ILLUSTRATION BY PAWEL KUCZYNSKI

The brink of disaster created by the hard-right, populist and authoritarian adults to the children of the future.

 

ITEMS WHOSE BASIC DESIGN REMAIN UNCHANGED SINCE INVENTION

 

 

Item: Paperclip 

Invented: 1899 Europe-although prototypes had been around earlier-the first patent came around this time.

Item: Spoon

Invented: 1000 BCE Egypt-our first utensil for eating, defined as a shallow bowl shape with a handle.

Item: Dice

Invented: Predates recorded history

Item: Broom

Invented: Several thousand years ago-originally, bunches of thin sticks, reeds and other natural fibers were tied together and attached to a larger stick. 

Item: Wheel

Invented: 4000-3500 BCE Sumerians in Mesopotamia. It is thought that a round shape of stone mounted on a central axle was first used as a potter's wheel. Soon afterwards, it was adapted for transportation, beginning with two solid round wood disc on an axle. By 2000 BCE, the solid disc was replaced with spokes for a lighter, swifter vehicle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BIG CATS

Within the family of cats, Felidae, there is a division: the big cats which include lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars and everyone else. Around 6.37 million years ago, the ancestors of big cats broke away from the rest. One of the main differences is that big cats roar but do not purr due to changes in their throat structure.

The big cats in order of size:

Lion

 

Tiger

Jaguar

Leopard

While both leopards and jaguars have spotted coats, there is a difference: both have circular shapes called rosettes but jaguars have internal spots within the rosette.

A fun, in-depth doc about the big cats:

FIVE SECOND STORIES

Some music:

 

This month's full moon is the Strawberry moon. A vid with cool visuals for Nick Drake's "Pink Moon" from 1972:

 

A 1996 one-hit wonder from alt-rock group Primitive Radio Gods "Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand", a piano-driven ballad over a hip-hop  backbeat, which heavily sampled B.B. King's "How Blue Can You Get?". 

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 Origin of the Ouija board:

From Wiki:  As a part of the spiritualist movement, mediums began to employ various means for communication with the dead. Following the American Civil War, mediums did significant business in allegedly allowing survivors to contact lost relatives. Use of talking boards was so common by 1886 that news reported the phenomenon taking over the spiritualists' camps in Ohio. The Ouija was named in 1890 in Baltimore, Maryland by medium and spiritualist Helen Peters Nosworthy. Following its commercial patent by businessman Elijah Bond on July 1, 1890, the Ouija board was regarded as an innocent parlor game unrelated to the occult until American spiritualist Pearl Curran popularized its use as a divining tool during World War I. 

Norman Rockwell cover of the May 1, 1920 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, showing a Ouija board in use.

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6/23-A cold front swung through last night bringing cooler temps and thunderstorms. We got over an inch of rain and this morning, while wet, is very refreshing with temps only in the lo-70's. Everyone is a lot more comfy although Mr. Zucchini loved the heat!

6/25-Seen while out and about: wheat has turned.

Rachel Kramer

We have a baby! A month after planting!

Weather continues to be mild and wet at times. Good for deck yoga! Buddy splooting:

Being C's yoga support buddy:

Liza and Eli had a fight in the birch with plenty of tail switching and chatter:

Mr. Redbird was looking like he was coming out of his molt still a mix of old and new feathers:

6/29-storms around 4 am brought a lot of rumbling thunder and .75" of rain resulting in a very muggy morning. Buddy was pooped:
 

What's black and white and green all over?

 

 Chester with a zucchini.

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Roach has suggested creating a Fight Club for Migrants. Another brilliant idea to bring back the good old days where watching people kill each other is a public sport.

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How Eddie Bauer became famous-from Wiki: In 1920 at the age of 21, Bauer opened a shop located in Seattle, WA that specialized in building and repairing tennis rackets. Soon, he expanded his line to making golf clubs and fishing tackle. In 1934, he developed and patented a shuttlecock design which soon popularized badminton in the US. After a near disasterous winter fishing trip, he began work on developing a better, warmer, lighter weight jacket made of quilted down to replace the bulky wool versions. He patented the first such coat in 1940. In 1942, the US Army Air Force commissioned Bauer to create a flight parka for aircrews who flew at high altitudes. In addition to the parkas, Eddie Bauer supplied the army with backpacks, pants and sleeping bags, all of which became standard issue for American troops in the war.In 1945, he began his first mail order catalog and his initial mailing list included the names of 14,000 soldiers who had worn Eddie Bauer clothing provided by the United States Army during their service. The rest, as they say, is history.

Eddie Bauer 1899-1986

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 "Bliss" Hill, iconic Windows wallpaper 1996 and today:

Archive, Patricia Chang

The hill is now a vineyard.

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Bonobos and chimpanzees are the two species which make up the genus Pan and are the closest living relatives to humans. The two species became separated by the formation of the Congo River 1.5-2 million years ago-chimps live north of the river, Bonobos to the south. Differences developed as a result: Bonobos are smaller and have a matriarchal social structure vs the larger, male dominated society of chimps. One curious feature the bonobos share with our species: both will cooperate with strangers. Chimps do not. 

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Water deer aka vampire deer native to Korea and China. They do not grow antlers so the tusks are used for territorial fights. 

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Want something more to worry about? One of the hazards of high altitude flying in jetliners during the depths of winter over polar regions of the planet is that the pilots have to constantly monitor the temperature of jet fuel. It will start turning to gel at -22F clogging the fuel lines, starving the engines causing them to flame out. To help deter gelling, heaters are place in the fuel lines, some fuels have additives as well as changes to flight plan avoiding severe arctic cold fronts where the outside temps can reach -60F.

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Fun vids:

Excellent doc on forests, learn about the inner mechanic of trees, how they impact their environment. Well worth the near hour of watch time and a great show for kids/grandkids:

A case of trees communicating with each other:

Daytime fireworks in Italy:

From Australia, the Golden Tailed Gecko:

Ad for Snapchat, a social media platform:

A beaver in the house-dam it all!

A giant 3D cat billboard in Tokyo, Japan:

 Making music with a bar code scanner:

 Releaf-sustainable paper made from dead leaves:

 Hydrophobic duck feathers help them keep dry:

 

MO' MUSIC: MURDER BALLAD AND GHOST STORIES WITH BANJO

Traditional murder ballad from late 19th C played by Will Rowan-"Rain and Snow":

Oh, I married me a wife,
Gave me trouble all my life,
Ran me out in the cold rain and snow.

Rain and snow, rain and snow, rain and snow, oh, Lord,
Ran me out in the cold rain and snow.

Well, she came down the stairs,
Combing back her long yellow hair,
And her cheeks just as red as a rose.

As a rose, as a rose, as a rose, oh, Lord,
With her cheeks just as red as a rose.


Oh, I did all I could do,
For to get along with you,
And I ain't goin' be treated this-a-way.

This-a-way, this-a-way, this-a-way, oh, Lord,
And I ain't goin' be treated this away.

Some researchers suggest that this was based on a murder in North Carolina. No one knows who wrote the song. 

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One of my favorite Joel Mabus songs-from 2013 "Panhandle Prairie":

I was drinking one night in a panhandle barroom
Stepping outside for a change in the air
I spied a tall figure all wrapped in white linen
With cold gray eyes and raven black hair

He shot me a glance and a shiver run through me
With a chill to the bone that hangs on me yet
He labored one breath and then drew another
And the words that he spoke I will never forget

He said I traded my home way back in the mountains
For the smell of cheap whiskey and a harlot’s perfume
And I gambled my life on the panhandle prairie
Got shot in the breast, now death is my doom

Go write me a letter, to my gray headed mother
She’ll tell the news to my sister so dear
But there is another, more dear than my mother
Don’t tell her I died a drunkard out here

Take a pearl handled pistol to nail up my coffin
Read God’s holy word, and sing a sad song
Then bury me deep in the panhandle prairie
Where the buffalo grass can feed on my bones

I asked for his name, but he gave me no answer
I pressed him once more and he made this reply
The wind tells my name when it blows on the prairie
It moans and it whispers, it screams and it cries

Just then a west wind blew hard on the prairie
And a devil of dust spun up in the air
I wiped out my eyes, but I never could find him
That pale dead man with the raven black hair

Mabus writes that the song is about the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle area. The Oklahoma section from 1850-1890 was known as "No Man's Land", an area of public domain and subject to "squatter's rights" outside of the Indian Territories. After the Civil War, cattlemen moved into the area. Gradually they organized themselves into ranches and established their own rules for arranging their land and adjudicating their disputes. It was a wild place.

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A favorite of mine from Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings-from 1997 "One Morning":

One mornin', one mornin' as work I begun
What did I see ridin' out of the sun
On the road from Lexington

 

One rider, one rider beatin' the breeze
Down on his saddle, low to his knees
Comin' through my willow trees

 

Now closer, the terrible work of the gun
Was stiffened and black where his blood all had run
But I knew my wayward son

 

One mornin', one mornin' the boy of my breast
Came to my door unable to rest
Even in the arms of death

 

FIVE SECOND STORIES

Father's Day: another beautiful evening. The Diner had its regulars coming in and out including M/M Goldfinch:

 

The big tiger lilies out front are in their glory:

C and Buddy did their deck yoga:

Bud later retired for a rest on one of the chairs. All of our cats have enjoyed them. One of the callas is blooming by the fountain.

When I turned in around 10.30 pm, the forecast was calling for a 30% chance of rain and maybe .10" accumulation. They were wrong. The first storms came in around midnight and another batch around 4 am and it poured. Neither of us slept well between the weather and his lordship coming in soaking wet and getting his Mum up for a towelling. In the morning, my rain gauge read 2.6"! This was badly needed going into a week of intense heat and we had been in a deficit for the past 2 months and the lawns were beginning to brown up.

Buddy was exhausted:

 

The following week, we are having our first spell of 90°+ weather. We're not sleeping all that well, a bit off our feed and Buddy's tail is dragging with his fur pjs. It's hot Mum and Dad!

Meanwhile, all the chuckettes are back.

6/21-A nice Summer afternoon shower:

Which cooled things off for a bit before the sun came back resulting in roasty-toasty heat and muggy-wuggy humidity.

The new pool program, which began a while back with the removal of the deck has progressed with the tear-down of the old pool. It now appears that we have a meteor crater in our backyard.

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Curious things our species does: once a sacred site has been established, over time it is built over by prevailing religions-Rome over pagan, Christian over Roman, Christian over Aztec, Hindu over Moslem are good examples. 

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Over 500 years ago, Luca Signorelli began work on a series of frescos in a cathedral located in Orvieto, Umbria. The first dealt with the Apocolypse, known as The Preaching of the Antichrist. This figure represented Girolamo Savonarola, a Dominican friar whose teachings and prophecies turned him into a political threat to the Vatican and the Florentines resulting in his execution. His depiction would not have been lost on the locals. 

In the painting, the Antichrist stands in a crowd to speak but is befuddled and forgets his lines. Coming to his rescue is Satan who tells him what to say. These words spread wickedness throughout the world and mislead the faithful. 

I was struck by the similarities with today's cultural and political turmoil. A befuddled man of power who requires the aid of someone to follows him around with a wireless printer so his advisors, who are monitoring the situation, can shoot him talking points.

Yep, the same ole shit, different century. Things do not change much, do they?

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I was sitting in a local taqueria finishing my tacos when a familiar tune came on with a female singing in Spanish. I wracked my brains for the title and finally it came: "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Gawd. Made famous by Welsh singer Bonnie Tyler 1983. It was followed by another familiar song which again, I could not bring up out of the archives so I asked the v young waiter. He asked the owner/mgr who evidently had stuff playing via some online app. He checked the playlist and revealed this was "The Rose" from 1980, that was a giant hit for Bette Midler. I was not a fan of either-I was listening to a lot of new wave at the time. 

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Fun vids:

Wow-this series turned up on my feed: Bush Barbie (sheila version of Croc Hunter) provides a lewd PSA about the virtues of using a condom, in barely understandable Strine. Fair dinkum!

Summer in Inner Mongolia:

 

 Grassland slides:

 

 Pyrosomes:

From Wiki: Pyrosomes are free-floating colonial tunicates or marine invertebrate animal  that usually live in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths. Pyrosomes are cylindrical or cone-shaped colonies up to 60 ft) long,made up of hundreds to thousands of individuals, known as zooids. Colonies range in size from less than one centimeter to several metres in length.

 

One of a series of Ai generated ads featuring modern TV series if they were produced in the 1950s with Super Panavision. Here, one of our favs: Futurama:

 

 

Scottish shepherd and his doggies:

We've been watching posts made by a Scottish shepherd showing how he and his dogs herd sheep. The dogs are fabulous to watch and it's interesting to see how they respond to the shepherd's commands. They are very well trained and my hat's off to the shepherd who did the training. The posts give a good glimpse of modern herding techniques in use. The shepherd uses an 4-wheeled ATV, whistling and shouting out commands to the dogs. Watching this, I wondered how his body feels at the end of a cold, drizzly day, after bouncing and jostling around on uneven ground with the vehicle and using his voice constantly. What does he do when he gets a cold and his voice is shot?

Years ago, Michele and I went up to the Highland Festival in Alma held in late May. We were big fans of the Uncle Herriot tales and one of the features we wanted to see at the festival were the herding trials-human, dog, sheep and a pen. Great fun!

The Lycians and their rock tombs:

 

They were known as excellent metalworkers and created some of the best coinage of that period:

 

Aphrodite at left

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A new monolith has been discovered near Las Vegas. It joins a series of these sculptures appearing out West, detailed in Haluski March 14, 2024 post.

It has already been taken done by local authorities citing “public safety and environmental concerns” for idiots hiking in to view it without bringing enough water or having adequate weather considerations.

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I was surfing YT when I came across a vid titled "Lake Michigan Stonehenge". Well, I could not ignore this clickbait and was pleasantly surprised. 

A mile long series of stones were discovered by shipwreck hunters 40 feet below underwater in Grand Traverse Bay. This line, obviously not the result of glaciers, ended in a cul-de-sac. Carbon dating of the stones suggested they were 9000 years old.

Meanwhile, U of M professor John O'Shea, who lead a team studying a similar structure found underwater in Lake Huron has a theory: both structures are Drive Lanes used by Stone Age hunters. Both sites were above water 9000 years ago and humans had figured out that herd animals do not like to step over barriers. A long line of rocks were placed directing the herd to a hunting blind where an ambush was set up. This technique is still used in the Arctic by caribou hunters. This is a photo of the Eddington Blind in Southern Victoria Island, Nunavut, Canada:

 

Similar techniques are used today to direct herds. In cattle country, cattle guards are painted on roads to prevent the herd from wandering. Cattle freak out thinking their hooves will get caught between the white stripes.
 

No relation to:

Stephen Lovekin

I couldn't resist this delicious pun, heh heh. 

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A fabulous short by animator/illustrator Steve Cutts "Happiness" depicting the 21st Century version of the Rat Race. The term in current use dates to the 1930s and became prominent during the post-war period. Although the joke "Even if you win the rat race, you're still a rat" was made famous by Lily Tomlin, Jackie Gleason used the phrase in 1956. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HAPPY SOLSTICE!

 

First cherry tomatoes!

Borage

Mr. Zucchini loves this weather!

Hydrangeas

Plump honeysuckle berries-an annual treat at the Diner-good eatin' for someone

Tithonia are outgrowing their cloches-chicken wire fencing coming soon

A shy, first echinacea bloom