Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
It is Sunday and we have some good news from Dobrzyn: Cyrus is on the mend. What an excellent, kind and caring family he has!
by Matthew Cobb
Here are two dramatic videos of hawks responding to drones, and one of them taking on bigger prey.
In the first, a red-tailed hawk attacks a drone equipped with a camera operated by Chris Schmidt. The incident took place at a park in Massachusetts on Wednesday. Neither the bird nor the drone was damaged.
In the second, YouTube user “womackke” decided to take a peek at what looks like some kind of eagle’s nest (sorry for the incomplete ID—please feel free to correct me!) in his local park. The avian inhabitants were not impressed.
Finally, Adam Fisher posted this video of a hawk attacking his 4-meter wingspan glider! (The action begins at around 1:25)
Those are some tough birds!
~
Since my room at the W Hotel in Union Square wasn’t ready at 11:30, I had to cool my heels for over an hour. But that was just time to nip across the park to the Union Square Cafe, a New York institution, to try its vaunted menu. The place has received many gastronomic accolades.
I started off with a small appetizer: a quartet of Penn Cove oysters from Washington State. They were large and creamy, and although I tried both of the “sauces” (an apple cider sauce on the right and their house sauce on the left), I baptized the remaining to oysters only with a few drops of lemon juice. Oysters, at least raw ones, need no dressing save, perhaps, a squeeze of lemon. Anything else dilutes the pure taste of the sea that distinguishes this mollusc.
I spotted a bottle of Templeton Rye facing me as I ate at the bar. It almost put me off my feed. I’m told that a dram of this stuff makes you go all soft on religion:
My main course was a yellowfin tuna burger with ginger-mustard glaze, a grilled half of a red onion, and cabbage slaw. The waiter said the chef recommended the burger be cooked “medium rare,” and I told her I’d like it a little rarer than that. When it arrived, covered with pickled ginger, it turned out to be “medium”: not a trace of red in it. I pointed that out to the waiter, who was chagrined and said they’d make me another burger.
It arrived exactly the same: no red again. Sadly but politely, I pointed that out to the waiter, who again was very apologetic, agreed that it wasn’t cooked right, and said they’d make a third burger. In the meantime, the manager came out and apologized profusely, saying that the ground yellowfin had become “oxidized” and you couldn’t see the red (not a good sign). But, he said, they’d grind up some fresh yellowfin just for me and try again. This time the burger was on the money:
This is out of focus, as I was eating with one hand and snapping the photo with another, but you can see it’s almost rare in the middle. And it was very good.
When I got my bill, I discovered they had comped (American for “no charge”) me the $23 burger, so I paid almost nothing for my lunch. That was nice of them, but I can’t say that I’d rush to visit the Union Square Cafe again. The service was superb, but as I looked around at other people’s food, it didn’t strike me that this place was a Mecca for gastonomes.
Still, the lunch was creditable.
Ensannualh Ehsan is a spokesman for a splinter group of the Taliban in Pakistan. Here’s a tw**t he issued yesterday on the occasion of Malala’s Nobel Peace Prize:
Hmm. . . Pakistan. Wasn’t that one of the places that Reza Aslan singled out for having “good” Muslims? Certainly there are some, but Pakistan is hardly a shining beacon for the benignity of Islam, and this “character”, well, I don’t think he’s motivated by colonialism or secularist aspect of culture.
What, exactly, did Malala do wrong, even in the eyes of monsters like Ehsan. She tried to go to school, and to empower women. What a crime!
But let us note, too, that many in the Swat Valley celebrated her prize. It’s a pity that Ehsan and his fellow thugs have the upper hand.
I’ve trashed a bunch of either off-topic or incoherent comments this week, but perhaps you’d like to see a couple that didn’t make it past moderation. (I’m not including the insane personal emails I’ve gotten, either.) These Attempted Posts are pro-Islamic, which is no surprise given my recent criticisms of the faith. They weren’t trashed for that viewpoint though, but for incivility or borderline lunacy. No words have been changed from the original:
“From reader BlogPhantom (from the UK), trying to post on “Jesus ‘n’ Mo ‘n’ Literalism ‘n’ “moderate” Muslims“:
Personnaly I think you guys are wrong. Islam is a true religion, it’s as clear as crystal water and it looks like some of you’s are just a load of brainwashed people. Honestly I would think you people knew your stuff, but now I think abou it you guys are on the wrong path. You may think JUST because I’m twelve I’m a moran, well that’s not exactly true because i KNOW MY stuff Alhamdullilah. Islam is a religion of peace, I see it all the time singled out on the media, you know why? Because it’s the TRUTH! And people don’t want you to know what the TRUTH is!!!
A moran? Any relative of Larry’s? Probably not, but certainly a Muslim.
********
From reader titani2, attempting to comment on “Maher, Harris, Kristof, Steele, and Affleck squabble about Islam“:
Dear Maher, Harris, Kristof, Steele, and Affleck: Do do not squabble about Islam. Just read Quran. Quran is here: http://www.clearquran.com
Well, of the four in question, I’m sure that both Maher and Harris have already read that book; I don’t know about Affleck and Kristof.
*******
Now here is what you call a real rant. It’s from reader Malu, desperate to tell us how to regard Reza Aslan on the post “The handy-dandy Aslan/Affleck refuter”:
I am disappointed!! I normally LOVE YOU, and admire the “boys atheist club” very much!! But you guys are disappointing me!! You should not join your friends when your friends are incorrect and inappropriate!!! How’s saying “Islam is the motherland of all problems” going to help us??- It was appalling the way Reza was interviewed by those 2 sensationalist super-biased CNN commentators “a la FOX news” style bringing a calf (I won’t dare say lamb) to be slaughtered, the way that news now is reality TV, they were ostentatiously racist and biased, not professional nor ethical!! and that’s the way that radical militant Zionist Marher operates – also admire his brilliancy, but his shows are despotic, not satires, noone who disagrees with him manages to talk, not to mention that he puts one conservative lamb (this time I’ll write it) in the middle of liberal guests with a liberal audience!!!! How can you NOT speak up about that??? Reza is not a particular evil person because he writes in defense of religion or Islam. I profoundly disagree with him, but he’s intelligent, well educated, and the kind of person we should treat with respect since he may be a LINK to connect to moderate Muslims!!!! People bash moderate Muslims and leaders if they don’t speak to condemn acts of violence, than they speak and try to at least convince their own people that Islam can teach good things and that it’d condemn violent acts, then YOU people bash them!! (atheists can’t move so aggressively!! All we need to do is to put the seed of doubt, of questioning in a debate or exchange, that’s all. Use science when possible. We don’t have to be so militant, it’ll back fire!!!) 1. you mention as defense “notoriously anti-woman Sharia courts”, but that is just as vague and incorrect as Reza’s statement. There’s a particular province that has seen a rise in Sharia law enforcement, but not all provinces of Indonesia. Indonesian women are not in an equal level with their male counterparts but not so far behind American women with issues of wage, work force… but by law, they can vote, drive, go to school, and protest for higher wages like us. 2. “… and often has much more to do with the political power of certain families in under-developed parts of the world.” THAT IS SO CONDESCENDING!! Turkey, which you don’t mention at all, and Reza did several times, has had many elected female leaders by democratic vote, so did India (Muslim minority), Pakistan, and many Muslim countries, and even Iraq under Hussein was an incredibly secularized society, and Iran way back when; the US can’t get a woman elected not even with “political power from certain families”!!! and look at the racism and white supremacy violent escalation because we voted on a “black” guy!! Haha! so before you look down at other countries, LOOK AT YOUR OWN SHIT! 3. And perhaps, since you won’t take Reza’s statements, perhaps you will take UNICEF’s statistics, that show that besides Yemen, which has like Oman, large blood connections with some Eastern African countries, ALL OTHER countries to apply FGM are African which predates Islam was ever conceived! and these ARE countries of varied religious demographics!!!!! So do me a favor, don’t become a politician, don’t throw me rhetoric, the only strength of an atheist movement is its back bone, its high ethical values! Or you’ll loose people and it’ll back fire even more! Part of skepticism, is honesty including details!!!!!!!!! and why to fight moderate religious leaders, why not to work with them, try to persuade them with respect not disdain????
Where to begin? I suspect nowhere; a comment like this is for display and not analysis. All it’s missing are some “frowny face” emoticons.
~
As I noted earlier, Team Cat includes Anthony Hutcherson, who owns Jungletax Cattery and breeds Bengal Cats and “Toygers” (tiger-striped cats!) Looking for videos of Anthony, I found one in which he displays Bengals (and other cats) on Martha Stewart’s show. To see the video and these gorgeous cats, click on the screenshot below, showing Anthony holding a champion Bengal:
Anthony owns some of the most beautiful domestic cats I’ve ever seen (Bengal cats, of course, derive from hybrids between the domestic cat and the Asian leopard cat, Panthera bengalensis bengalensis). The hybrids are then repeatedly backcrossed, I believe, to domestic cats, selecting for the wild pattern but also the temperament of the domestic cat.
Anthony and some of his Bengals:
A four-week-old Bengal kitten. These cats aren’t cheap: a show cat can run from $1000 to $3500:
A “toyger,” which is apparently a domestic cat whose ancestry involves no crossing to wild species; they are simply selected for their tiger-like pattern:
Rumor has it that at least one of Anthony’s cats will be present this evening. If so, we needn’t say a word: cats will win paws down.
Because of the cat-related event this evening, I have a few photos of cats that fortuitiously appeared during a visit yesterday to the Hispanic Society of America Museum and Library at 158th Street. I met friends there who had come to town to see the Victory of the Felids, and we spent a pleasant hour wandering around the Huntington Mansion (built on land supposedly once owned by nature artist John James Audubon. At any rate, there were cat sculptures and cat-related art on display, and here are some; I see them as auguries for tonight’s debate.
Two cats pwning what looks for all the world like a small tapir.
The entrance of the Museum was flanked by two stone lions, and I posed in front of one. I was told to look haughty like the lion but somehow my expression didn’t come off right. . .
A cat door-knocker from Spain, ca. 16th century. There was a fabulous collection of antique Spanish door knockers in the Museum.
And, for Greg, here is some kind of reptilian door-knocker. I’ll leave him to give a tentative identification.
The museum, having mostly Spanish art from the 16th-18th centuries, was of course full of religious icons. Don’t tell me that thee people saw the Crucifixion and Resurrection, or, indeed, all the Bible stories, only as allegories! Here is one that struck me: the “ecstasy” of some female saint, perhaps Saint Teresa. The crucifix near her nether parts is telling.
A close-up of the face: undoubtedly something orgiastic is going on and these “ecstasies” must certainly represent sexuality subsumed into religion.
Finally, just a touristic shot: One World Trade Center (also known as the “Freedom Tower,” built to replace the two buildings destroyed by terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001:
A bit of urban wildlife today, but it’s still wildlife!
First, reader Brian Cameron sends an arthropod and a mammal:
I am fairly certain that the first image is the caterpillar of the Canadian Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio canadensis). I have read that it was formerly considered to be a subspecies of the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) but is now regarded as being a separate species. I found it crawling up an outdoor staircase at my house in Toronto a couple of months ago. If I have misidentified the species, perhaps a reader could correct the error. In any case, it looks as though there is some mimicry going on here with those pupillated spots resembling snake eyes. (I don’t have a macro lens, so the photo is not perfect).
About a month earlier, two juvenile raccoons (Procyon lotor) were running around our backyard in the mid-morning, when they should have been sleeping. I assumed that they were siblings.
Meet Groundy, the groundhog [Marmota monax] that lives near my office. My office is on the edge of a residential neighborhood and he lives in the yard next door. He is surprisingly tolerant of people and cars. He recently dug a new home right next to the sidewalk.
Today is an important day for both Hili and Professor Ceiling Cat. It is a day for celebrating the relationships between felids and their humans.
Yes, tonight is the New Yorker Festival event “You, the Jury: Cats vs. Dogs.” Team Cat has its claws sharpened and many tricks up its forelegs, but I’m not at liberty to divulge them. Our members include Anthony Lane, Ariel Levy, Joyce Carol Oates, Jesse Eisenberg, me, and Anthony Hutcherson, who breeds Bengal cats (and a breed I hadn’t heard of, “Toygers”) in Washington D.C. Have a look at Anthony’s website, Jungletrax Cattery, to see some of the gorgeous cats he produces.
Posting may be very light today: I must change hotels and prepare for The Big Challenge. Cats must win!
And Hili has an appropriate dialogue:
Hili: At last, serious people in New York will be debating a serious matter.
A: What matter is that?
Hili: What do you mean, what matter is that? The superiority of cats over dogs. Jerry will be wearing THIS shirt!
In Polish:
Hili: Nareszcie w Nowym Jorku poważni ludzie będą debatowali o poważnych sprawach.
Ja: O czym?
Hili: Jak to o czym? O wyższości kotów nad psami. Jerry będzie występował w TEJ koszuli.
*****
And just a few minutes ago I got a good-luck note from Japanese artist Hiroko Kubota, who designed, embroidered, and also made the shirt depicted above (as well as the one below). She said,
My newest cat. This was made just now. (^-^)
