Month: January 2013

your Moby Dick Friday open thread

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by liberal 'ahab' japonicus The battery in the wireless handset of our phone no longer holds a charge, so I went to the local electronics store to pick up a replacement. Found the catalog with the models and the equivalent replacements, and in the spot where that battery should be, there was an empty space. … Read more

Change is easy in 1984

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by Doctor Science Tom Edsall at the NY Times asks Can Republicans Change Their Spots? after the losses of the 2012 election. The problem that faces business leaders pressing for reform is not just the normal reluctance of a political party to change. Instead, it is the fact that much of the Republican electorate, as … Read more

Friday comeuppance open thread

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by liberal japonicus In the middle of a very interesting intro to a movie that was surreptitiously filmed inside of Disney World is this gem. A famous case over the artist Thomas Forsythe’s “Food Chain Barbie” series is similar to this one. In the late nineteen-nineties, Forsythe created a line of artistic photographs of Barbie … Read more

The military academies, abstinence, and rape culture

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by Doctor Science Bruce Fleming, an long-time English professor at the U.S. Naval Academy, thinks that It’s impossible to teach young officers-in-training what’s wrong with unwanted sex when even consensual sex is against the rules.. I don’t know if this would really make enough difference at the academies, but it definitely echoes something I’ve long … Read more

The Heroism of Non-Violence

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by Doctor Science

A MLK Day post, slightly delayed

One of the reasons gun fans give for wanting everyone to bear arms is that armed people are better able to resist or change a tyrannical, unjust government. In one of our recent discussions, for instance, someone said:

Not that guns are the way to fight every problem. Sometimes peaceful ways are much better, like MLK. But I think Nazis would have shot MLK and then gone about their business.

Along these lines, last week Rush Limbaugh said:

If a lot of African-Americans back in the ’60s had guns and the legal right to use them for self-defense, you think they would have needed Selma? I don’t know, I’m just asking. If John Lewis, who says he was beat upside the head, if John Lewis had had a gun, would he have been beat upside the head on the bridge?

John Lewis replied:

Our goal in the Civil Rights Movement was not to injure or destroy but to build a sense of community, to reconcile people to the true oneness of all humanity. African Americans in the ‘60s could have chosen to arm themselves, but we made a conscious decision not to. We were convinced that peace could not be achieved through violence. Violence begets violence, and we believed the only way to achieve peaceful ends was through peaceful means. We took a stand against an unjust system, and we decided to use this faith as our shield and the power of compassion as our defense.

Cut due to spoilers for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie:

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Bird of the Week: Barnacle Goose

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by Doctor Science

It’s winter, which means Rare Goose Time in New Jersey if you can’t get to The Shore. Finding rare birds has become much easier than it used to, as birders use online tools to show and tell about our discoveries. Earlier this week, I saw two BarnacleGeese-LarryS

Barnacle Geese, seen in Twin Rivers, NJ. Photo by Larry Scacchetti, but I was there, too. Also seen the same day: Pink-Footed Goose, Northern Lapwings.

Two days later and a bit north, I saw this Greater White-Fronted Goose.

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Another view of North Korea

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by liberal japonicus This view of the Richardson/Schmidt visit to North Korea, by Eric Schmidt's daughter, is well worth the time. The coming together of post boomer irony and the Glorious Leader is like the bringing together of matter and anti-matter.

Whatcha reading Friday open thread

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by liberal japonicus Well, I had forgotten I had ordered this, a translation of the Iliad into South African English, so it was a surprise yesterday. My favorite version of Homer is Christopher Logue's, and here is him reading this passage, based on Book 16, 633-637) Try to recall the pause, thock, pause,Made by axe … Read more

Bird of the Day: Bald Eagle

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by Doctor Science Yesterday morning I spent about an hour along the Raritan River in central NJ. The river is less than 50m wide at that point, so it’s possible to look at every one of the several thousand Canada Geese present, trying to find a rare goose (Cackling, Snow, White-Fronted, etc.) mixed in, even … Read more

The Running of the Deer

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by Doctor Science

Last week (more or less) included my husband’s birthday, and for his celebratory dinner I made Juniper-Spiced Venison with Brown Goat Cheese Sauce[1]. The crowd went *wild* — it may have been the best venison any of us have ever had [2], and it was certainly the tenderest wild-caught venison I’ve ever encountered.

I realize that I generally count as one of the “anti-gun” crowd, so it may surprise you to learn that I have no objection to hunting per se. On the contrary: I support local hunters as much as possible. I don’t hunt, but that’s for lack of hand-eye coordination and depth perception — I pose no danger to the broad side of a barn.

The reason I support hunters is because I’m a serious lifelong birdwatcher. I’ve asked around, and I’ve never known a serious birder who was categorically opposed to hunting, even the vegetarians.

Audubon16_peregrine_falcon

Peregrine Falcons (aka Duck Hawks aka Great-Footed Hawks), by John James Audubon. Red in beak and claw, in this case.

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5 years on

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by liberal japonicus Not the usual Friday open thread. Andy Olmsted's father posted a comment on the thread about grief, and noted it has been 5 years since Andy was killed by a sniper along with Capt. Thomas Casey. If you've come to ObWi since then and are not aware of who Andy was, you might … Read more