Sunday Open Thread: June 17 is World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought

and it is also Sweetmorn, Confusion 15, 3184 YOLD
(for you Discordians out there)


Kenyon4.jpg

World History this day

1462 - Vlad III the Impaler attempted to assassinate Mehmed II
1579 - Sir Francis Drake claimed California for England
1673 - Marquette and Jolliet reached the Mississippi
1767 - Samuel Wallis sighted Tahiti
1775 - The (first) Battle of Bunker Hill. *
1839 - Kamehameha III issued the edict of toleration letting Roman Catholics worship their way
1843 - The Wairau Affray, between Maori and British settlers colonists **
1900 - Western and Japanese imperialist forces captured the Taku Forts in Tianjin, China.
1940 - Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia were occupied by the Soviet Union.
1944 - Iceland declared independence
1991 - South Africa repealed the Population Registration Act

* The hardest battle was ever on Bunker Hill, when me and a bunch of cowboys run into Buffalo Bill - Leadbelly
** I'm sorry, but those who "settle" somebody else's land, except by invitation, are not settlers, they are colonists.

US History this day

1876 - The Battle of the Rosebud: Sioux and Cheyenne beat US forces
1877 - The Battle of White Bird Canyon: Nez Perce beat US cavalry
1930 - Herbie Hoover signed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act
1932 - The Bonus Army massed at the Capitol to no avail
1963 - The Supremes banned forcing students to recite Bible verses and the "Lord's Prayer" in public schools
1972 - Five White House operatives were busted for burgling the offices of the DNC
1992 - Bush and Yeltsin agreed to what would become START II

Science & Technology this day

1922 - Gago Coutinho and Sacadura Cabral completed the first aerial crossing of the South Atlantic.

The Arts this day

Misc. this day

1987 - The dusky seaside sparrow became extinct

Birthdays of Note this day

1704 - John Kay, engineer, invented the flying shuttle
1818 - Charles Gounod, composer
1832 - William Crookes, chemist and physicist, vacuum tube (Crookes' tube) pioneer
1882 - Igor Stravinsky, pianist, composer, and conductor
1898 - M. C. Escher, illustrator and artist
1910 - Red Foley, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1914 - John Hersey, journalist and author
1927 - Wally Wood, author, illustrator, and publisher
1930 - Cliff Gallup, guitarist
1940 - Chuck Rainey, bassist
1943 - Barry Manilow, singer, songwriter, and producer
1943 - Burt Rutan, engineer and pilot
1945 - Eddy Merckx, cycling legend
1947 - Gregg Rolie, singer, songwriter, and keyboard player
1957 - Philip Chevron, singer, songwriter, and guitarist
1958 - Jello Biafra, singer, songwriter, and producer

Deaths of Note this day

1631 - Mumtaz Mahal, wife of Shah Jahan, reason for the Taj Mahal
1719 - Joseph Addison, essayist, poet, playwright, and politician,co-founded The Spectator
1954 - Danny Cedrone, guitarist and bandleader
1986 - Kate Smith, singer
1996 - Thomas Kuhn, physicist, historian, and philosopher

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So now some music


Stravinsky

Red Foley

Cliff Gallup

Chuck Rainey

Barry Manilow

Gregg Rolie

Philip Chevron

Jello Biafra

Mumtaz Mahal

Danny Cedrone

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Photo: is Yaqui Wash from the Kenyon Overlook by the author
(The Anza-Borrego Desert, looking roughly Southeast from the top of Yaqui Pass)

It's an open thread, so do your thing

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Lookout's picture

A cool 70 degrees this am and headed toward 90 by afternoon.

Here's a permaculture project near the Dead Sea and how they greened a piece of dry desert.
(5 min)
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sohI6vnWZmk]

China is working to stop the growth of the deserts too

What makes desertification so problematic in Asia is the movement of sand toward population hubs. The Gobi Desert in China’s northwest is the most dominant; its cousin, the Kubuqi, is farther east and closest to Beijing.

With an annual budget of about $1 million (U.S.), Future Forest has planted about 6.2 million trees since 2006. Every year, 30 per cent of the new plants die and have to be replaced. When completed, the barrier is to run north-south for about 15 kilometres, a green ribbon about 800 metres thick, as a choke point to divert the sands from their easterly path. The goal is to plant 100 million trees and thicken the green wall into habitable green space.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/02/01/can_chinas_great_green_wal...

desertification and droughts are real challenges!

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout matter. I hope that they indulge in "water farming" as well as other practices, butassume that somebody there is hip to all that. Have a great day.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Azazello's picture

This may have been the most boring Le Mans race ever. The finishing order was the same at the end as it was when I went to bed last night, Toyota 1st and 2nd overall. Porsche takes 1st and 2nd in the GTE Pro class ahead of two Fords. Ford and Porsche both paid homage to the glory days of the race. The four Ford cars were numbered 66, 67, 68 and 69. Those happen to be the last digits of the 4 consecutive years in the 20th century when Ford GT40s won overall. The class-winning #92 Porsche was painted like the famous "Pink Pig" car that the factory ran in 1971. Details here: ACO

Were there Yaquis in California ?

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We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

enhydra lutris's picture

@Azazello The Yaqui were not indigenous to California, but appear to have immigrated to various locales in SoCal at various times, because their presence is sporadically noted in the various histories. I can't say about Yaqui Pass, but a view to the SW would show a small lush area known as Yaqui Well. It is a natural seep, now with no surface water. The name allegedly comes from a Yaqui Indian from Sonora, who lived near the well with a local Kumeyaay woman.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

detroitmechworks's picture

Between Clinton's theft and sabotage of her political enemies,
and Nixon's?

I'm not talking legalities, which are as fluid as the puddle of piss that the senators wet when getting a piece of model legislation and a campaign contribution.

I'm talking about hard Ethics.

In my opinion, there is no difference. And that right there is the big problem.
Our country cannot see clear ethical violations, for the ethics are always situational.
The nebulous goal of "The Greater Good" has become the all purpose fig leaf for all manner of foul and corrupt cancers.

Wow. Ok, dammit brain, stop working. Ethics and Morality and Politics. I'm way above my pay grade, because clearly I shouldn't be thinking about these things which have been thought about longer and harder by wizened persons with their proof of superior knowledge attested to by all the Cults of America. (Oh dear, I seem to also have accidentally promoted my own essay series as well... Clearly I am a shameless attention seeker who must hang his head in shame lest my crimes against the social order be exposed. Smile )

And some appropriate music
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0D7ERIFiEE]

Edit: fixed my standard typo of leaving out the final t in thought. I think I just don't hit that key hard enough writing that word.)

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

enhydra lutris's picture

@detroitmechworks ethics, is hard, and requires thought. This is doubly so under capitalism. That's why we have religion. With religion, everything is cut and dried, there are hard and fast rules. Thou shall not kill, but, obviously, only within the tribe, except,of course, for capital crimes. Lying is a sin, no matter who does it or why. Luckily, we can forgive. If somebody we idolize lies, then we can forgive them, assuming that they are a co-religionist.

With respect to icons like Saint Hillary, there are further protective mechanisms at work. Within tribe deflection and denial combined with yeahbut, butwhatabout, and notconclusiveproof, work in an infinite regression and a perpetually self-reinforcing whitewash to obscure and obliterate culpability for any alleged impropriety even if it did happen which it didn't you sexist fascist commie racist rat bastard working for Trump.

BTW, what was that piece of music?

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

detroitmechworks's picture

@enhydra lutris called "Europa Barbarorum" It's a what if scenario that tries to historically accurately model Europe during the time of the rise of the Roman Empire. (The AAA game that was released was HIGHLY historically innaccurate, with Rome having a dominant advantage from the start, and various fantasy units that added to make the Romans an Uber-faction. The mod was in development from the time the game was announced, and now is on a sequel on a better engine.)

They contacted a lot of historians and musicians who study ancient music to try to get music that felt right. This piece specifically was written in the Phrygian scale to try to match the feel of the Greeks at the time. It is absolutely NOT historically accurate, but was an attempt to give a modern take on the harmonies that were popular at the time.

And I agree that acting ethically is Hard work. Which is why most American Politicians will be found nowhere in the vicinity.

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I do not pretend I know what I do not know.

smiley7's picture

and The New Yoker helped the dream along with this good piece: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/06/18/koks-the-worlds-most-remot...

Ziska and a clutch of deputy chefs served the mahogany clams, explaining that they are among the ocean’s most long-lived creatures. “A mahogany clam can live to five hundred,” he said. After the cheesy waffle with fermented-lamb spread, hailed as delicious, came a palate cleanser: a dollop of stewed rhubarb between peppery nasturtium leaves smaller than the pads of one’s fingertips. It looked like a fairy’s portion, or a chef’s practical joke.

A good morning for a fairy tale.

Have a good day, everyone!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@smiley7 picnics and other outdoor gustatory delights, but the linked article sort of put me off of any such thoughts. Luckily, I'll never go to the Faroes and will thus, alas, miss out on the experience described in the article. Wink

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

dystopian's picture

Neat Yaqui pass pic, been there, Yaqui Wells is still a birding stop if in the area.

The Dusky Seaside was a separate species until the great taxonomical lumpings of AOU (Am. Ornithologists Union) 1973. I looked for them July 73 near Titusville, FL, but there were few left, it was wrong time (heat) of day, and we missed it. By time I got back to FL the few left were in captivity. I heard repeated spraying for mosquitoes was a major factor, I presume the "pesticides" mentioned at the wiki page below. They actually sprayed the marshes they were in.

per: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusky_seaside_sparrow
"When Merritt Island was flooded with the goal of reducing the mosquito population around the Kennedy Space Center, the sparrows' nesting grounds were devastated, and their numbers plummeted. Later, the marshes surrounding the river were drained to facilitate highway construction; this was a further blow. Eventually, pollution and pesticides took such a high toll that by 1979, only six dusky seaside sparrows were known to exist — all of whom were males; a female was last sighted in 1975."

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

enhydra lutris's picture

@dystopian the Anza-Borrego once a year, and hit Yaqui Well at least once. One of the trails out of the Agua Caliente county park south on SR S2 from Scissors Crossing, and scissors crossing itself are also sometimes fruitful.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

dystopian's picture

@enhydra lutris

If you hit the flowers right in spring out there around Boreego it can be amazing. I left socal 15 years ago, but grew up birding there in 60's and 70's. We camped all over Boreego much of my youth. One of the best fallouts I ever experienced was at Agua Caliente, early, in March as I recall, it rained overnight and the campground and the big main wash going downhill had hundreds of Lincoln's Sparrows and many dozens of Sora (!!) running around under the mesquites in the desert wash! It was astounding. Musta hit that Sora flight just right.
Good place for Prairie Falcon too, lots of Phainopepla, what a neat place.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

enhydra lutris's picture

@dystopian sixties, but wasn't a birder. The family went out to the desert a few times each year becuase the desert is way cool and also wildflowers. Once I moved away I stayed away for a few years, and then started going back to A-B every spring for a few days to a couple of weeks camping and wandering around, birding and just generally digging on everything.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --