Readers’ wildlife photos

June 23, 2017 • 7:30 am

Up first we have four photos from reader Will from Morris, Illinois, showing Nature red in scale and fang. His notes are indented:

Yet another reason for me to like fishing:  I get out and see things like this.  While fishing the Fox River near Yorkville, Illinois, I came upon a northern water snake (Nerodia sipedon) swallowing a stonecat (Noturus flavus).  The Fox River is an environmental  success story.  It is a much healthier habitat than in the 70s.

He added that “a stonecat is a small, venomous catfish. Yep, venomous.  They have venom glands associated with their pectoral spines.  That snake has to be tough to stomach that.”

And birds from reader Don Bredes:

Here are a couple of American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis) portraits. A rather ordinary creature hereabouts, to be sure, but the bird Vermonters call the “wild canary” is just as welcome after such a long winter as are the daffodils.
They’re easily spooked. One morning two years ago, while several males and females were crunching the sunflower seed on the deck rail, and when I approached the window with my camera, they panicked, and one flew into the door glass.  Stunned, he lay there for a couple of minutes till one of our voracious bluejays swooped in and killed it.  Then the jay flew off with it for breakfast.

Finally, a reader requests an ID on this snake. Can readers help?

My name is Alex Kleine and I’ve been a follower of the great Ceiling Cat for about two to three years as of now. I was wondering if you could post these photos (they are of cellphone quality so not really the highest camera quality) in another one of your upcoming Readers’ Wildlife Photos section. I need help in identifying this beautiful snake that sadly was a victim of roadkill in Hays, Kansas. I did some photo closeups of the head, and trunk scale patterns for further detail.

 

Friday: Hili dialogue

June 23, 2017 • 6:30 am

It’s Friday, June 23, 2017, and didn’t this week go by fast? Now the days are beginning to shorten in the Northern Hemisphere, but you can console yourself by celebrating National Pecan Sandy Day. Not my favorite cookie (or “biscuit” to Brits), but I’d rather have them than, say, oatmeal raisin cookies, the health nut’s chocolate chip cookie. Here’s a pecan sandy; doesn’t it look appetizing? (NOT!):

It’s also a United Nations Day: International Widows Day.

On June 23, 1868, the typewriter was patented in the U.S. by Christopher Latham Sholes: he called it the “Type-Writer.” On this day in 1926, the first SAT exam was administered to students. I can still remember my scores, and I took it in 1966! (That’s 51 years ago; OY!) In 1942, a train full of Parisian Jews arrived at Auschwitz, and the “passengers” were subject to the very first selection for the gas chamber. And this day in 1951, the ocean liner SS United States was christened and launched. It was the fastest liner of the time (or any time), and my family and I crossed the Atlantic on it from England to the U.S. in 1957; at that time the U.S. Army allowed its officers to change duty stations on a luxury liner!  The ship still holds the “Blue Riband” for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic in either direction by a passenger liner: in 1952, for instance, she crossed from England to New Jersey in 3 days, 10 hours, and, 40 minutes! The ship went out of service in 1969 and is still moored in Philadelphia, subject to various schemes about being scrapped or turned into some other venue. Here she be: isn’t she a beaut?

On this day in 1972, Title IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was changed to prohibit sex discrimination in any school program receiving federal funds; it was a big boost to women’s athletics, and to women’s rights in general. Finally, it was exactly a year ago today (can you believe it?) that the UK voted to leave the European Union in a general referendum (51.9% vs 48.1%); it was a bleak day for many of us.

Those born on this day include Alan Turing (1912), Bob Fosse (1927), Wilma Rudolph and Stu Sutcliffe (both 1940), and James Levine (1943). Those who died on this day include Jonas Salk (1995), Ed McMahon (2009) and Peter Falk (2011). Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, the beasts are helping Andrzej read a crime story (looks like it’s on a Kindle):

READING A CRIME STORY
Hili: He will tell us all about it later.
Cyrus: I can’t wait.
In Polish:
KRYMINAŁ
Hili: Potem on nam to wszystko opowie.
Cyrus: Nie mogę się już doczekać.

Out in Winnipeg, reader Taskin snapped her Gus just as he was waking from his beauty sleep. He seems to have a “sleep crease” in his fur:

And from Grania we have two tweets. First, a squirrel, tired of nuts, goes full throttle for a baguette. The French word for squirrel is “écureuil”. Can you pronounce that? It isn’t easy, but I can do it!

And a dancing gorilla. Is this really the best thing on the Internet this year?

https://twitter.com/joelcifer/status/877915765445345280

You won’t believe the size of this spider!

June 22, 2017 • 2:30 pm

Yes, I employed clickbait; my bad!

I am not afraid of spiders; in fact, I used to have a collection of about half a dozen tarantulas when I was a graduate student, and would let them walk all over me. (I was never bitten.) They are fascinating creatures and mesmerizing to watch, especially when you see them molt.

The short YouTube video below shows two tarantulas: the Pumpkin Patch (Hapalopus sp.), a small one, and what appears to be a gynormous Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi; it doesn’t really eat birds). Both are from South America. The Goliath is the world’s largest spider by mass; it can weigh up to 175 grams (over six ounces). And the females of both are remarkably long lived: the Goliath can live up to 25 years but, as in nearly all tarantulas, males live only a few years. That’s typical, but if you get a female, and take good care of her, she can live longer than your cat.

Here are the notes on this very short video:

The video goliath vs pumpkin patch shows the size difference between some of South Americas Tarantulas. Both are fully grown adult females. The Goliath in this was recently deceased, and 16 years old when she died. One of the few chances you get to actually stretch these spiders out and get a true idea of their size, just under 11 inches. The Pumpkin Patch tarantula is around an inch and a half across.

I saw tarantulas molt many times, as I kept mine well fed (with crickets and clean cockroaches), and I never got over the sight. It’s amazing to see a spider extricate itself from its body, with the cephalothorax popping open like a tank turret to allow the new spider to emerge, which finally draws each leg out of its old shell like someone taking off pajamas. And the “new” spider was always fresh and beautiful looking. I know nothing about the biochemical and physiological processes behind what see you below (not a Goliath), but whatever happens, it’s a marvel of evolution:

“We’re still waiting for a march against honor killings”: Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani in NYT on religion and women’s rights

June 22, 2017 • 12:45 pm

Well cut off my legs and call me Shorty! (Is that ableist?) I was astounded to see that Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Asra Nomani, both feminist Muslim reformers, were given a whole op-ed in the New York Times to testify about women’s rights vs religion (click on screenshot to see it):

As I wrote five days ago, when Hirsi Ali and Nomani testified about terrorism (along with two men) before a mixed panel of Senators at the Senate’s Homeland Security Committee, the two women were allowed to speak, but the Democrats ignored them during questioning (see the four-hour hearing at the link at the beginning of this sentence). In fact, as Hirsi Ali and Nomani write in their op-ed, the one male and three Democratic Senators didn’t ask either of them a single question. Why? I explained that in my earlier post:

I don’t think the behavior of those Democrats has anything to do with deference to men; rather, they shied away from indicting religion as a cause of terrorism, and that’s precisely what Hirsi Ali and Nomani were trying to say.  The male witnesses, in contrast, avoided religion and dealt with other solutions to terrorism.  Democrats, it seems, studiously avoid mentioning religion or Islam, taking a cue from the Obama/Hillary Clinton playbook.

Hirsi Ali and Nomani agree in their NYT piece:

This wasn’t a case of benign neglect. At one point, Senator McCaskill said that she took issue with the theme of the hearing itself. “Anyone who twists or distorts religion to a place of evil is an exception to the rule,” she said. “We should not focus on religion,” she said, adding that she was “worried” that the hearing, organized by Senator Ron Johnson, a Republican from Wisconsin, would “underline that.” In the end, the only questions asked of us about Islamist ideologies came from Senator Johnson and his Republican colleague, Senator Steve Daines from Montana.

Just as we are invisible to the mullahs at the mosque, we were invisible to the Democratic women in the Senate.

How to explain this experience?

. . . . what happened that day was emblematic of a deeply troubling trend among progressives when it comes to confronting the brutal reality of Islamist extremism and what it means for women in many Muslim communities here at home and around the world. When it comes to the pay gap, abortion access and workplace discrimination, progressives have much to say. But we’re still waiting for a march against honor killings, child marriages, polygamy, sex slavery or female genital mutilation.

. . . . when we speak about Islamist oppression, we bring personal experience to the table in addition to our scholarly expertise. Yet the feminist mantra so popular when it comes to victims of sexual assault — believe women first — isn’t extended to us. Neither is the notion that the personal is political. Our political conclusions are dismissed as personal; our personal experiences dismissed as political.

That’s because in the rubric of identity politics, our status as women of color is canceled out by our ideas, which are labeled “conservative” — as if opposition to violent jihad, sex slavery, genital mutilation or child marriage were a matter of left or right. This not only silences us, it also puts beyond the pale of liberalism a basic concern for human rights and the individual rights of women abused in the name of Islam.

There is a real discomfort among progressives on the left with calling out Islamic extremism. Partly they fear offending members of a “minority” religion and being labeled racist, bigoted or Islamophobic. There is also the idea, which has tremendous strength on the left, that non-Western women don’t need “saving” — and that the suggestion that they do is patronizing at best. After all, the thinking goes, if women in America still earn less than men for equivalent work, who are we to criticize other cultures?

This is extreme moral relativism disguised as cultural sensitivity.

We all know that they’re speaking the truth. But it’s an inconvenient truth to many on the Left, even when voiced by two “women of color”. And they’re both doubly marked in the oppression scale—triply if you count that Nomani is a practicing Muslim and that Hirsi Ali was genitally mutilated in the name of Islam. They bear all the merit badges of people who should be heard. Instead, they’re demonized, with Hirsi Ali even characterized as an “anti-Muslim extremist” by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (They clearly haven’t read her latest book.)

There’s more to their piece, and it’s all good, but I don’t want to reproduce it in toto. Let me just reprise their main point: “The hard truth is that there are fundamental conflicts between universal human rights and the principle of Shariah, or Islamic law. . . ”

We all know that, too, and so does anyone with eyes to see and ears to hear. But universal human rights somehow vanish when religion is on the table. As the odious Morgan yelled, “Show some damn respect for people’s religious beliefs!”

It’s damn well time for Leftists to stop osculating a faith that’s not only scripturally odious and oppressive, but is practiced widely in that way.  Democrats, and the Left in general, need to absorb the simple lesson that Ali Rizvi pressed on Piers Morgan in the tw**t below:

h/t: Grania

Israeli woman wins suit against El Al for making her move to accommodate misogynistic Orthodox Jews

June 22, 2017 • 11:00 am

About damn time! In February of last year I posted about Renee Rabinowitz’s gender discrimination lawsuit against El Al airlines for “asking” her to vacate a seat next to an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who objected to sitting next to a woman. Rabinowitz, a retired Israeli psychologist, was upset that she had to move to accommodate religious misogyny. As the Times wrote then:

Ms. Rabinowitz was comfortably settled into her aisle seat in the business-class section on El Al Flight 028 from Newark to Tel Aviv in December when, as she put it, “this rather distinguished-looking man in Hasidic or Haredi garb, I’d guess around 50 or so, shows up.”

The man was assigned the window seat in her row. But, like many ultra-Orthodox male passengers, he did not want to sit next to a woman, seeing even inadvertent contact with the opposite sex as verboten under the strictest interpretation of Jewish law. [JAC: perhaps an infelicitous use of a German word!] Soon, Ms. Rabinowitz said, a flight attendant offered her a “better” seat, up front, closer to first class.

Reluctantly, Ms. Rabinowitz, an impeccably groomed 81-year-old grandmother who walks with a cane because of bad knees, agreed.

“Despite all my accomplishments — and my age is also an accomplishment — I felt minimized,” she recalled in a recent interview in her elegantly appointed apartment in a fashionable neighborhood of Jerusalem.

“For me this is not personal,” Ms. Rabinowitz added. “It is intellectual, ideological and legal. I think to myself, here I am, an older woman, educated, I’ve been around the world, and some guy can decide that I shouldn’t sit next to him. Why?”

For sure. And now her suit against El Al has been settled, as reported in a story in yesterday’s New York Times:  

Rabinowitz asked for 50,000 shekels (about $14,000 US) in damages, and was represented by the Israeli Religious Action Center, a legal and reform organization run by progressive Jews. El Al defended itself by saying it wasn’t discriminating against women because it would also ask a man to move if seated next to an Orthodox woman who objected to male cooties. But that’s still gender discrimination, and the judge awarded Rabinowitz 6500 shekels ($1800). More important, because El Al was found to violate Israel anti-discrimination laws, the airline agreed to never again ask a passenger to move seats based on a request that involved gender.

These kinds of requests, and the attempts of airlines to accommodate them, are becoming increasingly common. They’re sexist, no matter which sex objects to the other, and it’s time to stop them. I suspect this ruling will go a long way to that end, though it’s not clear whether U.S. airlines—who have also been guilty of enabling such misogyny—will now change their behavior.

h/t: Greg Mayer