Flannel Shirt

Music Friday: Happy Birthday, Sis

It's my sister's birthday.

No, you can't ask.

Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday to you.

Scientists conclude

Scientists conclude that volcanoes caused the Little Ice Age.

The Little Ice Age was caused by the cooling effect of massive volcanic eruptions, and sustained by changes in Arctic ice cover, scientists conclude.

An international research team studied ancient plants from Iceland and Canada, and sediments carried by glaciers.

They say a series of eruptions just before 1300 lowered Arctic temperatures enough for ice sheets to expand.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, they say this would have kept the Earth cool for centuries.

The exact definition of the Little Ice Age is disputed. While many studies suggest temperatures fell globally in the 1500s, others suggest the Arctic and sub-Arctic began cooling several centuries previously.

The global dip in temperatures was less than 1C, but parts of Europe cooled more, particularly in winter, with the River Thames in London iced thickly enough to be traversable on foot.

What caused it has been uncertain. The new study, led by Gifford Miller at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, links back to a series of four explosive volcanic eruptions between about 1250 and 1300 in the tropics, which would have blasted huge clouds of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere.

These tiny aerosol particles are known to cool the globe by reflecting solar energy back into space.

Zonkey!

When you think about weird things that you can find down in the Los Angeles era I bet you never thought of a zonkey. That is, a cross between a zebra and a donkey. There's gotta be a lot of beer in the equestrian bar for donkeys and zebras to look at each other. If they do wake up in the same stall it's unlikely that anything permanent will come of their tryst.

But here is Mona Lisa, a zonkey, with amazing coloring:

Mona Lisa is the size of a zebra but has the low-hanging stomach and shape of a donkey. Her body is gray, but her ears and mane are black and white, and her legs are streaked with black stripes.

She also brays like a donkey but barks like a zebra.

"I have not given Mona Lisa voice lessons yet, but she sure can use it," said Baygulova, an opera singer and voice coach.

Zebras and donkeys almost never mate, and even if they do, the odds of procreation are slim, experts say. Their offspring often are sterile.

"It's really rare," said Janet Roser, a UC Davis professor who specializes in equine reproduction. "There may be a few in zoos."

Horses and zebras have been known to mix as well. Their offspring are called "zorses."

Mona Lisa was probably born in the Sierra Nevadas and her mother was probably a zebra, Baygulova said.

She clearly has a penchant for attention, braying and barking when Baygulova moved over to pet her horse.

"She's like the bratty little sister," Baygulova said, adding that despite the jealousy, the two animals love each other.

Because of the shape of her back, Mona Lisa can't wear a saddle, but Baygulova said she can still be ridden.

"A lot of people say they're untrainable," Baygulova joked. "Maybe I'm half-zebra."

Beer adendum

It has been pointed out that I did not include the complete list of Beer's Five Enemies. They are:

1. Light
2. Heat
3. Oxygen
4. Government
5. Religion

 

George Lucas

The New York Times ran a feature-length article on George Lucas a couple of weeks ago. It's an interesting read. Tip of the hat to Joan.

A poisonous skunk

Here's an interesting article on a curious creature that covers itself with poison to prevent lions from eating it. And similar beasts.

Meet the African crested rat, or Lophiomys imhausi, a creature so large, flamboyantly furred and thickly helmeted it hardly seems a member of the international rat consortium. Yet it is indeed a rat, a deadly dirty rat, its superspecialized pelt permeated with potent toxins harvested from trees.

As a recent report in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B makes clear, the crested rat offers one of the most extreme cases of a survival strategy rare among mammals: deterring predators with chemical weapons.

Venoms and repellents are hardly rare in nature: Many insects, frogs, snakes, jellyfish and other phyletic characters use them with abandon. But mammals generally rely, for defense or offense, on teeth, claws, muscles, keen senses or quick wits.

Every so often, however, a mammalian lineage discovers the wonders of chemistry, of nature’s burbling beakers and tubes. And somewhere in the distance a mad cackle sounds.

Love to read about weird creatures.

The Five Enemies of Beer

My daughter and her boyfriend Jon came up to Portland for the weekend, and the biggest event was a brew pub tour run by a guy named Jim, who calls his tour the "College of Brew Knowledge".

After he collected our money and everyone was strapped into his vehicle he gave us our first bit of knowledge: There are five enemies of beer. One is light, which is why most beer sold in bottles are sold in tinted bottles. Another enemy is oxygen, which is why beer goes flat. That's my daughter Robin studying hard at the Beer College.

After that the enemies list of beer started getting blurry over the course of the afternoon. I think heat was another enemy. But people need light, heat and oxygen.

The first place we went to was the Hopworks Urban Brewery. A brew master named Walker gave us lots of information about hops and grains. Hops are citrusy, and a two other varieties. I forgot.

As we went through the different beers we were supposed to write down our impressions of each beer. For example, I found Hopworks' Crosstown Pale Ale "sweet and piney". Oh yeah, "piney" is another category of hops. We had six different beers at Hopsworks. Each one tasted better than the last one.

The beers are rated on the IBU scale which is either the International Bitterness Unit or the International Brewers Unit. Above is the tote board where Hopworks rates its various beers by the IBU.

 Above is where they make the beer. The put it in one big container and do something, move it to another big container and do something. Then they move it to another big container and it sits around until it's ready. They have pipes that run from the basement where the beer is made upstairs to the pub where the beer is drunk. They had a great men's room with great lights hanging over the urinals.

Then we went to Amnesia Brewery. On my way out of the van I landed funny on my bad knee. It hurt some, but luckily the beer seemed to help the pain. We had their ESB (English bitter using British hops), which was good. Their Copacetic IPA was good too. And their Desolation IPA was good too. Jim stopped asking me for my opinion because I seemed to like every beer he brought.

Between breweries we drove past Potato Champion, where I got my first taste of poutine. That was cool. I still don't know my way around Portland very well, so when I see something I recognize I get excited.

I don't know about enemies of beer, but one enemy of beer drinkers is bladder capacity.

Next we went to McTarnahan's which either does or doesn't have a relationship with Pyramid Breweries. I didn't get that straight.

Here's a picture of Jon waiting for beer. The guy sitting in the background ordering the garlic fries is the tour guide Jim. Their Apricot Ale was "A-OK!!" The Hefeweizen was light. They had a Smoked Lager which I found "weird", and a Goose Bump Bourbon Stout which I didn't like. It tasted like bourbon. But we'd been drinking all afternoon and it was getting dark and their garlic fries were fantastic.

Here is a huge copper kettle that the McTarnahanistas use for making beer:

It was dark by the time we got to our last brewery. I thought it was the Hair of the Dog Brewery, but it was actually the Lucky Labrador Brewery. Forget the enemies of beer, I didn't know where we were. This painting was hanging on the wall there:

 We had something called "Crazy Ludwig" which I described as "good, bitter, light bite". I have no idea what I meant. Then we had something else.

After the tour Jim dropped the three of us down at the kids' hotel. We staggered around and had pizza and then they poured me into a cab to go to Joan's house. The smartest thing I did on Saturday was rely on others to drive me.

Joan missed the day because she's a doula and a baby arrived two weeks early, so while she was toiling over a new mom and a new baby we were toiling over pitchers of beer.

+++

It had been a beautiful day on Saturday but Sunday returned to normal Portland weather. Lots of rain. Joan and I had breakfast at The Cameo Cafe (I think its name is). Great breakfasts. The serving of hash browns is so big and so hot that they glow. When you squirt catsup on them it bubbles. And they're nice and creamy too, like the center of the sun.

We met up with the kids and went over to my place in Beaverton, because Robin wanted to see what it looked like with stuff in it (she'd seen it when I first rented it). After playing with the cat we drove out along the Columbia River Gorge.

The above is Multnomah Falls. It was raining and there was lots of water in the waterfall. There was lots of water everywhere. I got a coffee mug in the gift shop, and I put a penny in one of those machines that mash it and make it a trinket.

We came back to Joanie's, where Robin played with Gilly and Sully for awhile. Then we went over to the brew pub across the street (they're all over the place) and had dinner and took them to the airport. A fine weekend. Lots of fun.

Beware of the enemies of beer.

 

Election$ as Hor$e Race$?

Article here about how the Citizens United case will turn our elections into horse races. Of course, the media has been reporting elections like horse races for years.

Down in Florida

For awhile now I send my mother amaryllises for Christmas. When she was living in New Jersey and the weather was cold and all the trees outside were bare and lifeless, it was something to give her cheer in her house.

Well, they work well down in Florida, where she lives now. The shady figure is my mom, Dorothy, and one of those amaryllis plants was sent by my daughter. Family thing, I guess.

Music Friday: This is fear country. I've gotta tell on you.

Last night Professor Barry Glassner, president of Lewis & Clark College here in Portland, gave a talk about "The Culture of Fear" in America. That's also the title of a book he wrote, about how people misplace their fear and worry about things that don't need to be feared. I remember what my life was like as a child versus what my life was like as a parent and yes, fear has multiplied. And it's only gotten worse since then. Everybody's afraid of everything.

Glassner, formerly the executive vice provost at the University of Southern California, has earned a reputation as a rational critic of dire news -- whether it arises in media, political or popular circles. He says three out of four Americans report that they're more afraid now than they were 20 years ago, and he's kept track of how those fears have ebbed and flowed...

Glassner offered this:

 "It's really in schools, from kindergarten through graduate schools, where people have the best opportunity to understand how to sort out realistic claims from exaggerated ones and learn how to think critically."

It reminds me of T-Bone Burnett's song of paranoia, "Fear Country".

Sleep tight. Don't let the bedbugs bite.