New Findings about Whale Behavior

A 25-year-old named Alberto Haro Romero, known as Beto, told me of something he saw a month earlier while kayaking off Cabo San Lucas. A group of southward-migrating gray whales were suddenly surrounded and attacked by a pod of pilot whales. Out of nowhere, a group of humpbacks — who, like grays, are baleen whales — appeared and began going at the pilot whales, a highly coordinated counterattack. “It was unbelievable,” Beto said. “One baleen whale coming in on the behalf of another. It was, like, tribal.”

link: Watching Whales Watching Us - NYTimes.com

[This is a lengthy and complex piece, fascinating all the way: strongly recommened. *TRH*]

Mother's 35: Miyako Ishiuchi

Michael Hoppen writes:

Miyako Ishiuchi was born in 1947 to a country whose culture had been infiltrated by the influence of the US servicemen living on the naval bases in major ports and cities during the military occupation post World War II. The presence of the western soldiers had a profound effect on Ishiuchi’s early childhood, and inspired her to produce her first body of work- ‘Yokosuka Story’. Miyako Ishiuchi was one of a renowned group of Japanese photographers, including Shomei Tomatsu and Daido Moriyama who confronted the trauma of post – war Japan and the dawning of a new era by using their cameras as tools to express, record and explore what it meant to be Japanese at this pivotal moment in history.

link: Michael Hoppen Contemporary - Artist - Miyako Ishiuchi - Miyako Ishiuchi - Mother's 35

Steven Hawking on the Evolution of Intelligence

Intelligence, Hawking believes contrary to our human-centric existence, may not have any long-term survival value. In comparison the microbial world will live on, even if all other life on Earth is wiped out by our actions. Hawking's main insight is that intelligence was an unlikely development for life on Earth, from the chronology of evolution: "It took a very long time, two and a half billion years, to go from single cells to multi-cell beings, which are a necessary precursor to intelligence. This is a good fraction of the total time available, before the Sun blows up. So it would be consistent with the hypothesis, that the probability for life to develop intelligence, is low. In this case, we might expect to find many other life forms in the galaxy, but we are unlikely to find intelligent life."

link: Stephen Hawking: Why Isn't the Milky Way "Crawling With Self-Designing Mechanical or Biological Life?"

O Arizona: Sheriff Joe's Understatement of the Year

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio vowed Friday to continue his immigration enforcement efforts even if he decides to opt out of a deal that gives 160 of his officers the power to enforce federal immigration law.

The U.S. Homeland Security Department said it was changing the rules for allowing local police to enforce those laws. Arpaio has been using those rules to arrest suspected illegal immigrants.

If he walks away from it, he said he will continue enforcing state laws that prohibit immigrant smuggling and ban employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

"I get the impression that they don't like the way we are operating," said Arpaio, who believes the changes in the program would hamper his immigration enforcement efforts.

link: Arpaio Vows More Immigration Enforcement - Phoenix News Story - KPHO Phoenix

Uighurs Gather At Mosques Despite Injunctions

Several mosques in the riot-hit Chinese city of Urumqi have opened for Friday prayers, countering earlier notices that all places of worship would be closed following clashes that left more than 150 people dead.

Mosques across the city, capital of China's far western Xinjiang region, had been ordered to close amid fears that large gatherings of ethnic Uighur Muslims could spark renewed unrest and clashes with the city's ethnic Han Chinese community.

Authorities had said the closures were for the sake of public safety and told Uighurs to pray at home.

However by midday on Friday large crowds had gathered at major mosques in the city.

link: Al Jazeera English - Asia-Pacific - Uighurs defy Urumqi mosque closure

Clair Morgan: Fluid

Coilhouse » Blog Archive » A Cloud Of Strawberries.

A Special Place in Hell: The Wicked Statesman

Artist unknown "The wicked statesman, or the traitor to his country, at the hour of death" 1772

link: MONSTER BRAINS

Cosmic: Breaking Open the Head

Phantasmaphile writes:

I just finished Breaking Open the Head by Daniel Pinchbeck, and I can honestly say it is one of the most fascinating books I have ever read. It is at once a history of the psychedelic movement, an exploration of shamanism, and an autobiographical spiritual narrative recounting the author's own mind-boggling experiences. I found myself underlining entire chunks of the book, as there were so many rich ideas which were either brand new to me or else entirely affirming of my own suspicions and views. I think I will leave it there, as it's far too brilliant and complex a book to sum up in just a few words, and I am frankly still digesting it. I will say that I did discover two of Pinchbeck's other projects, Reality Sandwich and Evolver, and have been delightedly poking around those two sites recently. Have a look.

link: Phantasmaphile: Breaking Open the Head

Obama Moment Clarified: No Ogling

The problem with this intriguing image and caption is that it now appears to have been rather manipulative. By morning, video of the event had surfaced, and it becomes fairly clear after watching it that the still frame photo happens to catch Obama at a moment where the perception of ogling could certainly be created. But in reality, he was simply in the midst of gesturing to help someone down a step. As for Sarkozy, as the ABC News anchor jokes, it’s not quite as clear.

link: Obama Checking Out Girl at the G8 Summit? God Save the Manipulative Internet

Afghan Warlord's Mass Execution Supported by US

During the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, an incident occured in which hundreds or thousands of Taliban POWs were killed by a warlord supported by the US.

Bush administration officials repeatedly thwarted efforts to investigate the mass killing, according to American officials and human rights groups. The warlord responsible, Abdul Rashid Dostum (shown above while campaigning for president in 2004), still retains a high position within the Afghan government. How (and if) the Obama administration will deal with ongoing calls for an investigation remains to be seen.

link: Afghanistan: US discouraged inquiry into mass killing of Taliban prisoners - Boing Boing

Shepard Fairey Cops to Graffiti Charge

An artist who created an iconic red, white and blue portrait of U.S. President Barack Obama that appeared on thousands of posters and T-shirts pleaded guilty on Friday to graffiti charges in Boston.

Shepard Fairey, a Los Angeles artist whose "Hope" image of Obama hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, was arrested in February while traveling to Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art to kickoff his first solo exhibition.

Police accused the 39-year-old of damaging property with graffiti in several city locations.

link: Obama portrait creator pleads guilty to graffiti | U.S. | Reuters

Nigeria's Obama Angst

"Why would Obama want to come to Nigeria? To lend credence to the putrefying edifice that the nation has largely become?" one writer asked in the Guardian newspaper. Wole Soyinka, a Nobel prize-winning writer, said he would "stone" Obama if he legitimized Nigeria by visiting.

It is unsurprising that Obama's first visit as president to sub-Saharan Africa, an Obama-obsessed region that views him as a native son, would inspire continental envy. But in a country where democratic expression has been stunted by flawed elections, the move has given critics a fresh opportunity to stick it to their government. They call it a clear indictment of Nigeria's ever-present corruption, President Umaru Yar'Adua's slow progress, the conflict in the oil-rich Niger Delta and what some here see as cooled relations with the United States.

"Most people believe it's deliberate, not a mere oversight, and it's a statement and the message is well conveyed," said Reuben Abati, editor of the Guardian. "Nigerians are very angry with their government."

Nigerian officials, for their part, shrug off the angst. "It was a non-issue," Jibrin D. Chinade, Yar'Adua's special adviser on foreign affairs, said in an interview. "There is no message."

link: For Nigerians, Obama's Snub Prompts Soul-Searching - washingtonpost.com

Big Brother is Ogling

The Gawker writes:

Uh oh. Somebody's sleeping on the White House sofa when he gets home from the G8 Summit in Italy! And Matt Drudge is never going to let this die.

But seriously, Is this not one of the best presidential photographs of all-time? Even Sarkozy looks like he's sneaking a peek, though he's French, so we expect him to do it.

However, in Obama's defense, that is a great ass! And naturally, Drudge is having some fun with this.

link: The American President is an Ass Man, Apparently - Barack Obama - Gawker

Solution to "Abominable Mystery" of Flowering Plants Proposed

The great explosion in flowering plants during the Cretaceous Period is one of the great enigmas of evolution.

Charles Darwin had no explanation, calling it an "abominable mystery".

But now scientists think they have solved the riddle of how flowers came to dominate the conifers and ferns that preceded them.

The flowers' secret, they say, was to exploit a change in soil fertility, and create a feedback loop that allowed new flowers to feed off dead ones.

The relative explosion of flowering plants greatly worried Darwin.

In a letter written on 8 March 1875 to palaeobotanist Oswald Heer, he said: "The sudden appearance of so many Dycotyledons in the Upper Chalk appears to me a most perplexing phenomenon to all who believe in any form of evolution."

link: BBC - Earth News - How flowers conquered the world

"Evolutionary Novelty": How the Turtle Gets its Shell

Scientists have revealed a spectacular insight into turtle evolution - how the unique animals get their shells.

A Japanese team studied the development of turtle embryos to find out why their ribs grow outward and fuse together to form a tough, external carapace.

Reporting in the journal Science, the researchers compared turtle embryos with those of chicks and mice.

They found that, as turtles developed, part of their body wall folded in on itself forcing the ribs outward.

The team of researchers from the Riken Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, described the turtle shell as an "evolutionary novelty".

link: BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | How the turtle's shell developed

Human Activity Initiates New Geological Era?

No one can realistically argue that humans haven’t dramatically transformed the face of the planet. But now scientists, who love naming things, propose that humankind has so altered the Earth that that we have brought about an end to one epoch and entered a new age, as different from our recent ancestors' time as the Jurassic was from the Cambrian.

Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen calls it the Anthropocene, with "anthro" signifying humanity's biospheric impact. They suggest humans have so changed the Earth that it’s time the Holocene epoch was officially ended.

link: "The Anthropocene": Are We Living in a New Geological Era? Experts Say "Yes"

Disease and Death Rampant in Sri Lankan Refugee Camps

About 1,400 people are dying every week in a camp set up in Sri Lanka to detain Tamil refugees from the country's civil war, a British newspaper reports.

Quoting senior international aid sources, The Times reported on Friday that the death toll at the Menik Farm would add to concerns that the Sri Lankan government had failed to halt a humanitarian catastrophe.

Most of the deaths are the result of waterborne diseases, particularly diarrhoea, the paper said, quoting a senior relief worker it said spoke on condition of anonymity.

Women, children and the elderly were shoved aside in the scramble for supplies, it said.

link: Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - 'Hundreds dying' in Sri Lanka camp

Dept. of Texas is a Different World: Gay Men Eating at Chico's???

EL PASO -- Two gay men kissed at a Chico's Tacos restaurant, prompting guards to eject them and a police officer to endorse their ouster. Civil-rights lawyers say the security staff was out of line. Police, though, contend that a business such as a restaurant can refuse service to anybody, any time.

link: Gay Men Kicked Out Of Restaurant For Kissing, Cop Tells Them Kissing Is Illegal

Iraqi Kurds Move Forward With Constitution

With little notice and almost no public debate, Iraq’s Kurdish leaders are pushing ahead with a new constitution for their semiautonomous region, a step that has alarmed Iraqi and American officials who fear that the move poses a new threat to the country’s unity.

The new constitution, approved by Kurdistan’s parliament two weeks ago and scheduled for a referendum this year, underscores the level of mistrust and bad faith between the region and the central government in Baghdad. And it raises the question of whether a peaceful resolution of disputes between the two is possible, despite intensive cajoling by the United States.

link: Kurds Defy Baghdad, Laying Claim to Land and Oil - NYTimes.com

Muslims in China: No Praying

Chinese authorities banned prayer gatherings at mosques here on Friday, the principal day of prayer for Muslims, as security officials tried to prevent further ethnic violence in the Xinjiang region.

But local officials appeared to partly relax the ban on Friday afternoon, allowing shortened prayer services after hundreds of Uighur worshipers gathered outside at least two of Urumqi’s main mosques and pressed to be allowed inside, news agencies reported.

The security clampdown that followed Sunday’s deadly riots remained tight. A small group of about 40 Uighur men and women began a protest march after prayers ended Friday, but they were quickly blocked by police forces, The Associated Press reported. Officials later announced a curfew would be reimposed on the city Friday evening. The city’s main bus station was filled with people trying to flee the unrest, news services said.

Meanwhile, in another large Xinjiang city, the ancient Silk Road oasis town of Kashgar, foreign journalists and other visitors were instructed to leave.

link: China Bans Mosque Meetings in Strife-Torn Region - NYTimes.com

RIP Naomi Lewis

Naomi Lewis, poet and woman of letters, was born on September 3, 1911. She died on July 5, 2009, aged 97

link: Naomi Lewis: poet and woman of letters | Times Online Obituary

RIP Drake Levin

Drake Levin, who played lead guitar for the teen-idol rock band Paul Revere & the Raiders during their biggest hit-making years in the mid-1960s, died July 4 in San Francisco. He was 62.

The cause was cancer, said his wife, Sandra.

Paul Revere & the Raiders, a band that coalesced around the organist Paul Revere Dick and the singer Mark Lindsay, began in the 1950s in Caldwell, Idaho, near Boise, where it was first known as the Downbeats. It later established itself in Portland, Ore., then moved to Los Angeles and became nationally known in 1965 when the band began making regular appearances on the television dance show “Where the Action Is,” starring Dick Clark.

The band had a driving pop sound and an irreverent, almost campy humor. Members wore color-coordinated colonial-era outfits onstage, and they often performed their songs to a kind of antic choreography.

link: Drake Levin of Paul Revere and the Raiders Dies at 62 - Obituary (Obit) - NYTimes.com