Caribbean Lobsters have dreadlocks

My brother and sister-in-law were visiting over the turkey day holiday, and while watching the Harbaugh Bowl (third game on Thanksgiving proper), Dan and I were discussing marine creatures.  If you have read many of my blogs, you will know that creatures that live in water are my favorites (other than our cats or the spouse, of course).  Dan mentioned that "Caribbean lobsters have dreadlocks", which started me thinking about one of my favorite creatures and dinner items.

borrowed from http://www.underwaterplanet.com/Belize3Lobster.jpg

When they bend their two huge antennae back towards their carapace, they kind of do look like two big dreadlocks.  Dan did not realize that the Caribbean Spiny Lobster was structurally that much different from their colder water cousins, but now he does!

borrowed from http://www.lobsterfrommaine.com/authentic-maine-lobster.aspx

As a kid, my brother and I spent too much time in the local creek harvesting crawfish to sell to the bait shops.  At that point, I didn't understand about sustainable fishing practices.  I am little smarter about that stuff now......

Saving Squid (for potential consumption later.......)

Sometimes it takes a plan a few years to come to fruition.  I am not the most patient of humans, but I wanted to share this story of a stateless vessel flouting the high seas driftnet ban which was recently apprehended by the USCG and its partners.

The vessel's name is the Bangun Perkassa, and you can find numerous stories on line about its capture if you google those two words.

borrowed from http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/10/06/2011-10-06_coast_guard_seizes_pirate_fishing_boat_loaded_with_rats_and_rotting_squid_off_al.html

The international treaties that created a coalition of Canadian, US, Japanese & Chinese forces (ships and aircraft) WAY out there in the pacific were actually geared towards protecting anadromous species like salmon, but we have known for the last 5 years that most of the really bad guys have been targeting squid and other less valuable resources.

In my personal non-ichthylogical opinion, squid are much smarter than salmon, but they still aren't smart enough to avoid the giant walls of death that the driftnets really are.

Spousal unit would not eat squid for a few years after we were diving in Massachusetts and saw them breeding and attaching their eggs to some rocks in about 8 feet of water several years ago, but he later relented when some yummy calimari were provided.  He is also quite fond of the curried squid available at our local dim sum joint.

States rights and tea parties

whimsical tea set graphic borrowed from http://www.yankodesign.com/images/design_news/2008/08/18/avestruz.jpg

September has started off as political blog month, and it might stay that way for a while.  Being a political science major and given that I am considering going to law school once I quit my day job (projected for May 2013), my mind has been whirling with all the current kerfuffle over the appropriate size of government for our country.  This has been exacerbated by the entry into the next presidential race of a person who has made numerous statements about how his state should consider seceding from the Union.

My grandparents retired at an early age to a beautiful island off the coast of New England.  Every few years or so some of the locals would talk about how they should just secede from the Union so they could be left alone.  I always thought that was pretty funny as a kid growing up, and my grandfather loved a good story, so he would go on about it for a while, before moving on to a more kid centric activity like fishing, swimming, clamming, playing cards, or entertaining us by pounding out crazy songs on his electric piano.  Funny thing is, I don't remember what side of the issue he was on, just that his voice got louder and some gesticulations were involved.  He was always a funny guy!

The thing that burns me up about Gov. Perry is that he made those pronouncements in years past about the uselessness of Washington, DC, but now he wants to go there and try and run it himself?  I cannot decide if he is just a hypocrite, or if he really thinks that he can do a better job than the current president.  I think the real answer is that he has surveyed the competition and realizes that he might be able to get the nomination this time around, whereas next time he might have to deal with the Palin juggernaut.

I guess what really started me thinking about this was all the talk about shrinking the size of the federal government, but not harvesting the complete funds savings because you still want those functions to be performed, just by the state rather than the feds.

Having been a federal employee for over 21 years, that just doesn't make sense to me.  Why have all the FEMA expertise split up into 50+ separate pieces?  Some projects are big and fluid enough to require regionalization, from my way of thinking.  And when there is a national structure, you have a greater chance of the program being administered the same in all areas (i.e. more fairly).

It is all a big power struggle.  We don't think FEMA is necessary at the federal level, but we still want all the disaster funding to go to communities that are most in need.  We don't need the EPA to spend all its time making things more expensive for big oil/coal/etc.  Next thing you know we won't need the FDA to make sure that food supplies are safe.  Heck, while you are at it, why don't we get rid of the CDC, FAA, TSA and a few more in the alphabet soup acronym list!!!!

I have worked inside and outside the beltway, and I am offended at the suggestion that federal employees are living off the fat of the land, and really aren't contributing to the country as a whole.  I know that there are some people who will milk the system, but that happens in any organization to some extent.

I think I need to dig up my copy of The Federalist Papers and send it to Gov. Perry.  I would venture to guess he has not read it.  Good old father of the Coast Guard Alexander Hamilton wrote or co-authored most of them, along with James Madison and John Jay.  They were trying to decide how to move forward with this new Union.  How would the needs of the individual states be balanced with this new federal government?

I have included the first two paragraphs of the introduction to get you in the mood for rational political discourse.

"To the people of the state of New York

AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal government, you are called upon to deliberate on a new Constitution for the United States of America. The subject speaks its own importance; comprehending in its consequences nothing less than the existence of the UNION, the safety and welfare of the parts of which it is composed, the fate of an empire in many respects the most interesting in the world. It has been frequently remarked that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force. If there be any truth in the remark, the crisis at which we are arrived may with propriety be regarded as the era in which that decision is to be made; and a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.

This idea will add the inducements of philanthropy to those of patriotism, to heighten the solicitude which all considerate and good men must feel for the event. Happy will it be if our choice should be directed by a judicious estimate of our true interests, unperplexed and unbiased by considerations not connected with the public good. But this is a thing more ardently to be wished than seriously to be expected. The plan offered to our deliberations affects too many particular interests, innovates upon too many local institutions, not to involve in its discussion a variety of objects foreign to its merits, and of views, passions and prejudices little favorable to the discovery of truth."

I am struck by the fact that the focus is on "the public good" and that he exhorts his readers not to let their passions get in the way of "the discovery of truth".   Hamilton believed in a strong central government, and that the implied powers of the Constitution would give this government the ability to fund programs through assuming a national debt; have to agree with him on both those issues.

This Tea Party fixation on the evil of the national debt just puzzles me.  Maybe they are so rich that they can buy their homes and automobiles and other expensive items with cash, but most Americans are not so lucky.  If you can believe Wikipedia statistics (and that is not a given since anyone can go in and alter things to reflect their own view of reality), only 69% of Americans own their own home.  That number is from 2002, so I imagine it could have altered a few points in one direction or other in the last nine years.  Of that roughly 2/3 of the US population, I would imagine that around 80% of those people had to finance that purchase.

Enough insomnia inspired ramblings on this topic.  Gotta go look for my Federalist Papers, and see if highlighter lasts for more than two decades!

Animals and Fear

I listen to a lot of satellite radio; mostly the old time radio of the 1930s-50s.  Unlike most of the music channels, since this station is not one of the big money earners, it actually has a bunch of commercials.  Most of them are extremely annoying, but I do learn things from them now and again.

One thing I have learned recently validates something I heard on public radio this week = there is always a need for long haul truck drivers.  From the number of trucks I see on the roadways, you would not think that this would be the case, but apparently it is.  Probably 1/3 of the commercials on XM/Sirius channel 82 have something to do with the trucking industry.

Another 1/3 of the advertisements involve people trying to sell you gold.  There are all sorts of thinly veiled apocolyptic  warnings about how the financial system is about to collapse.  My favorite one is a slam against Quantitative Easing which includes a phrase something like, "You can print more money but you cannot create more gold!"  That statement bothers me on SO MANY levels.  First of all, you can mine for more gold, but I realize that the supply is finite on this planet.  Secondly, you can also buy something that is more valuable than gold; why are we all so fixated on the shiny gold stuff?  I much prefer platinum or silver.  Thirdly, and most of all, they are playing on people's fears to get them to convert their IRA into gold, buy some gold that they otherwise might put into some other investment, etc.

I understand fear.  I see a great example of it every day when I go down into the basement.

borrowed from http://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/reptiles/turtles/yellow-bellied-slider/yellow-bellied_slider.htm

We have two yellow bellied slider cousins of this wild fellow shown above, who warm themselves under the heat lamps during the day.  The male turtle, Nacho, tends to clamber off the sunning platform very quickly and dive into the water when he first hears someone come down the stairs into the basement.  He swims at full speed for about 5 seconds until he smashes his nose into the end of the aquarium.

I am pretty sure that he thinks we are a predator, and wants to get as far away as possible, post haste.  His female companion Libre is not quite as smart, but much more food/heat motivated.  She won't get off the nice warm/dry platform until she is pretty sure it is feeding time.

I realize that a certain amount of fear is necessary to keep one safe and dry and fed, but I object to the type of advertising that appeals to that very base emotion.  It can be very negative and misleading, and while I feel bad about getting poor Nacho's heart rate up every morning/evening that I venture down to the basement, I still  need to get the laundry done!

Upwelling

[borrowed from http://www.myfourthirds.com/files/0734/1Two_Humpbacks.jpg]

Humpback whales travel thousands of miles from their birthing grounds off the coast of Hawaii and Mexico, all the way to the colder waters of Alaska, because of the nutrient rich waters that help to create lots of yummy whale food in the summer.

The picture above shows two humpbacks that are bubble net feeding.  This involves several whales working together, taking turns being the ones coming up from below to eat the bountiful haul of herring.  The concept is that a few whales swim around in a circle, gradually moving up in the water column while blowing bubbles.  The herring are reluctant to cross the line of bubbles, which get larger as they head toward the surface, so the herring tend to congregate in a dense bait ball.  This makes it easier for the whales following the bait ball from below to gobble up a big condensed glob of food.  If you traveled about two thousand nautical miles to consume a bunch of high fat/protein rich foods that are going to sustain you for the trip back to warmer waters in the fall/winter, you would want to eat as much as possible as quickly as possible.

There are lots of herring up in the waters off Alaska because they have cold nutrient rich waters which promote lots of primary production.  Lots of algae result in lots of bait fish which means a great food source for the charismatic megafauna which make a long sea journey to gain the nourishment they need to produce the next generation of great whales.

Cool, in more than one sense!

A Hippo Story for Mona

borrowed from http://www.travelphoto.net/a-photo-a-day/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/06/p1070947_500.JPG

My sister in law is a riot.  She picked up my mom's cell phone as I was texting her last night, and started putting in birthday demands for all my immediate relatives.

My brother's demand was very tame, but hers was a pony.  I called him a few minutes later on his cell, and she answered.  I explained that I thought she was too old for a pony, and she responded, "you said I am too FAT for a pony, that's not very nice!"  This went on in the same vein for a few minutes, then we actually talked about the reason for my call.

About a half hour later on Facebook the demand had changed to a hippo!  A few more comments later and I was inspired to tell some stories from my long ago trip to Kenya.  I will not mention monkeys this time, as they have had more than their fair share of posts in this blog lately.

On said trip to Africa, as has probably been mentioned before, but bears repeating, I spent several days on a photo safari through the Masai Mara game preserve.  The facility was based alongside a muddy river that wound through the countryside.  During the long hot days, the hippos would remain in the water, and they are actually much more suited to that environment, given their bulk and buoyancy.

If you click HERE you will see what I mean about how much more graceful they look underwater as compared to having to heave their vegetarian bulk around on land.  If you watched the video, you can see they are mostly walking on the bottom and not actually swimming, but it is nice to be mostly weightless underwater!  That's why I like scuba diving, it is the closest I will ever get to experiencing the weightlessness of space.

So they float/stand in the river all day to keep cool, then at night they lumber onto land and start looking for things to munch on to keep their Rubenesque figures.  The first night we stayed at the camp, I heard a bunch of commotion and mooing just as I was trying to get to sleep.  I guess they aren't very orderly about their exit strategy from the water, and they vocalize their displeasure about the pushing or shoving or hip checks they are getting from their friends, who may be more hungry or rude than they are.

When they are relaxing/snoozing during the day, you mostly see nostrils, ears, and the hump of their back above the water line.  I think the little ones do not have enough blubber to keep themselves afloat, so you might see them laying on their moms, with only 30-40% submerged.

One of the most interesting habits of these huge creatures is that they have a certain part of the river which is designated for "doing their business", if you will.  It is apparently bad form to relieve yourself while you are rafted up next to everyone, so you separate from the group and meander over to the poopy part of the river.  Once there, you position your but maybe 6-8 inches out of the water with said butt facing the beach, and you wiggle your tiny tail back and forth vigorously while getting rid of yesterday's meals.  This distributes the stuff rather than having it all land in the same place.  CRAZY, but it makes sense to them.

One afternoon I was sitting on the balcony of the main lodge, which overlooked the river.  There was a raft of maybe 30-40 animals getting relief from the oppressive heat.  I was probably clicking away, trying to capture that perfect hippo picture (these were the pre-digital days, so I had to be somewhat judicious to make sure I did not run out of film), when the whole group reared up and made a bunch of indignant moos at almost the same time.  It was kind of like a hippo stadium wave.

I have always wondered what caused this.  Did an alligator come down stream and nip at one of the chubby artiodactyl bathing beauties? Did a hippo baby try to get a drink of milk from someone who did not have the correct equipment?  Did someone try to get fresh at the wrong time of the day?  I guess I will never know, but it is fun to speculate.

The Texas Hold 'Em Pokerization of America

If you have read any of my blogs, you probably gathered that I am a pretty big sports fan.  One of my pet peeves is shows broadcast on ESPN that I believe have NOTHING to do with sports.  I realize that beauty, as well as sports, are probably in the eye of the beholder, but you would be hard pressed to convince me that POKER is a sport.  I also don't believe that NASCAR is a sport, but at least the drivers have great reflexes, and are probably sweating a great deal as they drive around the oval.

When I cannot sleep late at night, I think about topics that might be interesting to write about.  One night I wrote down a few words on the back of an envelope several months ago.  I have misplaced that piece of paper between now and then, but it went something like:

"rise of interest in poker in the US = willingness to gamble our futures away"

I was born in the mid 1960s, and as a kid growing up in an upper middle class family, my parents invited the neighbors over to play bridge.  At least, that's what they told us.  There were card tables, and bridge mix, and note pads for recording scores, so I assume it was bridge they were laughing about down in the living room......

Poker was something the gamblers and desperados played on the Western movies and  television shows of the mid to late seventies.  I am not much of a card player, though I enjoy a good game of Spades, Rook or Bohnanza (this has nothing to do with the Western radio or TV show, but is a great game involving bean farming!!!!  no, really, it is!!!).

The spouse could explain more about derivatives and the mortgage bust that we are still suffering through in most parts of the US, but I wonder if the increased popularity of poker and it would appear, gambling in general, has something to do with the reduced savings rate in the US.

Rather than relying on government bonds or more conservative investments to prepare for retirement, lots of people lost most of the value of their 401Ks with this recent economic bust because they had them in more risky investments.  Greater risk can mean greater gain, but it can also mean greater loss.

Just sayin'......... 

Russian Thistle = Tumbleweed

I am a certifiable NPR junkie.  This afternoon as I drove towards home, I was listening to Science Friday on my local NPR station (to which I contribute $5 per month), and they were talking about invasive species.  I LOVE this topic, as one of my good friends in grad school did her thesis on the Chinese mitten crab.  I named one of our cats Mittens, in honor of this incredible crustacean.  My favorite mitten crab story that she shared with me was about some folks trying to smuggle a few mitten crabs into the US on a commercial air flight.  The crabs got out of the cooler under the seat, and started traveling up and down the aisles of the airplane, terrorizing the passengers and flight attendants.

borrowed from http://www.rimeis.org/species/images/es2.jpg

But I digress, as usual............

I know that invasive species are generally bad, but I have eaten so many blackberries on the Burke-Gilman trail between my apartment in Fremont and the University of Washington campus, that I have a little sliver of doubt about the "invasive" adjective put in front of many species.

One of the callers into the Science Friday live broadcast explained that the tumbleweed plants that you see in so many movies (and that I have dodged when driving across the desert in between AZ and CA) are actually an "introduced" species from Eurasia called Russian Thistle.

They "tumble" as a way to distribute their seeds in the surrounding area.

Hmmmm........

Fish Flies are fanatical about JAZZ!!!!

[fish fly photo borrowed from http://karendecoster.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/3671610359_de632c84dd.jpg]

Another interesting critter I have learned about since moving to Michigan about a year ago is the fellow pictured above, who is called a fish fly or may fly.  They normally come out in the spring, but since we had such a wretched cold spring, I think their hatch happened later than normal this year.  

I took my smooch to a very cool Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO) event out at the Eleanor and Edsel Ford House this weekend, just a few miles from our house on Lake Saint Clair.  The DSO was on strike most of the time since we moved here, so this was the first time we had seen them in concert.  I chose the Louis Armstrong Tribute they were doing last weekend with following fireworks.

We were chilling on the grass listening to the great music, but as the sun went down the may flies started swarming around the lights.  The vocalists were obviously consuming the rather large critters as they tried to perform, because I heard a few chokes during one of the numbers.  They turned all the lights off up on the stage, and then the guest musicians were having some trouble reading the music.  They soldiered through it all, and made a few jokes, but I was glad I wasn't getting bombarded by the little chitinous creatures.

As we walked back to the parking lot, you could see thousands of may flies congregated around each light post.  Luckily the lights were about 25 feet off the ground, so we were not impacted.  The prius was not so lucky on the drive home.  Every time we got close to a street light, we smacked into several dozen of the critters that were way down at street level.  You could hear them crash into the wind shield.

The next morning there were horse flies all over the car eating the remains of the may flies.  Circle of life, I guess.......

Monkey Business (part the second)

We all have to be afraid of some kind of animal (or at least one), right?  For me it is definitely monkeys and snakes.  I will touch a snake (if it is not poisonous and does not look like it wants to consume me head first), but monkeys I just do not trust.  They are too much like people, I think, for my liking.  Their brains are too developed and I cannot tell what they are thinking, whereas I can usually outsmart my cats or turtles, or the average fish.

Having spent a week in Africa, I have also had several up close and personal monkey encounters that scared the bejeesus out of me!  Unlike the interactions of many americans with our monkey cousins (sorry if I have offended any creationists, but I have to say what I think), there were no zoo enclosures or bars involved in these encounters.  The scariest of these events I detailed in the previous posting.  This one is much more tame, but still gives me nightmares......

borrowed from http://www.awf.org/content/gallery?media=image&wildlife=987

Since we are not completely unpacked here, I could not find the picture of the exact perpetrator, I have posted the picture above, which is most likely a close relative.  This fellow is a black colobus monkey.  My nemesis did not have the long white fringe on his sides, but the coloring is similar.  My monkey, let's call him Spike, was about the size of a small german shepherd, but MUCH faster and more sneaky!

Spike and I met while I was visiting my friend Caroline in Kenya.  

Most evenings during our stay in the Masai Mara game reserve, we ate outside at the pool.  Our first night it must have been raining, as we ate inside.  The landscape outside was much more interesting to me as the sun was setting, and I kept peeking outside.  Taking one break from conversing with my fellow photo safari travelers, I noticed a large monkey sitting on the balcony railing outside the window, watching the humans eat.  I went back to my delicious meal, but every time I looked back at the window, there was Spike, watching us.  I am sure that he was salivating at all the yummy veggies and fruits we were eating, while he could only watch.  If he could have gotten inside he would have, but I think he realized (probably from experience) that the employees would have shooed him out just as he tried to open a door and gain access.

After dinner we decided to spend a little time at the pool before heading to our luxurious tent, and there was Spike, still sitting on the railing.  I really did not want to pass by him, but Caroline assured me it would be fine.  Yeah, right!

I followed her toward the pool, and just as Caroline passed him, Spike jumped between us and touched her shoe.  Not sure why that was, but I think he just wanted to prove that he could, before he ran away as she shouted at him and stamped her feet.

YIKES!!

The next afternoon, we were sitting out by the pool before lunch was served.  I had a roll left over from breakfast that I was breaking into small pieces and feeding them to the very colorful birds which were hanging out to get a free lunch.  I saw Spike lurking about 20 yards away on the 10 foot wall that enclosed the compound.  I pointed him out to Caroline, and she just laughed at my uneasiness with poor old Spike's presence.

I want back to feeding and photographing the birds, and forgot about Spike for a while.  A few minutes later he had scaled down the wall and was sitting on the ground, now INSIDE the compound.  I tried to play it cool, but he started loping towards our location.

I mentioned this to Caroline, who replied something like, "don't worry about it, you don't have anything he wants, so he won't,"  she broke off her comment, as Spike was now charging towards us at full speed.

Turns out that Spike thought he needed some grains and carbs at that moment, and he was making a move for my roll fragment.  I started to grab for the remnants of the roll, but Spike's little furry hand was grabbing for it at the same time, and I did not think I would win the struggle for the roll, so I withdrew.

At this point the staff saw the theft in progress, and they started whooping and heaving stones at Spike so that he would leave the compound.  Case closed.