[Grania here again. Jerry is still under the weather so I am posting this for him. Have a lovely Sunday!]
It’s Sunday, April 28, 2019, and ye shall not gather sticks on pain of being stoned. It’s National Blueberry Pie Day, and I say to ye again, as I have said before, that ye shall week out those pies only at Helen’s in Machias, Maine. For she gathereth only the tasty lowbush blueberries. In Canada it’s Workers’ Mourning Day, commemorating those who have been injured, killed, or sickened on the job.
It snowed heavily in Chicago yesterday, but it’s all melted by now. Temperatures will continue to be cool, probably suboptimal for waterfowl.
On this day in 1789, mutineers on the Bounty, led by Fletcher Christian, dumped the authoritarian leader Lieutenant William Bligh and 18 crew into the ocean in an open boat. Bligh and his men made it to land and back to England, prompting a punitive expedition to find Christian, who had settled with his men on Pitcairn Island. Some mutineers were sent back to England and hanged, while many on Pitcairn, including Christian, were killed by the locals.
On this day in 1924, Wembley Stadium (originally named Empire Stadium) was opened. In 1945, Benito Mussolini and his mistress Clara Petacci, as well as two other fascists, were killed by a firing squad. Their bodies were then hung upside down, debased, and mutilated.
Exactly two years later, Thor Heyerdahl and five crewmen left Peru on the raft Kon-Tiki to show that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. In fact, this is very unlikely, though perhaps a few native South Americans made it to Polynesia in the 12th or 13th century. The Americas were in fact settled by Asians who crossed the Behring Strait and worked their way south. The raft (below) is on exhibit in the Kon-Tiki Museum in Oslo, Norway:
On April 28, 1967, boxer Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and thereby lost his World Heavyweight title. He was convicted of draft evasion but the Supreme Court later overruled his conviction. Exactly two years after Ali refused to step forward during his induction, Charles de Gaulle resigned as President of France.
In 1973, or so says Wikipedia, “The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd, recorded in Abbey Road Studios goes to number one on the US charts, beginning a record-breaking 741-week chart run.” I don’t like Pink Floyd at all, but I know that many readers do.
On April 28, 1988, the fuselage of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 ripped open in mid-air, sending flight attendant Clarabelle Ho Lansing to hear death when she was sucked out of the cabin and fell 24,000 feet into the sea. Amazingly, pilots were able to land the plane on Maui. 60 of the 89 passengers on board were injured (6 seriously), but there were no other deaths. Here’s the ill-fated Lansing and the plane:
This is how the plane, a Boeing 737, looked after it landed. It’s remarkable that nobody else was killed and that the plane was able to land at all.
Finally, it was 15 years ago today that CBS News revealed evidence of the abuse and torture of prisoners by Americans in Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq war. Eleven soldiers were convicted of maltreatment, assault, battery, and dereliction of duty and sent to prison, while six others were dishonorably discharged. You will remember this famous photo of a detainee, Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh, being tortured:
Lynndie England served two years in jail for her crimes; you’ll remember this photo as well. She is unrepentant.
Notables born on this day include James Monroe (1758), Lionel Barrymore (1878), Kurt Gödel (1906), Harper Lee (1926), James Baker (1930), Saddam Hussein (1937), Ann-Margret (1941), Alice Waters (1944), Terry Pratchett (1948), Jay Leno (1950), Elena Kagan (1960), Penélope Cruz (1974), and Jessica Alba (1981).
I could find only one notable who took the Big Nap on April 28: Benito Mussolini (1945; see above).
Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili is unintentionally having a Titanic moment, only with profoundly better taste.
Hili: Make me a portrait like in a Dutch painting.A: Here you are.
Hili: Zrób mi portret jak z holenderskiego obrazu.
Ja: Proszę bardzo.
A meme sent by reader Barry:
From the Jesus of the Day Facebook site:
From reader Jon: an eight-year-old’s critique of a thesis on genomics:
My 8yo came across my bound thesis in the basement, "read" it, and spontaneously wrote me this note. I will now be listing her as a suggested reviewer for all my manuscript submissions. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/ZnKvThzxfC
— Adam Phillippy (@aphillippy) April 26, 2019
Three from Heather Hastie. Look how this sea lion, doglike, waits patiently for noms:
https://twitter.com/LlFEUNDERWATER/status/1121776715359870976
A remarkable feat of canid prestidigitation:
https://twitter.com/AMAZlNGNATURE/status/1121774037766524928
Make mine a double!
https://twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/1121942545687302144
Tweets from Grania. Altruistic trees divide the sunlight (not really what’s happening):
Crown shyness, the phenomenon in which the crowns of fully stocked trees do not touch each other, is usually shown from below. This is what it looks like from above https://t.co/BDGrWi7WBX [source of the gif and full video: https://t.co/u9EGazXCB9] pic.twitter.com/dsoghn3MYl
— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) April 17, 2019
From an Antarctic explorer:
It's true! When I landed back in New Zealand after 5 weeks in Antarctica, I remarked "ahhh, fresh air!".
I then paused and thought about it, since Antarctica is likely the freshest air I've experienced.
I realized my concept of "fresh air" was being able to smell plants. https://t.co/BEWkOLl88r
— Ariel Waldman (@arielwaldman) April 18, 2019
This is adorable, and what a great use for retired tennis balls!
https://twitter.com/41Strange/status/1118988075269406720
Tweets from Matthew. The greatest cat pwning ever! The caption, of course, should read “the seal”, not “the sea.”
https://twitter.com/TheDreamGhoul/status/1121926645215047680
The change in from baby to adult tapirs is one of the most remarkable modifications of pattern I’ve seen. The German reads, “Today is World Tapir Day, and therefore everything is possible. Do something with it!”
Heute ist #worldtapirday und damit ist heute alles möglich.
Macht etwas daraus! pic.twitter.com/GRGeKq73uP— Freifrau von Hanebüchen (@Burgfrollein) April 26, 2019
Read the thread: this fly in a collection was found to be only the second specimen ever collected. And look at those crazy antennae. Neither Matthew nor I have any idea what they’re for:
One of our students found this crazy fly at our collection today. It has "paddle-like" antennae. I have never ever seen anything quite like it. To me it looks like a bee fly. Any thought @flygirlNHM? pic.twitter.com/Su7kX2IZXb
— Giovanni Ramón (@gmramon) April 26, 2019
Sorry to hear about the extended illness. Get better soon.
The deplorable actions of the Bush administration during the Iraq wars was only prelude to worse actions by the administration in power today.
Dubya should be grateful to Trump. Since the latter came along Dubya has been pretty much rehabilitated in the popular eye and all it took was time and Trump. (There’s an aphorism somewhere in there.)
I think future historians covering Trump’s presidency will be sorely tempted to declare the whole thing ‘non-canon’. Just pretend it never happened, like the third X-Men movie.
Yes, it is like a person getting along with a mild pain and then along comes a greater injury and pain that makes you forget the old one. It is not possible for the republicans to mask or repair the disgusting performance of the past even if they wanted to repair. Lots of people are dead in many places and you can’t bring them back. The performance of the current republicans can mask their past but the historians will remind us.
Then along came Barack and he was more prissy. He killed his women and children by remote control. Its simple really: Power corrupts. China is next. They’ll be brutal too.
If you want to use your subjective ideas to put Obama in the same boat with the Bush administration or the one today, no one can stop you but I am sure the historians will not see it that way. Far as I recall Obama did not start a war in Iraq and using cooked up facts in order to do it. Also did not torture the enemy as a practice approved by his administration. In fact, Obama was one of the few who did not vote to support the Iraq invasion.
I can see you have a thing about Obama. US targeted killing campaigns have been up and running since 9-11. Estimates are hard to establish, but civilian deaths run at about 10 or 20% of those killed. During Obama’s tenure, attempts were made to minimize civilian deaths. Obama signed an executive order with the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the number of civilians killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets. DT recently rescinded that order.
Ah, only 10 to 20% . .
It’s not about Obama. The point is whoever has power WILL abuse it. There’s no maybe about it. When its aimed at others one can rationalise; when its aimed inwards ‘attempts were made’ ring hollow; as will thinking ‘intelligence officials’ will report honestly.
You’d prefer carpet bombing, maybe? Look, I’m a peacenik. But this country occasionally has enemies, including terrorist enemies intent on doing this nation, and its people, grave harm. They need eliminating from time to time.
If you’ve got a better idea than drones, or than putting American GIs in harm’s way, for getting the job done, I’m all ears.
“…this country occasionally has enemies, …”
I have the impression it needs enemies and looks for them.
Do you think the 19 hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001, were enemies the United States of America went looking for?
Maybe I’m weird. I’d like America to do less bombing all round. Less invading; Less subverting democracy. Hey, its just a wish . .
Deep stuff. Worthy of being put on a t-shirt and sold at one of those shops with bongs in the window.
I like your nick. I used to call my dog “bewilderedbeast” after he met a cat that tried to scratch his eyes out. Prior to that he had considered that all cats were trustworthy!
Dubya should be tried as a war criminal. His invasion of Iraq had no acceptable motive. It seems it’s main aim was to show the Middle-East who’s boss. Man, did that backfire.
One has to give it to Mr Trump: he did not start a war (yet), except for trade wars.
Personally, I am NOT rehabilitating Bush Jr.
“The deplorable actions of the Bush administration during the Iraq wars was only prelude to worse actions by the administration in power today.”
Really? What has Trump done that is worse than the catastrophic blunder of the Iraq war?
I (like many others) have far less positive opinion of Trump than you, but here I agree with you.
I can only guess you don’t watch the news. May you get only Fox.
So I take it you can’t answer my question. What has Trump done that is worse than starting a preemptive war of choice that cost hundreds of thousands of lives, trillions of dollars, and destabilized the middle east?
This is what’s wrong about you anti-Trumpers. You throw out these absurd, bullshit claims and don’t expect to be called on it because you assume you’re talking to a like-minded crowd that will confirm your opinions. This is how you insulate yourself in the bubble.
If our host on this site does not band you for your childish and insulting comments I will at least ignore you myself. Take your ridiculous babble elsewhere.
You have hurled far worse insults and ad hominems at others disagreeing with you. And the last time you told rusty to leave the site for disagreeing with you, remember that multiple people rebuked you (all anti-Trumpers), including perhaps the most respected commenter on this site, Malgorzata.
You need to learn how to deal with people disagreeing with your opinions.
+1
So you’re insulted by being asked to clarify what you said? Curious.
Please enlighten those of us who don’t watch the news: what has Trump done that is worse than the Iraq war? Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything at the moment although some of his actions may prove fairly catastrophic at some point in the future.
Trump hasn’t started any unnecessary wars yet; I’ll give him that. But I’m not completely buying his isolationist trip, either, and saber-rattling comes naturally to right-wing authoritarians such as the Donald. (Let’s not forget his “great big nuclear button” and “fire and fury” spiel quite yet.)
I fear that, if the House votes articles of impeachment against him, or if Trump goes even further underwater in polls as the 2020 election approaches, Trump might just start a “splendid little war” as a distractionary maneuver and to rally the base.
If someone wanted to lay the right odds, I’d be willing to bet good, green money that Trump will drop bombs on some country we’re not currently at war with between now and election day — and, from where I sit, the leading contender looks to be Iran.
That’s ridiculous. Will never happen. And your premise is flawed; Trump’s base is very anti-interventionism.
I don’t think so. I think they’d be very happy for the USA to bomb the Iranians back into the stone age. What they have a problem with is long interventions where the US takes casualties and appears generally not to be superior.
It wouldn’t be the first time that the leadership of a country started a small war to distract from problems at home.
Yes. I fear for Iran. And how many thousands of innocent Iranians might have to die to improve Trump’s re-election chances.
cr
As a member of Trump’s base I can tell you that’s simply not true. That’s not to say there could never be any reasons we would want quick-strike military action but by and large the base is very much against military ventures of all sorts so anything that smelled like a wag the dog scenario would alienate. There were many Trumpers who grumbled about his bombing of Syria and Afghanistan early in his presidency.
Trump explicitly campaigned on that brand of non-interventionism and even talked about rolling back parts of the global military empire such as bases in Germany and Japan – a proposal liberals used to be receptive to before Orange Man Bad said it.
Conversely, wag the dog bombing has always been Hillary’s bag. Her husband actually did it to Sudan in ’98, to horrific effect on the Sudanese, and she has never condemned that action to my knowledge. Hillary was always clearly the interventionist war candidate in the 2016 election as she, her husband, and the previous administration that she was a part of have an odious history of bloody foreign follies followed by catastrophic results. So it’s pretty ironic that anybody would wring their hands about Trump on this matter, especially if They Were With Her in 2016.
The kitties and I hope you are feeling better soon.
The cat slapping down the seal, reminds me of those, oh so fake, displays by “ministers of the gospel” slapping down their congregants. The cat, of course, is sincere.
This is what to do when someone sniffs your hair or invades your personal space uninvited. Swift and immediate. So simple.
I did that recently with the wife. Stood very close behind her, and starting floofing and sniffing her hair. “What are you doing?” “Pretending to be Joe Biden.” “Eewww!!”
Joe would now be much better off if he’d encountered such a cat early in his political career.
LOL
I clerked for a federal judge right out of law school, and, during the two years of my clerkship, the judge’s court-reporter was this gorgeous young Asian-American woman, the daughter of an American soldier and his Korean war bride (this was quite a while back), with beautiful straight black hair down to her waist.
When the judge was on the bench, the two of us would sit next to each other on a platform just below the judge’s desk, and we got to be good friends. When there was a trial underway, and the judge called for a “bench conference” outside the hearing of the jury, the two of us would go stand on either side of one end of the judge’s desk, so she could take down the proceedings and so the judge could whisper in my ear if he wanted me to research some legal issue. The lawyers would then form a semicircle around us so they could discuss whatever matter was under consideration with the judge.
There was this one little weirdo lawyer who practiced regularly in our courtroom, a guy with a pompadour hairdo and garish ties, but kinda funny in his own way and the type of oddball I tend to take a shine to.
Anyway, during bench conferences, he would always worm his way to a spot right next behind the court reporter. Every so often I’d look across her stenography machine and catch him sniffing her hair. If no one else was paying attention, I’d catch his eye, give my head small shake, and silently mouth the words “knock it dafuq off.”
What he did was wrong, and there’s no excusing his invasion of her space. But I gotta tell ya, every so often when we were sitting next to each other, I’d catch a whiff of her hair — quite innocently and by accident, mind you — and it did smell freakin’ wonderful. 🙂
Great story! (“Pompadour hairdo” – snort.) Some shampoos can be intoxicating, but it IS possible to enjoy flowery wafts discreetly and inaudibly. 🙂
Looks to me like the seal is ‘taking a fall’, hamming it up for the camera. A real drama queen.
cr
Yes, she’s in on it – a shill.
You’d hope no-one sees those tennis balls and decides to have a game with them.
I wonder who cares to give homes to rodents, here we cannot get rid of them!
There are many, many species of rodent, the majority of which do not in any way cause problems for us humans. They are vital components of ecosystems and I hope that any thinking person will see that it is as important for us to seek to conserve them as it is to conserve pandas, lions or even ducks.
Harvest mice Micromys minutus are a case in point. They are in no sense a nuisance to humans but they are declining in at least some parts of their range, as a result of changing agricultural practices and consequent loss of habitat. They are entirely deserving of our support (and incredibly cute too, though I personally believe that ugly species are also deserving of conservation).
You may have a problem with rats or house mice but it is rather sad to condemn the entire Rodentia as a result.
In Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, you can briefly see a recreation of the first Abu Ghraib picture in the background as our main characters enter the refugee camp.
The mention of Cuaron’s Children of Men reminds me that I recently read a nifty piece about the directors who came of age in the Ninties by Richard Lawson in the “Hollywood” issue of Vanity Fair. You can find it here if you’re interested, BJ.
Thanks!
I think Children of Men is one of the greatest films of its decade. Unfortunately, I was not impressed with Cuaron’s followup.
Just got back from seeing a great documentary, part of a weekly series they’re doing at the local theater — Cradle of Champions, about the New York City Golden Gloves tournament. Beautifully shot and edited, compelling characters.
Weird thing was, the crowd seemed split about evenly between film fans and fight fans (and maybe a few other oddballs like me who are fans of both). 🙂
Are you a fan of MMA as well? I like boxing, but I love MMA. I didn’t like it fifteen years ago, but it’s developed so much now, and with a good knowledge of grappling, wrestling, and striking, it’s utterly fascinating at the top levels.
Isn’t that a bit like saying you like to watch at a slaughterhouse where they use bludgeons instead of lethal tools?
I…don’t get it. Is there a reference here I’m missing? I’m genuinely confused.
That’s interesting. I’m an old school boxing fan and had an initial aversion to MMA style fighting. In the early days it was quite sketchy and didn’t approach the level of a “sweet science”. But it’s hard to deny how legitimate MMA has become. Today it’s top level athletes involved in a highly competitive and refined craft.
There’s still something about boxing that remains intriguing to me. It’s the limitations. No kicking or grappling, it’s a face to face competition of strength and agility. Within those limitations, poetry emerges.
Boxing can definitely be great, but I love how adding all the other martial arts forces fighters to change their striking strategy (if you just box, you’ll be taken down by anyone with even the slightest knowledge of wrestling/grappling), and the grappling is my favorite. A billion tiny movements that occur in milliseconds. If you’re interested, watch this breakdown of a pure grappling match between Dean Lister (jiu jitsu) and Josh Barnett (catch wrestling). Lister hadn’t been “tapped out” (forced to tap due to a submission hold) in 18 years, despite being a world-renowned practitioner and competing at world championships consistently. He’s one of the best in the world. This breakdown is absolutely incredible. The match went on for 20 minutes, but this shows the minute details even I will miss because many take place in only a fraction of a second. As a catch wrestler, Barnett did 100 things a jiu jitsu practitioner never would have expected. It’s why Sakuraba was so dominant against the Gracies back when that family seemed invincible.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X5N_7LCVtM
Anyway, it’s the melding of all these martial arts — jiu jitsu, muay thai, kung fu, capoeira, boxing, wrestling, kickboxing, catch wrestling, etc. — that I find so exhilarating,
Yeah, that’s pretty cool. Listor just had no answer. In addition to his technique, Dean used his size and bulk advantage well. Wow, I’ll bet those knee rides to the face are painful!
One thing catch wrestling involves and jiu jitsu doesn’t is regularly applying pressure to certain points to force your opponent to change position. If they need to, say, slip their thigh out from under a knee ride, that split second of movement can allow you to advance your position. And Barnett is one of the greatest catch wrestlers ever.
Nope, not an MMA fan. I’m an old-school Marquess of Queensbury kinda guy, Beej.
I used to like boxing a lot more, but the often corrupt judging (Fury vs. Wilder?!?) and the rather boring era it recently went through put me off of it. There’s one person whose matches I never miss: Lomachenko. That man is a wizard, and I’m a sucker for great footwork.
On April 28, 1967, boxer Muhammad Ali refused to be inducted into the U.S. Army and thereby lost his World Heavyweight title. He was convicted of draft evasion but the Supreme Court later overruled his conviction.
“I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.” — Muhammad Ali, 1967
The late Muhammad Ali is thought of as a beloved figure today, especially by people whose memories of him don’t go back to much before his appearance in those d-CON tv commercials, if they go back to before his days suffering from Parkinson’s disease at all. But on that day in 1967 when Ali appeared before his draft board in Houston and refused to step forward when his name was called to be inducted into the US Army — on that day, Muhammad Ali was the most despised man in America, especially in white America, and even more especially among the conservative white men of the so-called “greatest generation” who had the run of the country in those days.
That was the demographic that supplied nearly all of the sportswriters of the time. Ali (or “Cassius Clay” as was his name in those days) had never been a favorite of theirs from the get-go, with his braggadocio, his reciting poetry about the round in which he would knockout his next opponent, and his talk of how “pretty” he was. This ran 180 degrees counter to the prevailing jock ethos of the day — the ethos typified by baseball icons like Stan Musial and Joe DiMaggio — that you let your performance of the field do the talking for you, an ethos followed by previous boxing luminaries like Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano.
Then, immediately after winning the heavyweight championship from Sonny Liston in Miami in March 1964, Cassius Clay changed his name to Muhammad Ali and announced he had joined the Nation of Islam, the despised black-nationalist cult of Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad. For years, many sportswriters (including the ones for Ring Magazine) as well as much of the rest of white America refused to recognize his name change, insisting on calling him “Clay.”
In the meantime, the US war in Southeast Asia was beginning to rage, with LBJ providing evermore men and munitions to Gen. William Westmoreland’s doomed efforts to route out the Vietcong and stave off the North Vietnamese. Ali’s draft board connived to have him re-classified 1-A for the draft, providing white America a chance to teach that “uppity nigger” a lesson.
Ali likely could have gone into the service and fought exhibitions (as Joe Louis had during WW2) or had a quiet, easy ride of it (as Elvis Presley had in the 1950s), but he chose instead to take a principled stand against the war — a stand that drove his haters, especially the war hawks, to even greater paroxysms of rage. For his efforts, he was immediately stripped of his heavyweight crown and denied a license to fight in all fifty states. He was also stripped of his passport, so couldn’t fight overseas either. And eventually, he was convicted of draft-dodging (by an all-white jury) and sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Ali’s principled stand was vindicated by a unanimous US Supreme Court in 1971, and he went on to regain his heavyweight title in the “Rumble in the Jungle” in Zaire against George Foreman in 1974. But the hate never really faded away until he’d retired from the ring and took ill.
That’s a sad tale.
Principled indeed, way better than feigning bone spurs, I’d say.
Bertrand Russell had been a conscientious objecter during WW1, and so was familiar with the opprobrium that Ali was having to deal with. He made a phone call to Ali from England, which in the 1960s must have a big deal. Here is Ali’s recollection of the event.
Good old Bertie.
Great story, grasshopper; I’d never heard that one before.
I never heard of this connection before. Thank you for relating it.
Bertrand Russell had been a conscientious objecter during WW1, and so was familiar with the opprobrium that Ali was having to deal with. He made a phone call to Ali from England, which in the 1960s must have a big deal. Here is Ali’s recollection of the event.
(Hope this is not a double post.)
My opinion is quite like that of the ole white US folks. Ali’s joining the Nation of Islam and his name change indicated hatred towards whites and the West. Not surprisingly (to me), he praised the Soviet Union, one of the two hostile superpowers whose proxy North Vietnam was. And he later gave, to my opinion a very elusive answer when asked about 9/11 and Islam.
It is possible, for many people, to admire a person’s accomplishments in one area, while disagreeing strongly with their views on other things.
I agree with both of you mayamrkov and max. Ali was somewhat of a boyhood idol of mine yet I have mixed feelings about him because of some of his more controversial views, his meanness and his racism. Nevertheless, I largely give him a pass because he was a complicated, unusual individual – a real weirdo in a lot of ways and like max said, I can separate his odious views from his courage and athletic excellence. I like Great American Weirdos, we have less of them today than times past and I think we’re poorer for it. Also, Ali was of generation when racism was a real problem in America, so that’s some context.
Finally, as verbose and opinionated as he could be, Ali’s day job was to hit people in the head, and he excelled at that!
I could never understand how one could forfeit a *sporting* title for a *political* offence.
Quite aside from the fact that “World Heavyweight” – if one gives the name any credence – should not be in the power of any particular country to award.
cr
If typos in this transient material are of interest, here’s one for today:
“On April 28, 1988, the fuselage of Aloha Airlines Flight 243 ripped open in mid-air, sending flight attendant Clarabelle Ho Lansing to hear death”
Altho she probably did hear it coming.
I remember that tragedy pretty well as we were still living in Hawaii at the time. This event and the investigation made it obvious that inspections on older airplanes was not good enough. The corrosive nature of things in Hawaii made rusting work much faster and metal fatigue from many landings and take offs (pressurization) was also involved. As usual in the industry, we use tombstone technology to solve these problems.
It reminds me of the Chalk Airlines crash in 2005. The plane was a Grumman Mallard built in 1947. A wing fell off in flight due to corrosion killing 20 people. The airline shut down. Salt water is very unkind to aluminum.
I took a few minutes to look at the report on line concerning this crash you mention. A classic case of poor maintenance if ever there was one. The Hawaii incident showed a critical fatigue problem with aged airplanes of that type. Hawaiian air makes several flights per day between Islands so the plane goes through pressurization many more times than the average 737.
I worked on F-100s many years ago and one of the things they had to do with these planes was take them in and put new wing center sections in after 4000 hours. I guess they originally did not expect them to reach so many hours.
It was quite a young plane in terms of years, but very old in terms of pressurisation cycles.
Also, IIRC, the split should have been stopped by strengthening bands bonded to the skin at intervals of a foot or so, but 737’s built around that period had the straps bonded to the skin in a defective fashion.
Not all that different to the fault that brought down the early Comets.
cr
Crown shyness is a most interesting phenomenon. There are several theories for it, but none is certain, AFAIK. The video illustrates, I think, how one of them—reciprocal pruning—might work. Wind driven collisions break off adjacent branches creating the gap.
It is interesting. I wonder if trees emit a repellent airborne signal for growth, or if contact is repellent. But reciprocal pruning is certainly easier.
But, if there was signaling, how would it evolve? A responsive species would reduce growth while an adjacent tree of another species might continue to grow, crowding out the first, which might then go extinct.
Some plants are known to chemically repel other plants. I don’t see how that could be exploited to another’s advantage. But I do think reciprocal pruning is the most parsimonious explanation.
I read a book recently on the sensory abilities of plants, which I found fascinating. It is titled “What a Plant Knows.”
I suspect contact repellent as I have watched two trees for 30yrs + growing next to each other working it out sort of speak.
The fate of the Bounty crew is not quite right. None of those who made it to Pitcairn were hanged. They were found by an American sealer in 1808, and the British took no action against the sole surviving mutineer. A lot of the people who made it to Pitcairn (both English and Polynesian) were murdered, but by one another. There were no locals– Pitcairn was uninhabited at the time (which is why they set up there). A few mutineers were hanged, but they were captured in Tahiti, shortly after the mutiny, having not gone off to Pitcairn with Christian.
Gregory is correct.
Get well soon, dear Professor.
Schrodinger plates: wave them goodbye, for they’ll soon be particles.
On the sea/seal thing, I read that as sea animals were no exception.
A possible update on that story is a putative human footprint among a putative tool and bone assembly in norther Patagonia, Chile dated to a median 15.6 ka, with a lower bound of 13 ka [ https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0213572 ]. Slightly older than 100 km distant Monte Verde finds.
Either of those dates are consistent with genome data and modern models of migration, if you pick your reference wisely [ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07374-1 , https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2018/11/ancient-dna-reveals-complex-migrations-first-americans/ ].
Good reads. Thanks for providing these.
William Bligh – do not listen to the propaganda from the mutineers. He was a good bloke & an amazing navigator. The mutineers were kidnappers & rapists…
The films are part of the propaganda…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty
Heyerdahl doubtless had the science wrong, but the book, “Kon Tiki”, was a great read for the 12-13 year old I was when I first encountered it. Also, I would have sworn there were no other crew members for the main crossing. Do I have that wrong?
Very.
01/04/2010
Knut Magne Haugland of Norway, passed away on December 25. He was 92. Haugland was one of six men, who with Thor Heyerdahl in 1947, successfully crossed the Pacific Ocean in a 45 foot raft made of balsa wood and bamboo — named Kon-Tiki