whale poop fights global warming
In a heroic calculation, Australian biologists estimated that the estimated 12,000 sperm whales in the Southern Ocean each defecate around 50 tonnes of iron into the sea every year after digesting the fish and squid they hunt.
The iron is a terrific food for phytoplankton — marine plants that live near the ocean surface and which suck up CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis.
As a result of faecal fertilisation, the whales remove 400,000 tonnes of carbon each year, twice as much as the 200,000 tonnes of CO2 that they contribute through respiration.
noise
At some point in the last five years, I learned to prefer listening to speaking. Not really sure how that happened.
headline of the day, runner-up
U.S. Army banishes Velcro from pants
R. Kelly and the “Little Man” Defense: There’s no crying in sex tapes.
With due propers to Dominick Dunne for his high-profile trial coverage over the years (including my favorite — the piece on the Phil Specter debacle), this too is some seriously and deliciously good shit. I am willing to go out on a limb here and postulate that reading about the trial was perhaps far more entertaining than actually attending it would have been.
Read every last entry. There are two sections; one here and the other here.
Frustrated with her declining musical career (and perhaps resentful of Kelly’s astoundingly successful one), Sparkle hatched a scheme to extort her rich ex-mentor and to turn the words of her hit song “Be Careful” into reality. (“You better be careful what you do to me,” she sang, ” ’cause somebody might do it to you.”) While Kelly was out making beats one night, she enlisted a pair of underemployed porn actors to bust into the singer’s log cabin and film themselves having sex, peeing, etc. Meanwhile, Sparkle and Hankerson harvested outtakes from Kelly’s copious back catalog of music videos, then took advantage of the thriving black market in Little Man-quality digital-effects wizardry to Frankenstein together Kelly’s face and the urinator’s body. (Sparkle’s motive for putting her niece in the video is less clear. For the sake of argument, let’s assume that she was mad at her for, say, borrowing her glitter without permission.) After Kelly refused to pay to keep the video under wraps, Sparkle sent the video to the Chicago Sun-Times, willing to make her niece collateral damage to disgrace the man who’d done her wrong.
The defense rests.
-Ronya
a catalogue of fear, 6
Old enough to be outside for once, I watched the cousins create a goddess out of boxes and a chair. When it came time for them to leave, the wind snapped a branch against the glass. The open-mouthed terror they fell with down the stairs erased the chance to hear the sound. It was effortless how they struggled to outrace each other from their fear.
Gary Brooks Faulkner
An American man has been detained in the mountains of Pakistan after local authorities found him carrying a sword, pistol and night-vision goggles on a Rambo-style solo mission to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden.
If I tried to give a synopsis it would be as long as the story.
Pernice to Me
I designed this book and book jacket (with help from my friend Sarah at Third Half Studios, who designed the actual tattoo). It’s called Pernice to Me, and it’s an amusing compendium of conversational snippets between music industry veteran Joyce Linehan (@ashmont) and the artist she manages, the incomparable (and apparently irascible) singer/songwriter Joe Pernice. I am a longtime fan of Joe’s work, despite the fact that he comes from my hometown. Their banter, while tinged with occasional mock racism, sexism and homophobia — and a canny misanthropy borne of long years toiling in the trenches of the music biz, with which I have a passing familiarity — is strangely enjoyable. Think of it as a “Shit My Dad Says” for working musicians and the people who work for them.
My favorite tweet was actually a voice mail: “Hi Joyce. This is Joe. Please return my call so that we may resume our little dance.”
You can enjoy their little dance for $10. On sale here.
Erection-Friendly Foods
A conversation about the almond-crusted oysters at Veracruz Café prompted my Dallas friend Steve to send me a link to this article about ‘foods for harder erections’.
Seeing as how the list was compiled by editors of the UK edition of Men’s Health, I forwarded the link to our English flocker for his take. Phil was impressed by the variety of what he called ‘erection-friendly’ foods.
I like that phrase. What do you think? In addition to noting which dishes on the menu are ‘heart-healthy’, might restaurants designate ‘erection-friendly’ dishes with a symbol of a hard cock? Men, would you be more or less likely to order an erection-friendly dish if it were so designated?
Update: Link all fixed.
iPad USB Typewriter
If you have $400 and a serious case of nostalgic yearning, may we then suggest you spend the money on a wonderful USBTypewriter? Described as a “groundbreaking innovation in the field of obsolescence,” the typewriter can hook up to any machine with a USB port and lets you clickety-clack your way through your latest novel, e-mail or even spreadsheet.
A Lover Scorned
J.M. Bernstein, Professor of Philosophy at The New School for Social Research, aims to explain the Randian impulses of the Tea Party and ends up finding a jilted lover:
My hypothesis is that what all the events precipitating the Tea Party movement share is that they demonstrated, emphatically and unconditionally, the depths of the absolute dependence of us all on government action, and in so doing they undermined the deeply held fiction of individual autonomy and self-sufficiency that are intrinsic parts of Americans’ collective self-understanding.
[...]
[The] rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable. And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury. All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved. However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence. That is permanent.
Someone send these people an anonymous carnation, for God’s sake.
uh
Has anyone watched 3D TV?
new Mac mini
Cool, I hadn’t seen Apple had updated the Mac mini. Even smaller.
Letters With Character
Ben Greenman, author and editor of the New Yorker, maintains a blog called Letters With Character, wherein people write letters to their favorite fictional characters.
This site was created as a companion to the highly anticipated What He’s Poised To Do (Harper Perennial, June 2010), a collection of short fiction by Ben Greenman, an editor at the New Yorker. The collection (which Jonathan Ames says has created its “own fantastic universe of stories and ideas”) uses letters and letter-writing to investigate human connection and disconnection. This blog has a related mission, which is to allow readers to interact directly with literary characters. Letters should be addressed to your favorite characters and sent to LettersWithCharacter@gmail.com.
Kind of a companion piece to our own Ask Swearengen, no?
from the comments
Fuck Denver! Fuck Downtown Denver, anyway. Is it too much to ask that streets with numbered names go in consecutive order and that they keep going the same goddamned direction? Mother fucker. Daryl and I drove a full hour in downtown Denver trying to find the motherfucking public library, in order to pick up the never motherfucking, greatly loved India. Said public library, by the way, is of so little consequence to Denverites that it is not included on “sites of interest” on the city map and is, furthermore, not where it’s supposed to be according to Google. I finally had to stop at a 7-11 and ask a Chinese immigrant where it was. He knew, bless him. Then–THEN–when we finally found it, we discovered that the only parking available is at street meters. No dedicated parking facility for the main library. So I had to circle and circle and circle (and at one point almost ran over a man in a wheelchair, but he wheeled fast and got out of my way) and I’d see a place open up and rush up really fast and MOTHER FUCKER someone else would pull in right in front of me. So Daryl and I–not at all happy with each other at this point–decided that he’d take the wheel and drop me off and I’d go in to pee and fetch India, which I did, and after that everything was okay.
quote out of context
Just as only Nixon could have gone to China and only Clinton could have reformed welfare, so too can only a family-values, conservative break down that barrier preventing politicians from openly cavorting with prostitutes.
The Book of Enoch, a translation, Chapter Two
The patterns of the sky, of perfect harmony and order, begin to shift.
What then?
How we must have sinned.
Saturn, the one who seemed to rise and set in our geography — the King who walked among us!
When heaven begins to shift, surely some evil has been done.
Or, put another way, when the shapes we have assigned to groups of stars, passed down a thousand years, disappear below the horizon, surely it is caused by some sin against your perfect order.
Oh, lord.
The politics of oil spills and mass transit
Image by Pro-Zak via Flickr
Intended outcomes aside, is this cynical?
“Now I can’t promise folks that the oil will be cleaned up overnight,” Mr. Obama said. “It will not be.” More businesses will be hurt and people will be angry. “But I promise you this, that things are going to return to normal.”
I do understand the context: the president was speaking to people who have lost jobs and paychecks, whose livelihoods are insecure, and whose futures are uncertain. We can only hope that their lives will return to normal as soon as possible.
But these are times, in policy terms, when things should not return to normal. Yet, I am worried that they will.
new (old) word
Let’s blow it. Let’s play it. Let’s feel it.
Till now, the vuvuzela, as an instrument with only one note, has only been blown by fans in random and chaotic abandon for years to signify their enthusiasm and joy for “the beautiful game.” It has become synonymous with football in South Africa and many vuvuzelas blown in this manner at a football match collectively create a cacophony of sound, often unsettling for teams and fans from other countries who are not familiar with it.
So Edwin Mitas and Sipho Ndlovu (Midlovu) composed and recorded a selection of Vuva Tchunas (simple tunes punctuated by a vuvuzuela horn section), and
Research has found that everyone who hears the music finds it enjoyable, expressing a certain measure of disbelief that the vuvuzela has been used so skillfully, and often mistaking it for a trombone. Also, frequent playing of the music does not result in boredom or a feeling of “I have heard it before”.
Sample tracks here.
headline of the day
‘Touchdown Jesus’ destroyed by lightning
Some recent areas of television expertise
Professional Tool Evaluator
Extreme Angler
Human Combustion Expert
Foot Care Scientist
something, 44
I just figured out where the big feet came from.
Ask Swearengen
Dear Al,
Although I don’t usually like to keep secrets, I recently ordered a bicycle in anticipation of moving to a house in the city. While I obviously wouldn’t try to hide my bicycle from my partner, I did neglect to tell her about the purchase at the time. I wanted to have the bike so that there would be something tangible associated with the expenditure. Alas, the vendor–who had promised discretion–mailed a postcard to our current home thanking me for the purchase. While the discovery was coincidental, I feel remorse over withholding what was a happy moment for me. What should I do?
Pussywhipped in Parsippany
—
Dear P’Whipped,
Oh, a turn of events. Your partner calls it a coincidence. So, what with this coincidence and turn of events starin’ me in the fuckin’ face and five other fuckin’ things I’m supposed to be payin’ attention to, I still make you a sensible proposal and you answer by insulting me in my own joint. Fuck off.
Al
who invented the vuvuzela?
From an unusually quiet article on the most contemptible of devices:
Maake, who says he came up with the name vuvuzela in 1994, said that in 2001 the plastic vuvuzela was trademarked by Masincedane Sport, based in Cape Town.
He claims he was invited to make a deal but the meeting never happened. “I don’t mind taking the idea, but why do they put the vuvuzela name on the brand? I get no royalties from those kind of things. The money is sent to Cape Town and Saddam doesn’t get any.
“I went to Safa [the South African Football Association], the mother body; I complained and nobody listened. I’m not going to get a lawyer because I don’t have the money.”
Maake, who is unemployed, aims to make some money during the World Cup by selling his vuvuzela CD and hopes he will be used as a celebrity fan in adverts.
“I’m a man who loves a challenge. That’s why they call me Saddam. I love Saddam Hussein because he died protecting his country. I’m also protecting my country.”
from the comments
Back before I knew my husband, when he was a long-haired hippie boy (damn it, can’t believe I missed that) in the early 70s, he hitchhiked to Californ-i-a, lived under some eucalyptus trees for awhile, bought a raspberry Bug and was driving it back to CT. Chose a path through Amarillo, TX, where The Man stopped him for being long-haired in a purple car. Hassled him, worried him, but the stash in the floorboards remained unfound. Nonetheless, the experience was profound enough that all of our (grown) children, none of whom were even imagined at the time, have an abiding revulsion toward Amarillo, as do I.
