A 500th Anniversary

This year is the 500th anniversary of Vasco Nunez de Balboa‘s sighting of the Pacific Ocean. Balboa was hardly the first white man, let alone the first human, to see the Pacific Ocean. But he was the first white man, the first Spaniard, to see the Pacific from the eastern shore.

Balboa, from a frontispiece by Frederic A. Ober

Balboa was a common soldier and would-be conquistador who was made interim governor of a Spanish colony is present-day Panama. On September 1, 1513, Balboa left the settlement with about 190 Spaniards and a thousand Indians in search of a great body of water that had been described to him by a native friend. As they crossed the isthmus of Panama, they encountered dense jungles, swamps, fierce natives, and rough mountain terrain. He succeeded in slaughtering his way through many tribes of natives without losing any men. On September 25th or 27th (the date is uncertain) Balboa climbed to the peak of a mountain, and for the first time saw the “South Sea” or what is now the Pacific Ocean.

John Keats, one of WC’s favorite poets, writing about his excitement and delight at a translation of Homer, included a wonderful reference to the event in his Petrarchan sonnet:

On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer

Much have I travell’d in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men
Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.

Okay, so Keats, up all night reading Chapman’s translation of Homer, got the conquistador wrong (or substituted Cortez because Balboa didn’t scan properly). And Balboa called it the Sea of the South. It was Magellan who later named it Pacific. But WC has always loved the lines, “He star’d at the Pacific — and all his men/Look’d at each other with a wild surmise —/Silent, upon a peak in Darien.”

Four days later, he and his men reached the ocean and claimed it and the lands that it touched for Spain. He also found a fortune in gold, pearls, and slaves and proudly returned to Antigua. The Spanish king, before hearing of Balboa’s achievements, appointed a new governor named Avila. When Avila arrived he suspended Balboa’s authority because of a previous charge of usurpation, but on the initial inquiry Balboa was acquitted. Balboa gained much popularity and became betrothed to Avila’s daughter in 1516. Avila disliked and envied Balboa and framed him for disobedience and treason. He was found guilty of treason and decapitated in 1519. No one knows where he was buried, or even if he was buried. So much for Balboa.

Still, he cut a bloody path across Panama and world history 500 years ago this year.

The Farthest North Hummingbird Banding Station

Wickersham’s Conscience reader and sometime commenter Kate McLaughlin has a nice article in the current issue of Birdwatching Magazine this month.

Alaska has only one hummingbird species that breeds regularly here: the Rufous Hummingbird. McLaughlin runs North America’s farthest north hummingbird banding station in Prince William Sound. Through her research efforts, McLaughlin helped establish the range of the Rufous Hummingbird, as well as its migration – an astonishing 3,500 miles in one case.

So here’s a shout-out to a distinguished reader. Congratulations on the article and on the data.

Rufous Hummingbird, Winter Plumage, High Island, Texas

An Act of Self Defense: WC’s Lawyer Joke Collection

For some years now, since at least 1995, WC has collected lawyer jokes. It’s a form of self-defense. Too many people WC meets want to tell him lawyer jokes; in a cocktail conversation it can go on for a long time. So, in response to the first old joke, WC usually reports it is already in his collection, provides the link and the subject gets changed.

A sample:

The scene is a dark jungle in Africa. Two tigers are stalking through the brush when the one to the rear reaches out with his tongue and licks the ass of the tiger in front.

The startled tiger turns around and says, “Hey! Cut it out, already.” The rear tiger says, “Sorry,” and they continue.

After about another 5 minutes, the rear tiger again reaches out with his tongue and licks the ass of the tiger in front. The front tiger turns around and cuffs the rear tiger and says, “I said stop it!.” The rear tiger says, “Sorry,” and they continue.

After about another 5 minutes, the rear tiger once more licks the ass of the tiger in front. The front tiger turns around and asks the rear tiger, “What is it with you, anyway?”

The rear tiger replies, “Well, I just ate a lawyer and I’m trying to get the taste out of my mouth!”

The strategy has worked so well that WC hasn’t had a new lawyer joke inflicted on him for more than three years.

But it’s time to plumb the depths again. Here’s the link to the collection. If you have the time, the courage and a very strong stomach, troll through. If you know a joke that isn’t listed, pass it along in a comment.

Jasper Fforde Runs Loose

WC can only handle a limited amount of Jasper Fforde’s writing at a time, but there is no question the man has a twisted kind of genius. Take this conversation among the grammar police from The Well of Lost Plots:

“Good. Item seven. The had had and that that problem. Lady Cavendish, weren’t you working on this?’

Lady Cavendish stood up and gathered her thoughts. ‘Indeed. The uses of had had and that that have to be strictly controlled; they can interrupt the imaginotransference quite dramatically, causing readers to go back over the sentence in confusion, something we try to avoid.’

‘Go on.’

‘It’s mostly an unlicensed-usage problem. At the last count David Copperfield alone had had had had sixty three times, all but ten unapproved. Pilgrim’s Progress may also be a problem due to its had had/that that ratio.’

‘So what’s the problem in Progress?’

‘That that had that that ten times but had had had had only thrice. Increased had had usage had had to be overlooked, but not if the number exceeds that that that usage.’

‘Hmm,’ said the Bellman, ‘I thought had had had had TGC’s approval for use in Dickens? What’s the problem?’

‘Take the first had had and that that in the book by way of example,’ said Lady Cavendish. ‘You would have thought that that first had had had had good occasion to be seen as had, had you not? Had had had approval but had had had not; equally it is true to say that that that that had had approval but that that other that that had not.’

‘So the problem with that other that that was that…?’

‘That that other-other that that had had approval.’

‘Okay’ said the Bellman, whose head was in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange, ‘let me get this straight: David Copperfield, unlike Pilgrim’s Progress, had had had, had had had had. Had hadhad had TGC’s approval?’

There was a very long pause. ‘Right,’ said the Bellman with a sigh, ‘that’s it for the moment. I’ll be giving out assignments in ten minutes. Session’s over – and let’s be careful out there.”

― Jasper Fforde, The Well of Lost Plots

It’s worth the time and effort to work your way through the quote (reading it aloud helps). Because, incredibly, it makes perfect sense at every point. Although at some of those points there is  danger that, like the Bellman, your brain will be in danger of falling apart like a chocolate orange.

The Thursday Next books are certainly among the most unusual fantasy novels WC has read. Not for everyone’s taste, but if you enjoy word play and gentle mocking of classic literature, Fforde’s your writer.

M/V Polar Star – Update 05 Dec 2012

There is news regarding the M/V Polar Star, the former icebreaker tour ship. She was WC’s ship for a trip to the Southern Ocean two years ago. For the story of what happened to her, please read the earlier posts at the links at the end of this blog post.

The Polar Star’s owner, Karlsen Shipping Company, is in Canadian receivership. We’d say “bankruptcy” in the United States. A receivership is administered by a Receiver under supervision of a court. There has been a change of receivers in the Karlsen Receivership. It was Price Waterhouse. It is now Grant Thornton Limited. The substitution of receivers was at the instance of something called 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited. According to pleadings in the receivership case, 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited had previously purchased from Toronto Dominion Bank the lien of that Bank on the Polar Star.

In October 2012, Grant Thornton applied for an order approving the sale of the M/V Polar Star to 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited. The purchase price was $200,000. Pocket change. At some point in the process, it appears 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited assigned its rights to another company called NumberCo. The exact relationship between 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited and NumberCo isn’t clear. But as a guess, it’s an effort to put some legal distance between the owners of the M/V Polar Star and the bills owed by the ship itself.

According to Grant Thornton, Astican Shipyard is charging some 34,500 Euros (about US$45,000) a month for storage. The original repair expenses were apparently never paid. And it’s estimated that it will cost US$1.7 million to get the Polar Star re-certified to carry passengers. While the ship has been in dry dock, according to Thornton, the ship broker who valued the ship at $8-10 million in May 2011 now values it at less than half that amount.

So NumberCo, whatever and whoever that may be, now owns the M/V Polar Star, free of Toronto Dominion Bank’s ship mortgage, but subject to the lien for repair of the ship (still incomplete) and the substantial storage fees accumulated at Astican Shipyard. Recall that Price Waterhouse had abandoned the ship entirely.

The purchase price paid by NumberCo, combined with its acquisition of the ship mortgage, seems too high for the ship to be scrapped. And NumberCo and its parent/affiliate, 3264741 Nova Scotia Limited, obviously is highly motivated. Not only did it spring for $200,000; it went to the trouble of finding a new Receiver and seeking substitution for Price Waterhouse. It seems nearly certain that NumberCo has negotiated some kind of deal with Astican Shipyard; it would have been imprudent for NumberCo to move forward otherwise.

WC has done a lot of legal work in bankruptcies and receiverships. You develop a kind of sensitivity to skanky conduct through that kind of experience. And this sequence of events is just a little bit skanky. At a minimum, the information available in the on-line pleadings is less than all of the story. It’s not necessarily legal wrong-doing. It’s likely nothing illegal. Just a bit … skanky.

WC suspects it will now get even harder to track development regarding the M/V Polar Star. We’ll see.

Previous posts on the M/V Polar Star:

The Sad End of the Polar Star
A Depressing Update on the M/V Polar Star
A Second Update on the M/V Polar Star
A Brief Update on the M/V Polar Star

WC’s Annual Turkey/Tryptophan Exposé

Wild Turkey, Northern Florida

Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before he dropped off to sleep.

As a service to all of his Thanksgiving Day readers who even now are struggling to stay awake, WC will examine the reality of the claim that it is “all that tryptophan.”

First, tryptophan is is an essential amino acid. This means that it cannot be synthesized by our bodies and therefore must be part of our diet. Amino acids, including tryptophan, act as building blocks in protein biosynthesis. In addition, tryptophan functions as a biochemical precursor for the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, synthesized via tryptophan hydroxylase. Serotonin, in turn, can be converted to melatonin (a neurohormone), via N-acetyltransferase and 5-hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase activities. The melatonin signal, in turn, forms part of the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature, but it is the central nervous system (specifically the suprachiasmatic nuclei, or SCN) that controls the daily cycle in most components of the paracrine and endocrine systems rather than the melatonin signal (as was once postulated).

Trytophan can be synthesized, although it is a fairly complex, multi-step synthesis and the manufacture is regulated. It’s an interesting process:

You still awake? Oh, good.

So tryptophan is linked, albeit remotely, with the sleep/wake cycle. The problem is that while turkey meat does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats. Turkey meat is not the tryptophan bomb pop culture thinks.

Post-meal drowsiness on Thanksgiving may have more to do with what else is consumed along with the turkey and, in particular, carbohydrates. Studies on both animal models and humans show that ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin in turn stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), but not tryptophan, which is an aromatic amino acid, into muscle, increasing the ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood stream. The resulting increased ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood reduces competition at the large neutral amino acid transporter (which transports both BCAA and aromatic amino acids), resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Once in the CSF, tryptophan is converted into serotonin in the raphe nuclei by the normal enzymatic pathway. The resultant serotonin is further metabolised into melatonin by the pineal gland.

All of this suggests that “feast-induced drowsiness” — and, in particular, the common post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner drowsiness — may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.

Wake up, there. This is very nearly important.

So the answer is that the turkey doesn’t have so much to do with it. It’s the mashed potatoes and your metabolism. The turkey/tryptophan business is mostly untrue.

Any readers who are still awake may take their naps now. And Happy Thanksgiving.

[Credit for much of this post to Wikipedia, which WC has shamelessly pasted into this blog post. WC slept through most of organic chemistry, which he took shortly after Kekulé discovered benzene rings. The class was at a merciless 7:30 AM. It couldn't have been melatonin that made WC nap through organic; it hadn't been discovered yet.]

[This post is a re-run of WC's 2011 Thanksgiving Day post. WC, of course, is napping.]

Pop Quiz: WC’s Wickersham Test

This post is an experiment – can WordPress be used for a multiple-choice quiz? Here’s the attempt. Bonus points if you can identify the common thread among all three questions. The questions are from a handout at the Tea at Wickersham’s House.

It marked what the late Ernest Gruening in his fine history, The State of Alaska, called “The Era of Indifference.”

There’s really no excuse for getting this one wrong.

The expedition only got to 8,000 feet or so. And getting there involved an amazing effort.

The answers and how folks voted will be posted in a week or so…

Cringely’s Code of Ethics

One of WC’s regular reads is Robert X. Cringely’s Notes From the Field, Cringe’s relentlessly self-promoting, sometimes amusing, sometimes insightful blog at InfoWorld.

[Aside: Back in 1992, WC was wandering the halls of MacWorld, the annual Apple expo in San Francisco. At the Addison-Wesley booth, WC purchased a book called Accidental Empires, written by one Robert X. Cringely. A few minutes later, WC was accosted by a fedora-topped, trenchcoat wearing guy who insisted on signing WC's new purchase. It was Cringely. The book is worth considerable money now. Largely as a result of Cringe's autograph.]

Cringe wrote on The Oatmeal Wars recently. Uncharacteristically, he was semi-serious about it, and has suggested a code of ethics for the Web. There’s some irony in this; Cringe’s business model is based upon folks leaking information to him in violation of confidentiality agreements. But still, the idea has some merit. Here are his commandments for a code of ethics:

1. Thou shalt not copy without permission.

2. If thou dost copy, thou must attribute the original author.

3. Thou shalt whenever possible link to the original source.

4. Thou shalt not pander or shamelessly promote.

5. Thou shalt make it easy to contact the author of a story.

6. Thou shalt not attempt to extort money from sites that complain when you break all of these rules with reckless abandon.

These aren’t bad rules. It would require some kind of logo, and some effort to push it into the consciousness of bloggers, who are a surprisingly insular bunch. No doubt the “news aggregators” – a friend of WC’s calls them “news agglutinators” – would ignore the Code because it would cripple their business plans. Think of places like FunnyJunk.

But WC would support the idea of such a code. WC’s nature photos turn up all over the web, usually without credit. It’s an unavoidable consequence of the decision to post them. But if shame worked on even a fraction of the internet community, it would be a start.

What Ever Happened to the Gnome-Mobile?

In 1967, Walt Disney made The Gnome-Mobile. It was was Ed Wynne’s last movie before he died, with Walter Brennan as both the crotchety old millionaire and the crotchety old king of the gnomes. It’s a pretty good, if largely forgotten, Disney flick.

One of the sets from the movie was a four-times life-size back seat of a 1930 Rolls-Royce Phantom II. The gnome actors would appear gnome-sized in the huge set.

You probably never wondered what happened to that set, but if you did, WC can now answer that nagging question. It’s part of an antique auto exhibit in Hickory Corners, Michigan, a part of the Gilmore Museum. And open to the public:

Gnome-Mobile

Identification of Mrs. WC in this photo is left as an exercise to the reader.

N.B. This photo was not taken by WC.

Field Guide to Trolls, Second Edition

WC has bowed to the inevitable and updated his Field Guide to Trolls for recent developments. Yes, the post is a bit lame, but for reasons WC doesn’t pretend to understand, the original is by a considerable margin WC’s most popular post, ever.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has published A Field Guide to Copyright Trolls, which is useful as far as it goes, but it omits all of the other species of intellectual property trolls. As a service to WC’s readers, and with apologies to the fine folks at EFF, WC offers a more complete field guide, identifying and describing some of the other species of trolls and related leeches that feed off of dubious property claims and bad manners in the 21st Century.

Illustration	Field Notes
Patent Troll (Not to Scale)	Patent Troll Perhaps the most common kind of troll is the Patent Troll. This pest files broad form patents, usually in “soft” intellectual property like software programs, and then attempts to extort money from anyone writing a remotely similar program.The species was accidentally created by the U.S. Supreme Court when it granted patent protection to software algorithms. Perhaps the best known example of the species is Paul Allen. No matter how much money the Patent Troll may already have, or how ridiculous the claim of patent infringement, the Patent Troll will keep demanding more money. Patent Trolls aren’t confined to computer software and algorithms. The pests occur in many industries. In some cases, for example the cell phone industry, they have created a kind of litigation gridlock by their various claims and counter-claims. WC suspects such antics are only amusing to the lawyers involved. Patent Trolls have recently been criticized as stifling innovation; it’s an argument with merit.
Copyright Troll (4/23/96 - Tom Boyd - Troll Haven)	Copyright Troll The Copyright Troll thinks any use of the word “the, “a” or “and” is an infringement of their prior use of the word, and attempts to extort money for the perceived infringement. The Copyright Troll has been around much longer than the Patent Troll, and several sub-species have evolved. Probably the most common subspecies is johndough. The subspecies feeds by filing a blizzards of lawsuits against persons unknown (“John Does”) and hoping that one of the lawsuits generates money. A representative example would be the U.S. Copyright Group (USCG), which has filed several “John Doe” lawsuits in Washington, D.C., implicating well over 14,000 individuals. Some scientists speculate that johndough may be a law firm mimicking a true troll. A second subspecies, selfinflictus, may be in danger of extinction. The best known example of the subspecies, Righthaven, LLC, was recently kneecapped by a federal judge. Righthaven sued anyone who used more than five lines from content on which it claimed a copyright. Even for a troll, it has disgusting habits. Several judges in various Righthaven cases have strongly suggested that a post on another site was protected by the legal doctrines of fair use and implied license. In other words, that the business model – for a loose definition of that term, was fatally flawed. Update: and Righthaven was tagged for another $32,000 on November 10, 2011 for claiming copyright when it didn’t have it.
Music Troll	The Music Troll, a/k/a RIAA Troll The Music Troll was apparently created by a group of unknown record companies in reaction to declining music sales in the recording industry. Like most such monsters, its actions arguably have only worsened its creator’s problems. The premise of the Music Troll was that if you sued enough people they’d buy something from you. It’s utterly amazing to WC that no one stopped to think about this premise for a moment. Sometimes you have to wonder if anyone thinks at all. But WC digresses… Sometimes called the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”) Troll, it has filed tens of thousands of lawsuits against citizens who share music in violation of RIAA’s interpretation of the law. Aided and abetted by dubious actions of Congress, RIAA has issued of a subpoena to a recently deceased 83-year-old woman, an elderly computer novice, and a family reportedly without any computer at all. While the RIAA Troll has gotten some impressively large jury verdicts, and a lot of publicity, record and CD sales have continued to shrink. The RIAA Troll still thinks declining music sales is because of music sharing, despite the evidence. That evidence is that ”Downloads have an effect on sales that is statistically indistinguishable from zero.” Phil Spector 2009 Mug Shot (There is no proof all this was Phil Spector‘s idea, although his mugshot admittedly looks remarkably like a RIAA Troll. It may just be a coincidence, but RIAA’s rate of filing lawsuits has declined noticeably since Spector began serving his sentence for the second degree murder of Lana Clarkson. But WC digresses… Again…)
Common Internet Troll	Internet Troll In Internet slang, an Internet Troll is someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking other users into a desired emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. WC assumes his readers are thoroughly familiar with this species, and don’t require examples. If you’ve been living in the woods and haven’t encountered this species. a thorough discussion is here. Delingpole claims to recognize subspecies of this cretin; WC doesn’t think it is worth the effort.
Fremont Troll, a/k/a Troll Under the Bridge	The Fremont Troll The Fremont Troll is not a troll at all, but an exceptionally clever and well-executed bit of art work. A very large bit of art work, as it were; that’s a real Volkswagen Beetle under its left paw. The sculpture was brilliantly parodied by Terry Pratchett in his short story, “Troll Bridge.” Pratchett had been in Seattle for a book signing, and a fan, after many banananana daiquiris, took Pratchett to see the sculpture. One thing led to another.

This is admittedly an incomplete bestiary. If WC’s readers have examples of other kinds of annoying trolls plaguing the World Wide Web in the second decade of the new millennium, they are invited to provide descriptions in comments.

Pet Peeves: “Presidents’ Day”

George Washington, by Gilbert Stuart, 1796

Everyone has a few pet peeves. Okay, WC demonstrably has more than a few. But one of WC’s pet peeves is the whole business with “Presidents’ Day.”

Alaska law makes the third Monday in February “Presidents’ Day.” Of course, it used to be celebrated as Washington’s Birthday, and actually celebrated on February 22, the real date George Washington was born. And the federal holiday is still called Washington’s Birthday. None of this “Presidents’ Day” stuff for the Feds, proving they can get some things right. Washington’s birthday got changed to a floating date as apart of the Uniform Monday Holiday Act, a triumph of convenience over history, back in 1971.

Some states, including Alaska, formerly recognized Abraham Lincoln‘s birthday as a holiday. Sensible states still do.  But apparently someone at the Alaska Chamber of Commerce decided having two holidays in one month was wasteful. But then the Chamber of Commerce is still annoyed by the ideas of holidays in general, minimum wages and overtime. The Chamber of Commerce thinks Foxconn is just fine and that we should stop scrutinizing it. But WC has again indulged his tendency to digress.

No, WC’s peeve is that by celebrating “Presidents’ Day” seems to imply we need to honor all presidents. Not just Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt. No , the generic Alaska version of the holiday demands we honor Richard Nixon, Warren G. Harding, Millard Filmore and, shudder, George W. Bush.

WC isn’t having any of it. WC is celebrating Washington’s Birthday today, thank you very much.

If you agree with WC that George W. Bush doesn’t deserve a state holiday, write you legislators and demand they amend state law to restore the honor to the Father of Our Country, not to the sad posse of hacks that have served latterly. The Legislature’s not doing anything anyway. If they can spend hours debating and tweaking a resolution addressed to themselves, they have time for this more important task.

So here’s to you, George <clink>. And thanks.

Update: You think WC is worked up about this? Check out Stonekettle’s screed over at The Mudflats.

OOTS: Unlikely Kickstarter Success Story

Long-time readers know WC is a fan of Rich Burlew’s stick-figure web comic, The Order of the Stick. OOTS, as it is more commonly known, is probably one of the top ten web comics in terms of readership, despite its irregular postings and occasionally maddening plot distractions. The geeky humor is wonderful, and Burlew’s willingness to thumb his nose at the Fourth Wall is always good for a smile. And his plotting is simply terrific.

Burlew has published six volumes of the cartoons, but all of them have gone out of print. In response to requests from fans for copies of the out of print volumes, he launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $57,750 in thirty days, to fund reprinting of a volume.

OOTS' Interpretation of Kickstarter

(In a typical bit of sly Burlew humor, the characters lined up to kick the bound Belkar are characters Belkar has killed.) So what we have is a Kickstater campaign trying to raise $57,650 to publish a geeky Dungeons & Dragons™ cartoon book drawn with stick figures.

How, you ask, has Burlew done?

With three days left in the campaign, he has raised $847,127 from a total of 10,676 backers. You read that right. Fifteen times the target. The folks who have made pledges get only swag: OOTS stuff. There’s no profit-sharing. No interest-paying notes. Seriously, the pledge drive’s return on investment is measured in refrigerator magnets.

Average Return on Investment

Yet there are 10,676 citizens out there who found that attractive enough to make an average pledge of nearly $80 each. WC isn’t much on sociology or any of the fuzzy sciences, but this phenomenon deserves some research.

By all means, visit the comic and get an idea what OOTS-madness is all about. Warning: the site can suck up immense amounts of time (there are some 838 cartoons posted) and you may hurt yourself laughing.

Right now, though, WC has to go make a pledge.

UPDATE: as of early evening February 19, Burlew’s Kickstarter pledge total is over $1 million. Extraordinary.

Cleaning Out the In-Box

WC accumulates a lot of stuff that is too short for a full blog post but to good to pass by. Some is from WC’s in-box; some from comments; some from Mrs. WC. At very irregular intervals, all that miscellany gets lumped into a post like this.

After going down in flames in the Beluga Whale endangered species lawsuit, and being kicked all over the courtroom in its other endangered species litigation, the State of Alaska, Department of Law has decided it is time to recruit an assistant attorney general with knowledge of the Endangered Species Act. Wouldn’t this have been a great idea, say, 18 months ago?

For at least the last 25 years, the State of Alaska has been working on widening Illinois Street on the north side of the Chena River here in Fairbanks. Probably longer than that. So far, that effort has gotten us a bridge across the river that is fenced so no one can use it, a lot of vacant lots and some partially relocated power lines. And the State still doesn’t have all of the right of way it needs to award the contract. Highway construction is paid for mostly with U.S. Department of Transportation funds, which are mostly the federal gasoline tax. The feds won’t let contracts be awarded until all of the land has been acquired. (Which proves they are smarter than the former Mayor of Wasilla.) Oopsie.

This isn’t original to WC but as WC traces it, but Eye of Newt is using his two daughters from his first marriage to attack his wife from his second marriage for claiming Gingrich wanted an open marriage so he could continue his adultery with the woman who is his third wife. That’s family values for you.

Speaking of bad water, it appears that the $50 million Ruth Burnett Fish Hatchery will start hatching fish this year, more than 18 months behind schedule. The problem has indeed been the water, and issue that’s the responsibility CH2M Hill. You remember them; they are the successor to Bill Allen’s VECO, having purchased VECO after Allen’s bust. Bad karma in the water, perhaps? WC has been looking forward to seeing more Arctic Grayling in interior streams, but at the rate this is going, he’ll be too old to fly fish by the time the fish are stocked.

To all of the obscure Asian companies who continue to solicit WC’s help collecting a judgment: can’t you dream up a new scam? This con is getting as old and tired as the Nigerians’ stupid pitch.

This cheerful tweet from Scott Simon: If you could thaw out Captain Scott at the South Pole, 100 years after he died, the Cubs still wouldn’t have won the World Series.

Alaska Airlines is eliminating prayer cards from its first class food service trays. A reader wants to know if this is a sign of the Apocalypse. The reader is posting her question to the wrong blog.

WC gets a lot of emails complaining he writes about _______ too often. You can fill in the blank. Recent complaints have included the Cubs, Republicans, nature photography, the Cubs, global warming and the Cubs. And writers have complained the WC is a liberal, a Commie, a libertarian, a Democrat, a fisherman, a nazi, a tree-hugger, arrogant and, worst of all, “uses big words.”

Whatever.

WC writes about what attracts his magpie sensibilities. Whatever bright, shiny issue appeals at the moment. WC follows Mark Twain’s abjuration, appearing in the frontispiece to  The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

PERSONS attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.

A writer wants to know how much of the stuff WC writes about is real and how much is made up. Yes.

The rest of the stuff is too vulgar for even WC’s blog and will be used as digital mulch.

Tryptophan, Turkey and Post-Prandial Drowsiness

Since he was just a pup, about 30-45 minutes after wolfing down a Thanksgiving turkey dinner, WC would be asleep on the couch. In the late 1970′s, a physiologist who was WC’s Thanksgiving guest explained it as a reaction to all of the tryptophan in turkey meat. Just before dropping off to sleep.

As a service to all of his Thanksgiving Day readers who even now are struggling to stay awake, WC will examine the reality of the claim that it is “all that tryptophan.”

First, tryptophan is is an essential amino acid. This means that it cannot be synthesized by our bodies and therefore must be part of our diet. Amino acids, including tryptophan, act as building blocks in protein biosynthesis. In addition, tryptophan functions as a biochemical precursor for the production of serotonin, a neurotransmitter, synthesized via tryptophan hydroxylase. Serotonin, in turn, can be converted to melatonin (a neurohormone), via N-acetyltransferase and 5-hydroxyindole-O-methyltransferase activities. The melatonin signal, in turn, forms part of the system that regulates the sleep-wake cycle by chemically causing drowsiness and lowering the body temperature, but it is the central nervous system (specifically the suprachiasmatic nuclei, or SCN) that controls the daily cycle in most components of the paracrine and endocrine systems rather than the melatonin signal (as was once postulated).

Trytophan can be synthesized, although it is a fairly complex, multi-step synthesis and the manufacture is regulated. It’s an interesting process:

Simplified tryptophan biosynthesis

You still awake? Oh, good.

So tryptophan is linked, albeit remotely, with the sleep/wake cycle. The problem is that while turkey does contain high levels of tryptophan, the amount is comparable to that contained in most other meats.

Post-meal drowsiness on Thanksgiving may have more to do with what else is consumed along with the turkey and, in particular, carbohydrates. Studies on both animal models and humans show that ingestion of a meal rich in carbohydrates triggers release of insulin. Insulin in turn stimulates the uptake of large neutral branched-chain amino acids (BCAA), but not tryptophan, which is an aromatic amino acid, into muscle, increasing the ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood stream. The resulting increased ratio of tryptophan to BCAA in the blood reduces competition at the large neutral amino acid transporter (which transports both BCAA and aromatic amino acids), resulting in the uptake of tryptophan across the blood-brain barrier into the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF).

Once in the CSF, tryptophan is converted into serotonin in the raphe nuclei by the normal enzymatic pathway. The resultant serotonin is further metabolised into melatonin by the pineal gland.

All of this suggests that “feast-induced drowsiness” — and, in particular, the common post-Thanksgiving turkey dinner drowsiness — may be the result of a heavy meal rich in carbohydrates, which, via an indirect mechanism, increases the production of sleep-promoting melatonin in the brain.

Wake up, there. This is very nearly important.

So the answer is that the turkey doesn’t have much to do with it. It’s the mashed potatoes and your metabolism. The turkey/tryptophan business is mostly untrue.

Any readers who are still awake may take their naps now. And Happy Thanksgiving.

[Credit for much of this article to Wikipedia, which WC has shamelessly pasted into this blog post. WC slept through most of organic chemistry, which he took shortly after Kekule discovered benzene rings. It couldn't have been melatonin that made WC nap through organic; it hadn't been discovered yet.]

Thanksgiving Hallelujah

This is a re-post, but it’s a pretty good re-post. From tiny Quinhagak, Alaska, a community video of the Hallelujah Chorus to Handel’s Messsiah:

.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

/WC

 

 

Cheapened Sentiment

The late, great Percy Walker said,

The great poets and novelists always wrote about the nature of God and love, of man and woman. But how can even Dante write about the love of God, the love of a man for a woman, if he lives in a society in which God is the cheapest word of the media, as profaned by radio preachers as by swearing. And ‘love?’ Love is the way sit-com plots and soap operas get resolved a hundred times a week.

This is why writers turn to parody, and satire, and derision, because the true things have been so corrupted, and everyone seems to be colluding in their corruption. So the writer feels he must mock and subvert the words and symbols of the day in order that new words come into being or that old words be freshly minted.

And Tony Woodlief adds,

And so there is this old word called love, and what can we say of it, now? It has been perverted, by songs and books and perhaps worst of all by that variety of Orwellian preacher who crafts a hateful god and calls him Love. It has been perverted by every one of us who has whispered it without meaning it, who let it become passive feeling instead of convicted action.

Last week, WC spent some time with a nice enough young lady visiting from out of town, but in the course of one five minute conversation she told WC she “loved” three different things: Market Spice Tea, border collies and some current reality television show WC had never heard named.

Which may explain why WC takes refuge in the satire and parody of the great Terry Pratchett, who manages to amuse and instruct his readers without cheapened sentiment.

“He’s in love,” said Gaspode. “It’s very tricky.”
“Yeah, I know how it is,” said the cat sympathetically. “People throwing old boots and things at you.”

- Terry Pratchett, Moving Pictures

Love is tricky. The use of the word is tricky, too. WC wishes we had a useful set of words with shades of meaning, instead of the one poor, overused word. Instead, we mock it, gently, as Pratchett did here, or less gently, as in most hip-hop songs. Yet most humans value it above gold. How odd that while we our language has dozens of words for taboo subjects like sexual intercourse, but so few for something that matters to so many.

Dogs v. Kids in Restaurants

WC doesn’t want to give his dog mushing buddies ideas, but do you know any toddlers with manners this refined?

.

Videos on consecutive days? That won’t happen again.

WC’s Epic Fails: The Riley Creek Solo

In his mis-spent youth. WC did a lot of backpacking, including all of the Oregon Skyline Trail (now part of the Pacific Crest Scenic Trail) and a chunk of the Appalachian Trail. Backpacking is a wonderful way to clear your head. Mostly.

Riley Creek lies in Denali National Park (nee Mt. McKinley National Park), running from the core of the eastern end of the Inner Range through a long arc to the park entrance. Back in high school. WC cross-country skied the creek, coming out to Cantwell. But WC had never hiked it in summer. It seemed like it might be fun. Originally, the hike was to be with a buddy, but the buddy backed out, so WC decided to do it solo. Sure, the gear is a little heavier, and if you get in trouble you are really in trouble, but WC had nearly a thousand miles of solo backpacking under his boots. Which inspired confidence. Overconfidence.

Riley Creek, upstream  of Triple Lakes Basin, runs fast and furious through a narrow, steep-walled canyon. The creek isn’t impossible to wade, just very fast and very cold. The creek careens between the steep rock walls, forcing a hiker to repeatedly – four or five times a mile – to ford the creek. Fording a glacier-fed stream is painful, involving emerging and waiting in agony for the ice-water induced leg cramps to go away. After a while, it gets old.

So WC decided to go up over a creek-washed rock face finally, rather than freeze his feet and legs one more time. It looked do-able from below, so WC, external frame backpack and all, scrambled up through the dense alder and onto the rock face, working his way across the face of the cliff, 40-50 feet above the rock-filled creek. The going was pretty easy at first, with decent ledges and cracks. About two-thirds of the way across, though, the face was smooth as a baby’s butt. WC tried a higher line, angling upwards towards a ledge. But the ledge broke off at first touch, leaving WC with his left foot on a teeny, tiny ledge, two hands grasping cracks and his right foot on air. The pitiful little ledge couldn’t hold both feet, so WC just dangled there for a time.

After a while, and some unsuccessful shifting about, WC ran out of ideas.

After a little while longer, WC ran out of finger strength, and careened over backwards, falling 50 – 60 feet into the creek.

WC has no memory of the fall. The next thing WC remembers is the world spinning slowly around, a really, really bad headache, and numb hands and feet. After spinning around a while longer, WC realized he was floating on his back, draped over his backpack, in ice cold water. The world was spinning because he was in an eddy. He had a headache because the back of his head had hit the frame of his pack. And his arms and legs were numb because they were hanging in a glacier-fed stream.

It’s surprisingly hard to get out of that kind of situation, especially when your brain is working at one quarter of normal speed. Eventually, WC washed up into shallow enough water that the pack grounded. WC was able to undo the waist belt and wiggle out of the shoulder straps. The world was still spinning pretty good, but WC was able to drag his pack out of the creek and then he collapsed on the bank. After a half an hour or so, WC decided this would be an ideal place to camp for the night, dug out his soggy sleeping bag, wrapped  himself in it and the soggy tent, and pretty much passed out.

WC woke around 3 AM. His brain was mostly working again. As WC tried to heat water for a cup of coffee and breakfast, WC looked at the creek and where he had fallen. In at least a mile of stream course, there was exactly one pool large enough to fall into as WC had, without hitting a rock and breaking something. And that was where WC had landed. Huh.

The welds on one  side of the external packframe had broken in the fall. So WC had to cache part of his gear and walk out, then walk back in to get the rest of it. And then walk back out yet again. A full day each way. WC  forded Riley Creek each and every time it washed against the canyon wall. And never complained.

Sometimes dumb luck will get you out of your stupid mistakes. But never count on it. At least not twice.

WC’s Misspent Youth: J. Edgar Swoop

Several hundred years ago, when WC was in college, he wandered by accident into a Mason Williams concert. This is before Williams found brief fame as the composer of the excellent “Classical Gas.” He was just a folksinger from Oakridge, OR, a sometime writer for the Smothers Brothers, doing a set at a pub in Eugene. But he brought down the house with a brilliant talking blues satire, “J. Edgar Swoop.” Which WC reproduces here, with illustrations…

J. Edgar Swoop
© Mason Williams, Music (1969)

As everyone knows
the eagle’s supposed
to be the symbol of freedom.
They’re very respected
government protected
it’s against the law to eat ‘em.

On dollars and collars
and medals for scholars
and flags that wag in the wind,
on cigars you puff
and American stuff
the eagle is proudly pinned.

With such a position
in American tradition
eagles are responsible birds.
Moral delinquency’s
an idiosyncrasy
that is seldom if ever incurred.

But there once was an eagle
who was not very regal
by the name of
J. Edgar Swoop.
It was quite often heard
that bird’s absurd,
and ought be kept in a coop.

Immature Bald Eagle with Stuffed Crop

An example I’d say
would be his toupee
which he thought made
him look debonair.
And if he went to travel
he’d always hitchhike.
Never did travel by air.

J. hung around
the streets down town.
He said “Them mountains are dull.
All that you meets is occasional sheep
or a couple of high fly’n gulls.”

But the worst thing of all
was that he had the gall
to wear some baggy ol’ knickers.
They were pink and blue plaid
and fit him so bad
they caused titters
guffaws and snickers.

Undignified Eagles, Kodiak Dump

Well, in the government town
the word got around
about J. Edgar and his antics.
So a meeting was held
and some Senators yelled
“un-American” and the usual fanatics.

The FBI director,
the Federal Bird Inpectors,
was called in to handle the deal.
He said “It looks like to me
this eagle’s too free
I suspect he’s gone over the hill.”

“Well, there’s only one choice”
said the people’s voice
“America’s dependin’ on us.
We’ve got to find this bird
and give him the word
E pluribus unum or bust.”

So the FBI
well they went out to try
to make J. claw the line.
But he just wouldn’t listen
so they throwed him in prison
to pay for his traitor’s crime.

In the government town
when things quieted down
they decided to make an appendage.
‘Cause the symbol of the country
was in the penitentiary
and they needed a new government image.

The measure was born
and committees were formed
to find a new Yankee Doodle.
And the symbol that best
reflected the West
was none but the miniature poodle.

Miniature Poodle (not a WC photo)

Some argued the fact
as to what a poodle lacked.
“Besides” they said, “They’re French.”
“But” said the committee
“So’s the Statue of Liberty.”
So it went up before the bench.

Well the measure was passed
into law at last,
was entered onto government logs
J. Edgar didn’t care
“Poodles are queer
America’s gone to the dogs”

WC recognizes parts of the song are politically incorrect, and two-thirds of WC’s readers have no clue who “J. Edgar” might be lampooning. But for those who want to hear the tune, here’s a pirate version.

 

WC Is Off to Get a Cuppa

A skinny tan mocha, please. No whipped cream.