Readers’ wildlife photographs

August 30, 2015 • 7:30 am

We start today with a bird that Stephen Barnard photographed in his hand. The explanation:

Immature male Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas). He stunned himself by flying into a window. After I snapped the photo he seemed OK.

And Joe McClain from Williamsburg, Virginia, sent some animal “selfies” as well as a picture of his son doing field work:

You remember the pictures I send of my son Jake trapping kestrels on the Eastern Shore? After he got his degree at William & Mary, he enrolled in a graduate biology program at the University of Arkansas, studying with David Krementz. Jake is still trapping birds, but now he’s after bobwhite quail [Colinus viginianus]. His current project involves studying the effect of mesopredators on quail populations in an area of Missouri.

He traps and bands the quail. There’s a Jake and Colinus virginianus selfie and a couple of other quail photos. He sometimes gets other birds in the live trap. It’s something to see the beautiful pattern on these birds close-up.

Mesopredators are what we call “varmints” back home — coyotes, raccoons, possums and the like. They love eggs and can make a serious dent in the quail population. To track the activity of the varmints — I mean mesopredators — Jake has set up a series of game cameras. He has collected a set of interesting field candids of mesopredators and bycatch. I am particularly fond of the color ones, especially the shot showing the stealthy, single-file approach of the three Procyon lotor.

Other photos show a fox, a bobcat, possums, and an armadillo. Some turkeys wandered into the shot and there’s also a young buck photobomber.

My beautiful picture

Oliver Sacks died

August 30, 2015 • 6:45 am

I needn’t explain to the readers who Oliver Sacks was. And I say “was” because The New York Times announced that Sacks died this morning in New York. He was 82.

As I’ve written on this site, he documented his diagnosis of terminal cancer (a melanoma in his eye that eventually metastasized to his brain) and his thoughts on mortality in a series of poignant pieces, also in the Times. Today’s arts section of the paper also contains a postmortem appraisal, “Oliver Sacks, casting light on the interconnectedness of life.”

He was a delightful guy, much admired and loved, and, at the end, finally came out as a gay man. How sad that he found true love only at the end of a closeted life! But at least he had that experience, short as it was.

It’s a convention to say at these times that although the man is gone, his works will live on. And they will—for a while. But, truth be told, I’d rather he had stayed with us a goodly while longer.

Sacks’s last piece in the Times, “Sabbath“, appeared just two weeks ago, and ended this way:

And now, weak, short of breath, my once-firm muscles melted away by cancer, I find my thoughts, increasingly, not on the supernatural or spiritual, but on what is meant by living a good and worthwhile life — achieving a sense of peace within oneself. I find my thoughts drifting to the Sabbath, the day of rest, the seventh day of the week, and perhaps the seventh day of one’s life as well, when one can feel that one’s work is done, and one may, in good conscience, rest.

Here’s a short video of Sacks discussing his writing:

h/t: Pyers

Sunday: Hili dialogue

August 30, 2015 • 6:30 am

It’s a Sunday morning full of languor, or, as Wallace Stevens put it in his eponymous poem

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

Alas, there are neither oranges nor sunny chairs, as it’s again overcast here. But in Dobrzyn, Hili gets not only sunny chairs, but rodential comestibles:

Hili: Sunday.
A: So what?
Hili: The church bells are calling Sunday mouse-hunters.

In Polish:

Hili: Niedziela.
Ja: I co z tego?
Hili: Dzwony kościelne wzywają na niedzielne polowanie na myszy.

Neil Young live at the BBC

August 29, 2015 • 2:30 pm

The BBC concerts are some of the best live performances I’ve seen, and here’s a wonderful half hour with Neil Young, the dark man in the plaid shirt. This was in 1971, when Young was only 26. (Did you know that his middle name is “Percival”?)

My three favorites in this performance are “Out on the Weekend,” (the beginning), “Old Man” (4:00), and “A Man Needs a Maid” (20:12).

If ever a voice could be described as “plaintive,” it was his.

Neil deGrasse Tyson: a strident atheist?

August 29, 2015 • 1:00 pm

It would seem so if you take at face value this statement that I found on Facebook:

To most of us, I bet, this statement means that all religions are crazy, as they all make unwarranted truth claims, and the story of Xenu isn’t any loonier than the stories of talking donkeys, smited fig trees, demonized swine, and the Resurrection. But, tracking down the claim, I found that it’s not what it seems. Here’s the full quote from an interview Tyson did with The Daily Beast:

I’m curious what your take on Scientology is, because the intergalactic story of Xenu does encroach on your territory a bit.

So, you have people who are certain that a man in a robe transforms a cracker into the literal body of Jesus saying that what goes on in Scientology is crazy? Let’s realize this: What matters is not who says who’s crazy, what matters is we live in a free country. You can believe whatever you want, otherwise it’s not a free country—it’s something else. If we start controlling what people think and why they think it, we have case studies where that became the norm. I don’t care what the tenets are of Scientology. They don’t distract me. I don’t judge them, and I don’t criticize them.

Yes, it’s a free country, and Tyson is free to avoid judging or criticizing believers and their beliefs. (I think he’s made a conscious decision that being more vociferous about religion is inimical to his career as a science educator and popularizer.) But really, how can he not criticize faith when he says this in the next sentence:

The line I’m drawing is that there are religions and belief systems, and objective truths. And if we’re going to govern a country, we need to base that governance on objective truths—not your personal belief system.

That of course implies criticism of those belief systems as neither valid nor useful for running society. For surely Tyson criticizes those who withhold medical care from their children on religious grounds!

HuffPo to students: Even if you’re not religious, go hang out with your college chaplain

August 29, 2015 • 11:30 am

Paul Brandeis Raushenbush is an ordained Baptist minister who also serves as the Huffington Post’s “Executive Editor Of Global Spirituality and Religion”. (He was previously Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University). In a new piece at PuffHo, “7 Reasons to hang out with your college chaplain (even if you’re not religious)“, he lays out his rationale for why all students, including nonbelievers, should, as he urges, “run not walk to your college chaplain’s office.” Here are his reasons (indented) and my off-the-cuff reactions:

1. Chaplains are interested in the big questions.

While college chaplains may at one point have been involved in the business of providing answers to the big questions, today most view it as their responsibility to provide provocative and open forums where students are able to grapple with the questions that are at the heart of a liberal arts education such as: Who am I? What kind of life do I want to live? What do I believe? How will I contribute to this world? These conversations are held in a non-graded space so it is ok, and expected not to know all the answers.

Well, you can also take a philosophy class (or talk to a philosophy professor) in which the Big Questions can be discussed without any reference to the unevidenced supernatural. Now I’m sure that some college chaplains have training in psychological counseling, and perhaps some also have training in philosophy or the history of philosophy. Further, I’m sure others aren’t the least bit interested in proselytizing or giving you answers that comport with their own faith. But I’d recommend discussing these issues instead with your fellow students, from whom you can learn much about life. And why not talk to the heads of (or members of) the local humanist and secular groups?

2. Chaplains have your back.

Spending time getting to know the chaplain, and letting the chaplain know you can be of immense help during the twists and turns of an education. There may be times when you just need someone with who you can talk to without fear that it will go beyond the two of you.

So can counselors and therapists, who are also required to maintain confidentiality. Virtually every American college has them on staff.

3. Chaplains go on fantastic trips.

This will depend from college to college but often the university chaplain has budget for trips for community service as well as spiritual exploration.

The “spiritual exploration” will no doubt involve trips to religious sites. As for “social justice work” and community service, see #7 below. But, if you just want a free trip to the Holy Land, well, go for it. . .

4. There is always food.

Yeah, pretty much always a place to get bagels, cookies, candy etc. It’s like a 7-Eleven in there.

Seriously?

5. It’s a place of peace.

Sometimes chaplains have inherited a beautiful chapel that they have opened up to be a special place on the hectic campus where you can go and sit, breath and reflect — and where nobody will bother you.

Indeed, but you don’t need to talk to the chaplain to go sit in a chapel. After I was brutally strip-searched in 1972 by the Guardia Civil in the Sagrada Familia church in Barcelona (they mistakenly took me for a thief), I was so shaken that I walked to the Gothic cathedral nearby and sat in a pew for an hour to compose myself. I didn’t need to speak to a priest.

6. Chaplains can help you understand your roommates.

There are three questions that I emphasized during my time as a college chaplain: What do you believe? What does your roommate believe? How will your beliefs influence your actions?

Why would they help you understand your roommates better than anyone else could?

7. Chaplain offices are often a locus for social justice work.

If you are looking for a way to make a positive difference in the world, your chaplain’s office is often one of the most active locations for service organizations and social justice groups.

Perhaps, but colleges usually have a panoply of secular groups dedicated to helping the poor, the marginalized, and the dispossessed.

In the end, nearly all the issues above apply not just to students, but to everyone. Why wouldn’t Rausenbush urge everyone to go to a minister, priest or rabbi, whether or not they’re in college?

Below is Raushenbush on HuffPo live explaining why chaplains can immensely enrich your college experience by being “challenging: intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually in the best way.” Click on the screenshot if you want to hear more.

Now don’t get me wrong: insofar as they can serve as counselors or empathic figures, chaplains might sometimes be helpful. But since there are others who are actually trained to do that stuff, do you really need the religious overtones?

When I was in college I went to the chaplain exactly once: when I was trying to get conscientious objector status (CO) in the military draft. Had I not gotten that status, I had resolved to go to jail rather than fight in Vietnam or serve in the army. (One of my friends, more of a purist than I, refused to even seek CO status and wound up in prison, where he had a rough time.)

At the time there was a religious-objection requirement for CO status, though the draft board could waive that on rare occasions when one’s objections to war were sufficiently philosophical to be seen as almost religious. But I was told that letters from credentialed religious people would help. So I went to the chaplain at William and Mary and laid out for him the reasons I was opposed to war—none of them religious. (I had already written a long paper for a philosophy class justifying my pacifism.)

The chaplain was sufficiently helpful to write me a letter. I also obtained letters from my father (an Army officer) and other military men who testified that they knew I had a sincere objection to killing. Those letters (and my term paper) were enough to get me my status without even having to be grilled by the Virginia draft board in Newport News. I then worked for 13 months as a hospital technician—my alternative service job.

A coda: Having realized that I and 2500 other COs were drafted into service illegally (I was a draft counselor and knew the law), I went to the ACLU and initiated a class-action suit against the government: Coyne et al. v. Nixon et al. What sweet words those were! The government had acted illegally by drafting conscientious objectors into alternative service but didn’t draft anyone into the army after 1972. We won in a half-hour hearing, and were all freed from service.

So yes, the chaplain was helpful, but only because the testimony of a religious figure was given special weight by the Selective Service.

An atheist comes out in Milwaukee Magazine

August 29, 2015 • 9:45 am

Most large cities in the U.S. have a magazine named after that city, highlighting the local events, restaurants, concerts, and so on. Milwaukee, about 1.5 hours north of Chicago, is no exception (Chicago has its magazine, too). Milwaukee is known as a conservative, hard-working and largely blue collar town, which makes it even more surprising that, in its August issue, there’s a nice piece called “Faith no more” by writer Mario Quadracci. I like to think that the publication of a “strident” piece like this in a big-city magazine is a heartening sign of the times. Here’s a short excerpt:

But these aren’t the reasons I abandoned my belief in God. The reason has nothing to do with the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity. They have only solidified my position. The reason I’m an atheist has everything to do with the entire lack of evidence for a god. [JAC: I’m not quite clear about the distinction between “the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity”, which may refer to things like the existence of moral evils, and “the entire lack of evidence for a god.”]

Theism makes a positive claim about the nature of reality: “God exists.” Atheism is simply the lack of that belief. Atheism makes no claims. Therefore, the burden of proof falls exclusively on the theist. Yet, the fact that we continue to debate the topic of God’s existence proves theism has thus far failed its probative responsibility. Certainly, if God manifests himself in reality, we should be able to detect him in some way. If he doesn’t, then he would be indistinguishable from nonexistent and should be treated accordingly. Yet, no one, ever, not even once, has been able to demonstrate anything supernatural. And so we are told to take it on “faith.”

And this is the kind of thing that you rarely see in a mainstream magazine:

Faith means belief without – and, increasingly these days, against – evidence. Faith, therefore, is intellectually dishonest. Faith creates a false certainty, which subjugates rationality. It makes good people do evil things and it makes otherwise intelligent people say and do senseless things. It forces its influence where it has no business. It flies airplanes into buildings.

. . . And as science continues to squeeze gods from the gaps of our understanding and people move away from religion’s narrow-minded worldview, us nonbelievers stand ready to have a new conversation about humanity’s place in the universe. One based on 21st-century philosophy, science and rationality, not first-century literature.

It’s time to leave the mythology behind. It’s time to stop thinking about the hereafter and focus on the here and now.

What’s even more heartening is that nearly all of the 48 reader comments are positive, thanking Quadracci for speaking out. There is, of course, some pushback. I’ll give a few comments from each genre:

And there are these. The first mistakes a lack of evidence for an assertion of truths based on faith:

While this person can apparently take anything as evidence for God. I wonder where Mr. Bryan sees the evidence for a “benevolent Creator.”

Caturday felid trifecta: Soothing purr generator, how to say “cat” in Europe, pussy cat parade

August 29, 2015 • 8:20 am

Having trouble sleeping? This purr generator can help! Click on the screenshot below, and be sure to adjust all the buttons to MAXIMUM for the most vibration. You can also adjust different components, including bass, mids, and treble, and time it so it goes off when you’re asleep.

You might try testing it on your own cat, and note that there are many other noises you can use for sleeping or what they now call “self care.”

*******

This map, showing of how Europeans say “cat” (from Maps on the Web), also teaches you some etymology. My theory, which is mine, is that the word “kitty” comes from the Turkish “kedi”.

*******

Finally, reader Lauren sent me a cat song with a nice note:

Last night I found this video on YouTube. I would say that this was a record I had as a child, except that I still have it. It was one of my favorite songs back then, and one I used to sing to my back-then cat Smaug as I drove him to and from vet appointments.

I have to say that it’s very catchy. It also reminds me of one of my own childhood favorites, “Teddy Bears’ Picnic“—but with felids. (I can still sing the entire song—the Rosemary Clooney version—from memory.) I’ll add the 1932 version of the teddy bear song by Henry Hall and His Orchestra, which, according to Wikipedia, played a big role for the BBC.

The 1932 Henry Hall recording was of especially good quality with a large tonal range. It was used for more than 30 years by BBC audio engineers (up until the early 1960s) to test and calibrate the frequency response of audio equipment.

h/t: Ant, Tom

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