were prized for their meat, feathers, and oil; and also had no natural fear of humans, so could be slaughtered with ridiculous ease and in ridiculous numbers. She quotes one explorer who boasted that, “In less than half an hour we filled two boats full of them.”
And then there’s this recollection from an English seaman: “You take a kettle with you into which you put a Penguin [Great Auk] or two, you kindle a fire under it, and this fire is absolutely made of the unfortunate Penguins themselves. Their bodys being oily soon to produce a flame.”
The last colony of great auks lived on Geirfuglasker (the “Great Auk Rock”) off Iceland. This islet was a volcanic rock surrounded by cliffs which made it inaccessible to humans, but in 1830 the islet submerged after a volcanic eruption, and the birds moved to the nearby island of Eldey, which was accessible from a single side. When the colony was initially discovered in 1835, nearly fifty birds were present. Museums, desiring the skins of the auk for preservation and display, quickly began collecting birds from the colony. The last pair, found incubating an egg, was killed there on 3 July 1844, on request from a merchant who wanted specimens, with Jón Brandsson and Sigurður Ísleifsson strangling the adults and Ketill Ketilsson smashing the egg with his boot.
Great auk specialist John Wolley interviewed the two men who killed the last birds, and Ísleifsson described the act as follows: “The rocks were covered with blackbirds…they walked slowly. Jón Brandsson crept up with his arms open. The bird that Jón got went into a corner but [mine] was going to the edge of the cliff. It walked like a man … but moved its feet quickly. [I] caught it close to the edge – a precipice many fathoms deep. Its wings lay close to the sides – not hanging out. I took him by the neck and he flapped his wings. He made no cry. I strangled him.”
As I said, uniquely pointless, ignorant, and brutal – and so, also, just bottomlessly sad.
Wikipedia lists dozens of other Holocene extinctions, including:
4866 BCE – Irish Elk
1627 CE – Auroch (Europe’s native ox)
1662 – Dodo
1768 – Stellars Sea Cow
1883 – Quagga
1889 – Hokkaido wolf (deliberately poisoned)
1914 – Passenger Pigeon (great recent New Yorker piece on this one)
1918 – Caroline Parakeet
2006 – Baiji dolphin (Yangtze River)
2011 – Western Black Rhinoceros
So much tragedy—and so much more to come, as many scientists predict massive extinctions due to climate change. (See Kolbert’s excellent book.)
July 3 is somewhat inconvenient for us Americans, coming right before our big national holiday. And perhaps the extermination of one species is no more significant than that of any other. But extinction is a global problem, and (to me and at least some others) there really does seem something uniquely tragic about the fate of the great auk; and so I nominate it as a stand-in for all the others. So: July 3.
How about you, Juicers? Would you pick the great auk or another species or event to symbolize the extinction problem? And perhaps the scientific among us can weigh in on the possibility of resurrecting lost species, Jurassic Park style.
As you go through your day, I would be grateful if you would give some thought to the great auk and other amazing ones who lived rich lives and had rich heritages, only to be wiped out by us, the supposed sapiens.
For those who just can’t be bothered, here’s the world’s laziest wolf who can’t be bothered getting up and actually responding to the other wolves.
Late Evening/Early Morning Open Thread: I Can’t Be Bothered EditionPost + Comments (133)
A study found that the psychology and behavior of elder monkeys and elder humans have many commonalities, indicating at least a partial genetic basis. One thing they may do better than us, though, is tolerating their youth. Although elder monks don’t really want to play with the kids, they also don’t mind having them on their lawn:
And around 20, (their “retirement age”) monkeys, like humans, had fewer social contacts and approached others less frequently. What surprised the researchers is that this apparent withdrawal wasn’t driven by a social tendency to avoid old monkeys: Younger monkeys still approached and groomed their elders. And it wasn’t that older monkeys just weren’t interested in anything: They still responded to photos of other monkeys and hissed at others during fights. “They are still very much tuned into what’s going on,” said Dr. Fisher. “But they don’t want to participate themselves.”
Dr. Freund said she sees the same behavior patterns in humans.
The dominant psychological theory to explain this in people is that we become more choosy with age in order to maximize the use of the time we have left with death in sight. While monkeys have excellent memories, there is no evidence that they are aware of their impending deaths. So if both humans and monkeys act similarly, perhaps this theory is just a way of rationalizing a natural behavior with biological roots, said Dr. Fischer.
Also, too:
Perhaps monkeys and humans just lose stamina with age, and maybe the monkeys are too tired to deal with relationships that are ambivalent or negative, she added.
Monkey wisdom.
Below, some more fauna-related links. Let’s discuss them in the comments. Also, as a reminder I will be in Davidson NC and available to meet for breakfast or coffee on Monday, July 11. Also will be in Golden, CO on Sunday evening July 24 and Monday morning (maybe) July 25. (Or look me up if you will be at the Colorado VegFest.) Please email me (not comment) if you can meet up. Would love to meet you all IRL!
Animal activists both within and outside China are starting to seriously take on the Yulin (China) Dog Meat Festival, during which 10,000+ dogs are killed in especially horrific ways because participants believe meat from a tormented dog tastes better and yields health benefits. Multiple photos have documented doomed dogs still wearing collars, indicating that they were probably someone’s cherished companion who was kidnapped.
Faunasphere: Don’t Get Off My Lawn EditionPost + Comments (45)
GOP freshman senator Joni Ernst continues her party’s august record of dealing with the important issues. Forget about climate change, a Supreme Court vacancy, and the blood of dozens fresh in Orlando: the real threat to our lives and democracy is Meatless Monday. A couple of weeks back, she introduced federal legislation that would stop the Department of Defense from spending any money on it or any program designed to reduce meat consumption by U.S. military personnel.
Ernst is from Iowa, Gestation Crate Hellhole of the U.S., so one could argue that she’s just looking after her constituents’ interests. But that’s not what she said in an emailed statement. What she said was—I’m paraphrasing a bit–“OMG WHERE WILL OUR SOLDIERZ GET THEIR PROTEINZ?!?11!?”
It’s an incredibly stupid argument to make in 2016.
Take it away, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, sponsor of Meatless Monday:
Recently, freshman U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) threatened to legislate the removal of Meatless Monday from military menus, suggesting that soldiers and military personnel would not be able to meet protein needs if they cut out meat one day a week. The senator is misinformed about human nutrition, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines (DGAC) and the Meatless Monday campaign.
The 2015 DGAC recommend that for people who consume 2,000 calories per day, the ideal amount of “protein equivalent foods” to consume daily is 5.5 ounces. Protein equivalents include beef, pork, lamb, poultry, seafood, eggs, tofu and soy products, beans, legumes and nuts. According to the Dietary Guidelines, which are revised every five years by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Department of Health and Human Services, protein needs can be adequately met with a variety of foods, including plant-based proteins such as the above-mentioned tofu, soy, beans, legumes and nuts.
It is more than feasible for a person to remove meat from his or her diet one day a week and still easily meet the Dietary Guidelines recommendations for protein….Furthermore, removing meat one day a week will actually help Americans meet additional components of the Guidelines, particularly recommendations for increased vegetable consumption and a reduction in saturated fats.
They conclude: “Observing Meatless Monday in Department of Defense dining facilities could improve the health and well-being of our soldiers, and it has the potential to contribute to reduced food costs and fewer environmental and climate impacts.”
Ernst–a real charmer who boasted during her campaign of castrating baby piglets and promised to “make ’em squeal” in Washington–is obviously happy to sell out the health of the soldiers she claims to care so much about for the benefit of her pig-torturing constituents. And she’s no doubt basking in the attention her little amendment has generated. But even if she succeeds in getting it passed, the meat industry is fighting a losing battle. Meat consumption (other than chicken) has been on a decline for years in the U.S., a trend that will continue and accelerate.
PS – Not Just Related But Yuge: Yesterday, The Guardian reported on a plan by China to cut meat consumption by 50% for public health, ecological (land degradation), and climate reasons.
Would You Take Nutritional Advice from a GOP Pig Castrator?Post + Comments (136)
We went birding this morning but got off to a late start, which is a recurring theme in our birdwatching chronicles. Whose fault is that, I wonder? Hmmm? Hmmmmmm? Anyway, here’s where we set off with our field glasses; it’s a park along the shores of Tampa Bay:
Looks nice, doesn’t it? But in fact it is a zika-skeeto-infested hellhole! We’re used to slathering ourselves in Deep Woods Off and sunscreen before even going out to check the mail, so of course we’d sprayed ourselves down thoroughly. But the mosquitoes were so thirsty for our blood that they dive-bombed our eyeballs and burrowed into our ear canals. Not pleasant.
We didn’t see many birds due to the aforementioned late start and because the tide wasn’t optimal for shorebirds. But we did see this antediluvian critter:
I believe it is a snapping turtle. It had just emerged from a weed-choked canal, hence the crap on its shell. We weren’t sure if it was a snapper or an alligator turtle, which looks very similar only with more ridges on the shell. But we decided it was a snapper.
We also saw this lovely pelican flying around hunting for fish:
You can always count on pelicans around here. Even if every other bird is hidden away from the heat, the hardy pelican will still be in evidence. Ibises too, but they are as common as pigeons around here, so I didn’t bother taking a picture of those goony birds.
We saw plenty of eagles and ospreys in their nests, but they nest so high up it’s not worth getting a shot unless you have a camera with a telephoto lens. All I had was my iPhone and field glasses, which I used in combination to get a shot of St. Pete across the bay:
Yeah, no. That didn’t work too well. Maybe someday I’ll get an actual camera. But with that, we beat a hasty retreat, down approximately a pint of blood each thanks to the relentless mosquitoes.
Now I’m figuring out the order in which I will run a bunch of errands and generally procrastinating on cleaning the house. I’ve got a houseful of people coming over tomorrow to celebrate three things at once: Father’s Day, our daughter’s graduation from high school and the annual summer departure of the snowbird relatives.
I’m planning to make ropa vieja and yellow rice since it’s the sort of thing that holds up well when people are showing up at unpredictable times, and it doesn’t require use of the oven — it’s too goddamned hot to use the oven!
I will also make a key lime pie since that is my hubby’s favorite dessert and perhaps roasted shrimp cocktail, plus a big old salad. What are you up to today?
Zika-Skeeto-Infested Hellhole (Open Thread)Post + Comments (170)
After revoking the WaPo’s press credentials for accurately reporting that he insinuated President Obama is in league with terrorists, Trump is now doubling down on that very same bat-shit insane accusation and tweet-wanking over his own alleged prescience yet again:
An: Media fell all over themselves criticizing what DonaldTrump "may have insinuated about @POTUS." But he's right: https://t.co/bIIdYtvZYw
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016
The embedded article from Trump propaganda outlet Breitbart is entitled “Hillary Clinton Received Secret Memo Stating Obama Admin ‘Support’ for ISIS.” Vigorously auditioning for the role of “MiniTruth” in the dystopian hellhole of a Trump administration, the Breitbartians offer proof of nothing but their own disconnection from reality and inability to comprehend an intelligence report. Hillary Clinton is not amused:
Your @GOP presidential nominee responding to a terrorist attack with lies and conspiracy theories.https://t.co/TZJmXefmx4
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) June 15, 2016
Early on in this circus, someone observed that Trump’s success in the GOP primary was based on his willingness to ratchet up the insults and accusations beyond the bounds of rational discourse but that eventually, he would run out of room to escalate without sounding like a drooling psychopath.
Fellow citizens, we’ve arrived at that moment: The primaries officially ended last night, and Trump is already accusing both his opponent and the sitting President of the United States of being traitors who conspire with ISIS. I don’t believe in Peak Trump, but I am having a hard time imagining where he goes from here. The Illuminati? Chem trails? Lizard people? Help me out here…
Because I plan to go to bed tonight thinking about homegrown tomatoes and the year’s first daylily… and imagining that is a juggler in the fourth photo below!
More bounty from faithful garden commentor Opie Jeanne:
Volunteer chives, foxgloves, and baby lupine in the gravel
Beans just starting, volunteer lupines
New rose garden. 3 years ago this had a dying pine tree and some English ivy (invasive species here) and a row of elderly lavender, also dying. The rocks were there and we salvaged a few of the old lavender and added a lot of young plants. Had to fix the drainage in this part of the yard before we did anything.
[Ed: That can’t be a juggler leading the parade, can it?]
REPOST: Sunday *Night* Garden Chat: Woodinville RespitePost + Comments (23)
Several folks are clamoring for something a bit more frivolous. So here’s two different fun dog videos and several panda videos to sooth your raw emotions.
Great news to end the week, Juicers! In his excellent book The Better Angels of Our Nature—which makes good summer reading or listening, btw—Steven Pinker writes about Europe’s 18th and 19th century “humanitarian revolution,” the period of moral evolution during which people stopped indulging in such cruel medieval pastimes as recreational torture, dueling, cat-burning, and (for realz) cutting noses off.
It’s hard to deny that we’re going through a new revolution, this time focused on the animals. (Nick Kristof recently called it The Humane Revolution.) Every day it seems like there’s another piece of good news—and this week, two huge, wonderful stories broke:
1) Wednesday’s Washington Post reported that the Senate approved an update to the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act that included provisions to reduce the number of animals used in tests of toxic chemicals:
The EPA should use non-animal alternatives where possible, the legislation says, and must come up with a plan to develop and adopt more non-animal methods, such as computer modeling or cell-based tests.
The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), an advocacy group which seeks to to reduce animal testing, predicts the bill will save hundreds of thousands of animals from being used in painful and often pointless experiments (such as the infamous Draize test). And it sets a great precedent:
Millions of animals are killed in U.S. lab tests and experiments each year, the vast majority of them mice, rats, birds and fish. The legislation addresses only some of these tests, and it doesn’t forbid them. But animal welfare groups say it sets an important precedent that is a reflection of both changing public attitudes and a slow, ongoing movement away from animal testing by some industries and research agencies. The National Institutes of Health, for example, has deemed biomedical research using chimpanzees unnecessary and ended it.
Kudos and thanks to PCRM and all the other great animal activists who worked diligently on this issue, and thanks especially to Corey Booker, who spearheaded the inclusion of the provisions. The bill has already passed the House and President Obama is expected to sign.
From hundreds of thousands to hundreds of millions…
2) As Vox reported yesterday:
In a massive victory for animal rights activists, and for America’s chickens, United Egg Producers, a group that represents 95 percent of all eggs produced in the United States, has announced that it will eliminate culling of male chicks at hatcheries where egg-laying hens are born by 2020.
This may sound like a technical development, but its magnitude in humanitarian terms is difficult to overstate. That’s because standard practice at hatcheries that supply egg farms with hens is to kill almost all male chicks shortly after birth, usually by grinding them to death, as you can see in this horrifying video…
Gassing is also sometimes used. [Also, many are buried alive.–HR.] Hundreds of millions of male chicks are killed this way, every year, in the United States alone.
Ending chick culling has become possible recently due to technology. United Egg Producers says it will replace culling with “in-ovo egg sexing.” This is a process that can determine the sex of chicks before they develop inside their egg. That enables egg producers to terminate the male eggs and potentially use them to help make vaccines or for pet food (most humans would presumably be grossed out by cooking fertilized eggs). Horrific infanticides will be replaced with humane, painless chicken abortions.
This link contains a good description of the in-ovo process and technology.
Egg consumption is declining big-time, as people say no to both the cholesterol and the cruelty, and also as great plant-based alternatives come on the market. So that may also have something to do with the announcement.
Kudos to the activists at the Humane League who helped make this happen, and here’s to an ever kinder and less violent world.
We went hiking yesterday at an inland nature preserve near Brooksville, Florida. It’s called Chinsegut, and we’ve been there before. It’s a lovely place with easy trails through sandhill and hardwood hammock habitats:
It’s usually an easy hike, but yesterday, it was hotter than a red-headed roofer. We got a late start, so we were traipsing through the woods during the suffocating heat. The birds had more sense than we did — they mostly stayed hidden in the woods. But we did see a couple of wild turkeys on the way to the preserve:
We also saw the gopher tortoise pictured below on the trail. It was greedily devouring a plant when we first noticed it. I interrupted its meal long enough to take this photo:
Gopher tortoises dig burrows all over the place, so you have to watch your step around them. They are otherwise harmless, unlike this snapping turtle* we saw, which gave us the most evil look, as if we’d trampled its eggs (we hadn’t). They can be nasty customers, so we kept our distance:
After a relatively short but sweaty hike, we figured we deserved a treat, so when we got home, I made this peach pie, pictured below when it was still hot and bubbly, fresh from the oven:
I need to work on my crust-crimping game, but the pie is pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. The trick is to mix the sliced peaches and half the sugar in a bowl and let it set for a bit. Then put a colander on a saucepan, dump the peaches into the colander to drain and return them to the bowl.
Then you boil the sugary peach juice in the saucepan until it reduces down to a syrup and add it back to the peaches. That way, your pie won’t be too runny, which is always a danger with peach pies.
Anyhoo, that’s what we did with our Saturday. Today is the last day of our vacation, so we’ll have to make the most of it. We’re still deciding how — baseball, beer and BBQ are under consideration. Got any plans today?
Open thread!
* A couple of commenters pointed out that this is probably a Florida softshell turtle. I think they’re right.
Turkeys, Turtles and Pie — Oh My! (Open Thread)Post + Comments (223)
For your drifting off to sleep enjoyment this evening you have your choice: 15 foot bull gator toddling about a golf course in Florida, the two female protagonists from The Ring and The Grudge promoting their new movie by throwing out the first pitch at a Japanese baseball game, or both! Pleasant dreams!
Late Night/Early Morning Open Thread: Sleep SoundlyPost + Comments (139)
We’ve been on a mini-vacation this week, which included hiking and birdwatching for a few days in Southwest FL. The region is one of the best in North America for observing birds, but summer (which is already is here, despite what the calendar suggests) is the worst time for it since a) migratory birds have already decamped, and b) it’s hot AF.
Still, it has been a wildly successful trip in terms of birds spotted. Yesterday, we saw a Mangrove Cuckoo, which even highly skilled birdwatchers (not us!) find challenging to spot. It was pure luck — we heard it and had the good fortune to see it fly across the road right in front of us.
We also saw innumerable Magnificent Frigatebirds, Ospreys, Bald Eagles, Egrets, Herons, Double-Crested Cormorants and Anhingas. We saw plenty of Ibises as well, but since they routinely de-bug our lawn, an Ibis spotting is ho-hum to us — we’re spoiled!
I’ve resisted investing in a camera so far, but this week, I’ve regretted that. Here’s a drawing of a Great Egret that landed on the dock railing at our rental:
And here’s a lovely Green Heron who was almost close enough for a decent iPhone photo:
We saw a gorgeous Reddish Egret too, but he was too far away to photograph without a telephoto lens. The bonus sighting of the day was when we were looking up and then happened to look down long enough to see a little otter scamper across the trail.
Overall, a worthwhile trip despite the wretched heat. Open thread!
As your liaison to the Faunasphere, I feel like I have been remiss by not posting something about the incident in Cincinnati. I guess I didn’t because the whole situation is just too depressing and it also didn’t seem right to post about it during Memorial Day weekend. Also because I wasn’t sure if I had anything to say that wasn’t being said by many others.
Also, to be honest, this is one of the times when the animal activist community isn’t showing itself in he best light. Here’s what I wrote on FB shortly after the story broke and the online temperature started to rise:
Dear Vegans, The killing of the endangered gorilla in Cincy Zoo was horrible. No argument there. And zoos suck. No argu there, either. BUT when you start attacking the toddler’s parents, especially in vicious terms, you are not helping. First, “inadequate parenting” could be an unfair accusation–kids can get lost in a flash. Even if it’s not, tho, you are providing fodder for yet more “angry / abusive vegan” stories in the media, and thus making everyone’s job harder. No matter what you think of the situation or the parents in particular, please keep a civil tone b/c your need to vent doesn’t outweigh the animals’ need for us to represent their interests responsibly.
Many activists, including every leading / respected one I’ve read, has basically said the same thing. But their voices seemed drowned in a classic Internet tidal wave of venom aimed at the parents, which is a drag. (For the record, I didn’t mind so much when the animal loving hoards went after that ahole dentist who illegally killed Cecil the Lion. But this is way different.)
I’m usually pretty happy to (privately) judge parents whose kids annoy me, but in this case I really can’t. I think these parents were just monumentally unlucky that their lose-the-kid moment happened at the zoo instead of Kmart or Kroger, like it does for many people. (Plus, you know, racism.) And is it unreasonable to ask that the Zoo do more to defend the parents? I get that they probably can’t due to legal CYA. But does anyone else have the sense that the dialogue is unfolding in ways the zoo finds beneficial? It, in my view, is ultimately responsible for this tragedy, because, yeah, it’s not actually that hard to design a barrier that will keep out even a determined four-year-old. As the lawsuits unfold, I’m guessing we’ll hear about safety concessions made in the service of “visitor experience.”
On the other hand, the barrier did indeed remain unbreached for years and many thousands of other visitors. So although I think zoos are at best a highly mixed bag, maybe this is one of those slippery incidents where no one is proximally to blame.
At the same time, poor, poor Harambe..
That’s my 2c. What’s yours?
PS – Here’s a brilliant (and funny) take.
Or so the goat would tell you. From “occasional commenter” Isobel:
This is Shit the Goat. He is named Shit because we are constantly saying “Oh shit, the goat’s in the house!”. The puns truly write themselves with that name.
He is a six-month-old male goat who is very friendly and likes to lay on the porch and eat with our dogs. Over the last two months, he has become a part of the pack. He loves to eat beans and corn from my hands. He also loves table scraps, specifically ramen noodles.
***********
The late great Molly Ivins once had a dog named Shit (for reasons, but not the same reason).
And if you need another pick-me-up for a Monday morning, the “Chewbacca Lady” [warning: autoplay] really does have the most infectious laugh…
What’s on the agenda as we start another week?
Monday Morning Open Thread: Pets Get to Come into the House!Post + Comments (125)
In a massive victory for animal rights activists, and for America’s chickens, United Egg Producers, a group that represents 95 percent of all eggs produced in the United States, has announced that it will eliminate culling of male chicks at hatcheries where egg-laying hens are born by 2020.
