Month: March 2021

Transiting the Suez Canal: a lovely video

March 31, 2021 • 2:30 pm

Since the Ever Given got stuck in the Suez Canal (it’s now freed), a lot of us have been looking up the Canal, and asking questions like “can ships go both ways at the same time?” (Answer: yes, if they use the bypasses, but ships usually travel in convoys, two southbound and one northbound.)

What does it cost to go through? It’s expensive: an average of $250,000 (US) per vessel.

You can learn everything you need to know from the Wikipedia article on the canal, including when it was built: surprisingly long ago, between 1859 and 1869. A few essential facts:

 It offers vessels a direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reducing the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by approximately 8,900 kilometres (5,500 mi), or 8 days at 24knts (JAC: “knots”) to 10 days at 20knts. The canal extends from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. Its length is 193.30 km (120.11 mi) including its northern and southern access-channels. In 2020, more than 18,500 vessels traversed the canal (an average of 51.5 per day).

Here’s a satellite photo of the Canal.

And a diagram of the complex setup. I always wondered if there was a bridge over it, and there is one, as well as a tunnel.

This is all an excuse to show this lovely 2½-minute GoPro video of a ship going through the canal in real time; a passage takes 11-16 hours because low speeds are mandated.

The music is a bit annoying, so you might want to turn the sound off.

You can see a similar transit of the Panama Canal (11 hours) here. I actually did half of this while lecturing on a Sci Am cruise to the Caribbean. We went through the locks, guided by those powerful “mule trains” that serve not to power the ship (it steams under its own power), but to guide it and keep it centered in the locks. After going to Lake Gatun (I got off to visit the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in an island in the lake), we turned around and went back out to the Caribbean.

Lagniappe: Burger  King put out an ad showing a Double Whopper blocking the Canal, presumably because of its size. Predictably, some of The Easily Offended got upset, and gave several reasons for their distress.

McWhorter: Excerpt 6 from “The Elect”

March 31, 2021 • 12:30 pm

John McWhorter’s published the sixth installment of his upcoming book, The Elect, and you can read it free on Substack by clicking on the link below. But do consider subscribing.

This section is about the recent saturation of America with the history of slavery and its sequelae, which, McWhorter maintains, is just an intensification of what most people knew for several decades. He cites the popular t.v. series “Roots”, the movies “Django Unchained,” “12 Years a Slave,” and various books and museum exchibitions, though it’s clear that the pressing of slavery upon us has been intensified since the death of George Floyd. But the existence and horrors of slavery are not a secret, nor was the slaveholding of people like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington.

A couple of excerpts:

Ta-Nehisi Coates urges “the end of scarfing hot dogs on the Fourth of July while denying the facts of our heritage.” But this is the divorcé who can’t stand seeing his ex have a good time. To tar today’s America as insufficiently aware of slavery is more about smugness and noble victimhood than forging something new and needed.

To wit: is there any degree of saturation that slavery could reach into the American consciousness that would satisfy The Elect, such that they would allow that a battle had been won?

Yes, a degree of saturation that would mandate reparations for African-Americans, like the ones just enacted in Evanston, Illinois. But we’ll talk about that on another day.

To hope that every American – white everyman in South Dakota, Indian-American Silicon Valley entrepreneur, Korean immigrant grandma, American-born Latina hospice care supervisor, daughter of Bosnian immigrants working on her social work degree, Republican councilwoman in Texas – will be wincing thinking about plantations while biting into their Independence Day weenie, even in a metaphorical sense, is utterly pointless. Pointless in that it will never happen, and pointless in that it doesn’t need to.

I can guarantee that psychologically, black America does not need their fellow countrymen to be quite that sensitized. A poll would reveal it instantly, as would just asking some black people other than the Elect ones, and the reader likely readily senses that. I can also guarantee that profound social change can happen without the entire populace being junior scholars about racist injustice. Such change has been happening worldwide for several centuries.

But Elect ideology requires you to classify what I just wrote as blasphemy, and claim endlessly that slavery is a big secret in America. . .To be Elect is to insist that America hushes up slavery. This is a falsehood. It endlessly distracts minds that would be better put to addressing real problems.

McWhorter goes on to say that he has no objection to removing statues and honorifics from Confederates or even from racist notables like Woodrow Wilson, but he draws the line at people like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. He highlights the problems, which many of us have pondered, with damning figures of the past by the moral standards of the present, and gives two examples:

In the future, being pro-choice may be deemed immoral. The celebration of any conglomeration of cells chemically set to become a Homo sapiens as “a person” may spread to intellectuals of influence and become as intelligentsia-chic as Electness is now. How do we feel about people of 2100 advocating that educators not celebrate the achievements of people in 2020 because they were not opposed to abortion?

Or, why are today’s Elect not roasting Barack Obama for his only having espoused gay marriage via “evolving”? Note that we are only to pretend not to understand history and circumstance when the figures are white.

. . . Obama was dissimulating as a thoroughly sensible political feint, and The Elect pardon Obama for it, allowing an “evolution” of a kind that could never rehabilitate other figures in their minds – i.e. Washington freeing his slaves. Apparently Obama’s (supposed) homophobia was okay because he is “intersectional” – as in, because his brown skin placed him under the thumb of white hegemony, it’s okay that he was homopho … but see? There is no logic here.

I’ll give one more excerpt and then pass on; there’s a lot more to read in the piece, including a thoughtful discussion of how Critical Race Theory and anti-racism affects people’s view of their “identity”, and why there are so few books by black writers that aren’t about race.  But I have tacos to eat, and miles to go before I scarf.

To be Elect is to insist that figures in the past might as well be living now, and that they thus merit the judgments we level upon present-day people, who inhabit a context unknown to those who lived before. As many kids would spontaneously understand, this is false. As to whether adults know something they don’t, I suggest trying to explain to a fifth-grader the case for yanking down the Lincoln Memorial.

To the extent that no one would look forward to having to kabuki their way through that, we know that this witch-hunting against long-dead persons is a distraction from doing real things for people who need help here in the present.

Day 2: Texas, Luling to San Antonio

March 31, 2021 • 11:00 am

Well, it’s a good thing I posted on the day before yesterday that I was going to eat at the City Market in Luling at 10 a.m.Tuesday, because I met two friends there: both readers of my website who traveled to the BBQ joint to surprise me. One came from near Houston, a four-hour drive, and the other from San Antonio, an hour away. You’ll see them shortly, though I will withhold names as I forgot to ask permission (it was okay to post photos, though).

I went to this place many years ago and pronounced it the best BBQ of any sort in America. I was thus worried that it wouldn’t be as good as I remembered, for there had been dark mutterings on Yelp and other sites that the brisket was sometimes dry.

I needn’t have worried, though.

Below: outside of the City Market in Luling. At 10 a.m. there was nobody there except a guy standing in front of the restaurant. As I walked in, he came up to me and said, “You look like a guy who likes ducks.” He then introduced himself as a reader of my website, and said he’d gotten up at 4 a.m. at his home north of Houston to meet me in Luling. (I had no warnings of this.) He presented me with four lovely miniature wooden ducks (one is in the sipping water posture we often see in our Botany Pond ducks). What a fantastic thing to give me! (I just found out via email that they were given to my friend 25 years ago by an Argentinian dentist.)

He asked if he could join me for a meaty breakfast and of course I agreed instantly. We walked inside this unprepossessing building, and could smell the BBQ instantly.

The inside. There was another guy, somewhat younger, standing right inside. I thought he worked there, and asked him how we ordered (it’s complicated there, as in many BBQ places: you order and pay for the meat in one place, and the drinks and desserts in another). It turned out that he was ANOTHER reader of this site, living an hour south in San Antone, and had independently decided to meet me.

So I got to have breakfast with two readers. How great of them to take the time to drive to Luling to say “hi”! I was very touched, and we had a nice chat. It’s a good thing I always do what I say I will, and at the time I say I’ll do it, or they might have missed me.

Ordering the meat in the back room. I had a sample of their specialities: brisket, pork ribs, and their famous sausage. I also had two slices of bread and a slice of raw onion. That’s all they have besides a pickle and a jalapeño pepper, but you can get beer, soda, tea, and banana pudding in the main room.

Below is my late breakfast (or early lunch): two pork ribs (superb) sitting atop a juicy (i.e., fatty) pair of brisket slices, with a sausage to the right and raw onion on the side. And, of course, sweet tea. The brisket, which I doused with the City Market’s homemade BBQ sauce, was part of a combination that still makes me think this is America’s best BBQ.

Meals are served on butcher paper, not plates, and you’re expected to eat with your hands, but they will give you a plastic knife or fork if you ask.

My newfound pals, neither of whom had eaten there before. They both became instant fans of the BBQ and both ordered some extra to take home. Guys, if you want me to give your names, email me.

The guy who brought me the ducks also brought his dog and his leash-trained cat, named Sagan (after Carl), to meet me. (He said they both travel well.) I got a good cat fix, petting Mr. Sagan. Note the liberal stickers on his car; he’s also a pro-masker and an atheist, so I’m surprised he’s still alive in Texas! (He’s not from Austin, a blue area.)

From Luling it was about an hour and 15 minutes south to San Antonio. I had three hours before I checked into my cheap motel, so I took a walk downtown to visit the area, the famous River Walk, and the Alamo.

I was pleasantly surprised by the old Art Deco architecture downtown, as well as by lots of original stores with their original signs, and many old theaters.

Some buildings (I know not what they are):

 

Front view of the building above;

 

Nowhere but in the South could a hotel bear this name:

An old Walgreen’s drugstore with an original sign:

And where do you find big hat stores any more? Here’s Paris Hatters. They specialize in cowboy hats like Stetsons, as this is cowboy country.

Just within a few blocks I found lots of old theaters with their original signs. Sadly, they’ve all been closed for a year.

 

 

 

An old original ticket booth in an abandoned theater. I’m reflected in the window.

The famous River Walk, built along the San Antonio River from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. It’s peaceful, with all the touristy stuff on the streets above, and you can take barge tours down the narrow river.

The River Walk also leads to the most famous building in Texas: the Alamo, It was originally a Spanish mission built in 1824 and called Misión San Antonio de Valero. Its grounds were quite extensive, and housed a whole community of priests and native Americans, who lived and worked on the grounds. What you see below is actually the church of that mission; much of the rest has been destroyed, especially in the great battle between Mexicans and American colonists in 1836.

You can take tours of the inside, but they were all booked up yesterday. I was happy enough just to see the famous facade.

The Battle of the Alamo lasted less than two weeks, from February 23 to March 6, 1836, as the Army of President General Antonio López de Santa Anna of Mexico besieged the structure and the Texans (who claimed the land for their Republic) and Tejanos inside.  On March 6, the Mexicans scaled the wall and slaughtered nearly everybody inside, including William B. Travis, James Bowie, who gave his name to the famous knife, and, of course, Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier.

The famous battle cry “Remember the Alamo” was used by Texas troops in the the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848, when U.S. troops defeated the Mexican Army.

A cannon barrel from the Battle of the Alamo, placed on a reconstructed carriage.

A statue of William B. Travis, commander of the Republic of Texas and of the troops at the Alamo. He was killed in the battle; only a dozen people, mostly women and children, survived. The rest were killed on the spot by the Mexican troops or executed later.

Davy Crockett with his frontiersman garb and coonskin hat. (Yes, I had one when I was a kid because of the famous Disney television series.)

Davy has an eponymous hotel nearby.

A Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus; male) said hello at the Alamo.

Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Batley

March 31, 2021 • 9:30 am

Today’s Jesus and Mo strip is called “Batley”, and a note explains:

The story of Batley Grammar School and the Motoon is here.

In short, the British teacher showed his grammar-school pupils a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad as part of a lesson in religious education. The teacher was fired, the school apologized, but locals (presumably Muslims) continued to stalk the teacher at his home, so that he now fears for his life. There were big protests at the school, and the teacher has gone into hiding (there’s another article at The Daily Fail).

Mo gets the attitude of The Offended pretty much right.

Note to readers

March 31, 2021 • 8:00 am

Once again I must remind commenters of two things.

1.) Please follow the commenting Roolz listed here. Follow them scrupulously. If you are new here, read them before you post.

2.) Do not dominate threads. Rule #9 says this:

Try not to dominate threads, particularly in a one-on-one argument. I’ve found that those are rarely informative, and the participants never reach agreement. A good guideline is that if your comments constitute over 10% of the comments on a thread, you’re posting too much.

People are blithely ignoring this. Remember, the thread is for everyone, not for individual people to dominate. It disturbs me to see an individual commenting over and over again, as if they want to control the discourse.

3.) Be civil. Do not call the other commenters names, accuse them of being dishonest, or liars, or any other nasty epithet. If you have a strong disagreement with someone’s ideas, go after the ideas, not the person.

Thank you.

Wednesday: Hili dialogue

March 31, 2021 • 6:45 am

Good morning on the last day of the month: Wednesday, March 31, 2021. The month is going out like a lamb, at least in Texas. And it’s National Oysters on the Half Shell Day. I’m in San Antonio, and have more food and travel adventures to describe in a post today.

News of the Day:

I haven’t of course been following the news, but did dip into the papers this morning to discover that

a. A trial showed that the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is highly effective against coronavirus in children 12-15 (figures weren’t given). This is important because we need those kids getting vaccinated if we’re to attain herd immunity.

b. The Washington Post has a painful tale of an eleven-year-old boy who got the keys to his dad’s gun safe, opened it, pulled out a loaded revolver, and shot himself through the head. He died, of course. The dad had several guns, and had even bought the boy a .22 rifle at the age of ten. Gun sales shot up during the pandemic, and these unintended killings, which outnumber the “intended” use of home firearms, are on the increase. This story is part of an upcoming book by John Woodrow Cox, Children Under Fire: An American Crisis.

c. Here’s a story from Reuters (click on screenshot) about escalating migration. Despite Biden’s pleas that people “stay home,” immigrants are hearing that the “door is open,” but may close in a few months, spurring desperate attempts to get into the U.S. now:

d. France appears likely to have its third national coronavirus lockdown as hospitals across the country are experiencing a flood of patients. I know these thoughts are selfish, but I wonder if I’ll ever get back to France again.

Finally, today’s reported Covid-19 death toll in the U.S. is 549,552, an increase of “just” 685 deaths over yesterday’s figure.  The reported world death toll stands a 2,806,709, an increase of about 6,400 deaths over yesterday’s total. 

Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili’s been reading about Critical Race Theory:

Szaron: What did you come here for?
Hili: I’m enjoying my partly white privilege.
In Polish:
Szaron: Po co tu przyszłaś?
Hili: Korzystam z mojego częściowo białego przywileju.

Little Kulka climbed the beams of the veranda—just like Hili used to do!

Caption: Kulka discovered that it’s possible to jump up on the beam under the roof.

In Polish: Kulka odkryła, że można wskoczyć na belkę pod sufitem.

From Jesus of the Day, and I have to admit that I find this pretty damn funny:

A meme from Nicole:

A tweet from Barry, who says, “Every one is a beautiful runway model.”

From Luana. Check out the linked Spectator article, which is about the worst example of wokeness I can imagine:

An excerpt:

Last Wednesday, Brauer College in rural Victoria forced its male pupils, some only 12 years old, to stand at a school assembly, face the girls and apologize for rape, sexual harassment and all the other facets of male wickedness. All this was apparently some ghastly effort to promote gender reconciliation through gender self-incrimination.

‘I had girls behind me crying,’ one student said. ‘We had to apologize for stuff we didn’t actually do.’

‘I don’t think it’s OK to be sexually assaulted. I felt a bit under pressure to stand up and if I didn’t I felt like I was a bad person,’ said another.

Yes, it happened, but the school later apologized for making the boys do something that the school considered “inappropriate.”

From Matthew: Two not-so-funny sea jokes:

An anniversary from yesterday. I wouldn’t agree that Sgt. Pepper is the Beatles’ best album.

This is what’s known as a “bad-ass mouse”. Sound up to hear the screaming.