Chills in a City of Heat

Today is supposed to be a scorcher, even at four-thirty in the morning, it is warm and muggy out. You know it's horrible outside when I have a bad hair day. I'll be able to sleep for a while during the day's heat, but I'll be heading into the NYC hothouse to attend the latest Secret Science Club lecture. What better way to spend a scorching evening than sitting in the cool precincts of a hot club drinking a frosty beer? Throw in a bonus lecture, and you have a recipe for a good night.

Anyway, here's something cool for a hot, hot day- New Zealand's Chills (anything you ever wanted to know about the band is in this linked documentary, which was brought to my attention by gentleman and scholar Another Kiwi) have released their first single since the 90's, and it's wonderful:





Molten Gold continues the Chills' tradition of tip-top jangle pop. It's awfully cool to have them return to recording.

It's July, Therefore... PURSLANE!!!

It's mid-July, and the Yonkers metro area is in the early stages of what's projected to be a week-long heat wave. I've been lucky, I've been working the graveyard shift, so it's relatively cool when I am out-and-about on the job. While I don't really thrive in the heat, it's wonderful for purslane, a subject which I blog about WAAAAAAY too often.

This morning, in the relatively cool 7AM hour, I picked a good sized bag of purslane in one of the on-site gardens. Purslane does extrememly well in hot conditions because it can switch from using typical C3 photosynthesis using the Crassulacean Acid Metabolism method. In wet periods, the stomata of the plant are open, and photosynthesis occurs using the C3 carbon fixation process, which involves a loss of water due to transpiration of up to 97%. During dry periods, the purslane plants can switch to CAM carbon fixation- the stomata are closed during the day, but open at night to take in carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide that is taken in during the night is stored as malic acid, so that photosynthesis can occur the following day. In the hot, dry months, purslane can take over a garden. As commenter "Cebtoo" wrote in response to commenter "GREENGIRL" question about how to grow purslane on the "Almost Turkish" blog put it:


To GREENGRL: Try to grow something else. Water once a week lightly. Everything else will die but your purslane will thrive with or without fertilizer, in sun or shade. Once you get some growing, break it up with a hoe. Spray it with broadleaf weed killer, it loves it. That's been my approach for years here in San Antonio and probably could grow 500 pounds or so in 100 square feet if I let it run wild.


My morning-picked purslane should be pretty strong flavored, being chock-full of malic acid, but I love the stuff. One columnist asks "weed it or eat it?" My answer to that is "YES!"

Whither Killer?

I can't say I was overly surprised by the not guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman... I was mildly surprised that the jury did not reach a verdict of a lesser charge, such as manslaughter, but upon consideration, it was an all-white, six person jury living in a municipality that ran Jackie Robinson out of town for the crime of participating in spring training while being black.

The right-wing attitude towards George Zimmerman evolved over the course of the year since he shot Trayvon Martin. At first, the righties made a big deal about George Zimmerman being a Latino who registered as a Democrat, in a ham-fisted attempt to start a "Democrats are the real racists" dialogue (and to drive a wedge between Latinos and African-Americans). Eventually, though, their true feelings became apparent, and they embraced Zimmerman as a hero... after all, he lived every racist's dream, he killed a young black male for no reason (and now he's gotten away with it). Just about two years ago, right-wing radio bloviator Neal Boortz articulated the right-wing racist's fever dream:





This exhortation explicitly foreshadowed George Zimmerman's pursuit and slaying of Trayvon Martin. Martin's death by gunfire occurred in the context of ALEC sponsored "stand your ground" laws, which have resulted in a 300% rise in killings claimed to be "justifiable" in the state of Florida in the five years after the law was put in place. To my mind, "stand your ground" laws serve only to increase the lethality of fights- why injure someone, who can press charges against you, when you can kill him and claim self-defense? Without a need to retreat before using lethal methods of self-defense, you can initiate a hostile encounter with a kid, shoot him, and have the crime go largely uninvestigated (Martin's body lay in the morgue, labeled as a "John Doe" for three days after his mom filed a missing persons report. While Zimmerman's defense team did not use the "stand your ground" law as a defense, the police investigation of the killing did not proceed in a timely fashion because Zimmerman claimed the killing was justifiable and the police couldn't be bothered to arrest him.

With the acquittal of George Zimmerman, the right-wing blogosphere is salivating at the prospect of riots, to the extent that one Youtuber tried to pass the 2011 Vancouver hockey riots off as a Miami post-acquittal riot (the video has since been taken down). Why would right-wingers want such riots to occur? First of all, they want to be able to claim the moral high ground, to portray African-Americans as violence-prone thugs (Zimmerman's brother has already engaged in character assassination of the kid George killed). More alarmingly, the right-wingers desperately want riots to occur so they can live their George Zimmerman fantasy, to shoot African-Americans with impunity. The fact that the protests regarding this verdict have been peaceful must be galling to the right-wing nutjobs.

So, what of George Zimmerman now? I pretty much believe that the popular concept of karma (which is inaccurate, but that would be a blog post in and of itself) is nothing more than wishful thinking. Now that he has been acquitted, I believe that Zimmerman can look forward to a life on the wingnut welfare gravy train. I can see him getting speaking fees for addressing NRA conventions, and securing a stint as the keynote speaker for next year's CPAC. Fuck, I can even see Fox News bringing him on as a "self-defense" expert. George Zimmerman has passed into the status of folk hero (for a taste of his "heroic" status this is a bizarro exercise in mythmaking)... he pulled off the right-wing racist fantasy. As an added bonus, he can also be considered a "good" Latino who has escaped the "democrat plantation". Zimmerman has pretty much become a big hero in Wayne's world, a world largely motivated by spite, violent tendencies, and race-baiting. While the average human being may look on him with disgust, Zimmerman will make the transition from the swamps of central Florida to the wider fever-swamps of right wing celebrity.

Spreading Scientific Literacy

So, I have a friend who is very smart, but whose scientific literacy is, like that of most Americans, sub-par. Thankfully, my mom insisted that all of us were readers, and she supplemented our learning with educational and enrichment trips... hikes, classes, trips to museums. We learned, and we learned to love learning.

My friend's scientific curiosity has been piqued recently by a recent fascination with Richard Dawkins (I don't have the heart to tell my friend that Dawkins is kinda an asshole). Now, one complication in my friend's learning process is that he's not much of a reader... he's an artist, and he learns visually. I've been trying to find decent science videos online to e-mail to him so he can absorb information in the fashion to which he's accustomed. It's funny though, one has to wade through each video in order to see if it's distorted by religious content or WOO!

Why am I bothering to go to such lengths to see to it that a friend of mine gets a belated grounding in the sciences? While I don't have my membership card on hand, I took an oath to spread scientific literacy. I'm stuck at work, but I'll dig up my card and copy down the oath... I swear an oath to do so.

UPDATE: Got my card... emblazoned on it is the following:

THIS IS TO CERTIFY THAT
Big Bad Bald Bastard
IS A CARD-CARRYING MEMBER OF
THE SECRET SCIENCE CLUB
And solemnly swears to uphold
the scientific method and
to advance the public understanding
of science throughout the Universe.

That's a pretty heavy burden, but it's a joy to shoulder it.

Mom's Birthday

As is customary, I want to take this day to acknowledge mom's birthday. I called her before work to wish her a happy birthday. She's doing well as always. Currently, she's cleaning up the house after a visit from my brother Gomez, whose in-laws all converged on mom's house as well. Mom put everybody up in her usual style, and a good time was had by all. Mom made sure that everybody took a side trip to D.C. to visit the various branches of the Smithsonian and Gomez' brother-in-law, a history buff who hadn't made the pilgrimage to D.C. before, was in his glory.

Mom has a knack for helping people to reach their potential, no matter whether we're talking about a kid involved in academic endeavors, or an adult taking a vacation with his family. I don't see her changing her attitude toward personal growth. Thanks for everything, mom, and best wishes on your birthday.

You Mean, There Were Two of Them All Along?

This past weekend, there was a major fundraiser at one of my worksites. This week, the event is being "struck" (verb def. 19), so the crew has been feverishly working under some hot conditions punctuated by short, furious thunderstorms. The crew has been supplemented by four workers hired from a temp agency. While most of the crew members are familiar with the site, having worked here before, the temporary workers were all new to the site.

Around 7:30PM, the guys were breaking for dinner, and they all gathered at one spot to confer with the project manager. As it happened, Fred and Ginger were lounging together on a worktable. Seeing them together, one of the temps exclaimed, "That explains it... I thought I was going crazy. I'd see an orange and white cat run off to my right, then I'd turn left and see an orange and white cat. Now I realize there were two of them all along!"

I told the poor guy that, even though I'd worked with Fred and Ginger for years, they still confuse the hell out of me now and again.

A Day of Scholarly Leisure

Having the day off, and the weather being punishingly hot, I decided that I would spend this afternoon at one of my all-time favorite places, the American Museum of Natural History. My primary goal for this museum visit was to check out two of the special programs. The first of these programs was Whales: Giants of the Deep, which was presented in conjunction with the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. The second exhibit I checked out was Our Global Kitchen: Food, Nature, Culture.

Since the exhibits had timed entry, I was a bit rushed through Whales: Giants of the Deep- I had a 12:30PM entry for "Whales" and a 1:30PM entry for "Our Global Kitchen". I'll tackle "Whales" in this post, and put up a post about "Our Global Kitchen" tomorrow.

The "Whales" exhibit, being produced by a museum from New Zealand, also explored Maori culture. The different video displays had Maori language options, and the big displays featured both English and Maori captions- for instance, "the whale lab" is Rangahau Tohorā in Maori. The exhibit opened with a film of various whales, from bottlenose dolphins to sperm whales, in their natural habitat. The exhibit then moved on to whale evolution. The first fossil on display was the skull of Andrewsarchus, and odd meat-eating even-toed hoofed mammal. While only the skull has been found, reconstructions of the animal based on its closest relatives indicate that it may have been 4 to 5 meters in length, which would make it the largest meat-eating terrestrial mammal ever found. Features of its anatomy indicate that it is a hoofed mammal, most closely related to the hippopotomuses and whales among living mammals.

I was next greeted by the skulls of two small, relatively advanced whales, the Oligocene-Miocene Squalodon and the Oligocene Waipatia. These skulls are significant becuase they show evidence of the emergence of modern skull features indicating the evolution of echolocation (particularly a groove in the jaw which probably aided in hearing). After this display, the exhibit "turned back the clock", and showed a nice progression of whale fossils. The most primitive whale ever discovered is Pakicetus, a collie-sized quadruped which was revealed to be an ancestral whale by the structure of its auditory bulla.

Next up was a skeletal reconstruction of Ambulocetus, and amphibious creature which probably had a lifestyle similar to that of a crocodilian. To get an idea of what Ambulocetus probably looked like, this painting by Carl Buell is top-notch.

The next skeleton on display was the small, amphibious whale Kutchicetus, which has been likened to an otter.

Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and Kutchicetus were all found in the India-Pakistan border region. In the Eocene epoch, to which these fossils date, this region formed part of the coast of the Tethys Ocean. The Eocene was marked by warm temperatures around the globe, and conditions conducive to the mammals' march to the sea to exploit its abundant food resources.

The next extinct whale on display was Dorudon, a Basilosaurid whale with a tiny pelvis decoupled from its spine, but trailing two tiny legs. Unlike Pakicetus, Ambulocetus, and Kutchicetus, Dorudon probably was completely aquatic. Next to the Dorudon was displayed the skull of another Basilosaurid wale, Zygorhiza.

Moving on to modern whales, the first modern whale skeleton on display was that of a pygmy right whale, the smallest of the filter-feeding baleen whales. This display was quickly followed by a display of the skulls of various beaked whales. The beaked whales are rarely seen, but they display a wide variety of tooth configurations, with the dentition of the strap-toothed whale being particularly bizarre.

The centerpiece of the display was a pair of mounted sperm whale skeletons, with the skeleton of the male dwarfing that of the female. Also impressive was a life-sized replica of a blue whale's heart that children could climb inside. Additionally, there was a video simulation of the dive of a sperm whale (reconstructed from data from a whale-born transmitter), culminating in the almost-cliched battle between the whale and a giant squid.

The tail end of the exhibit was an exploration of human-whale relations, with a concentration on the role of the whale in Maori society. There was also a depiction of the early European whaling industry in New Zealand, and a grim display of the tools used to kill whales and to process their blubber into whale oil. I was a bit rushed for time, so I did not spend as much time as I wished in this part of the exhibit... I will return to spend some more time to the exhibit, museum membership has its perks.

After my museum trip, I took a subway ride home that was bookended by a pint at the Dublin House on 79th St and the Punch Bowl on 238th St- two old man bars, perfectly suited to a man of leisure like myself.