Firlapalooza

Our friend came by to visit us yesterday with her new four-month old puppy, a friendly Golden Retriever named Mia.  Since we already have a fairly complacent ten-year old tom cat at our place (who is just slightly smaller in size than Mia), I was curious how they would interact.

Historically the stereotype has been that dogs chase cats.  This was, however, not the case during that visit.  At best, our (typically affectionate) cat took a defensive stance with requisite hissing; at worst, he methodically advanced towards and took some fairly aggressive warning swipes at poor, playful Mia.

Though no injuries were suffered, this was definitely not a helpful step in the ongoing peace process between felines and canines.  But it did very much remind me of a passage worth sharing from Jerome K. Jerome’s humourous 1889 classic, “Three Men in a Boat“, where the author’s dog, a fox terrier named Montmorency, has an encounter with a cat during the course of their travels.  I’ve excerpted this portion of chapter 13 from the original text (a version with the original illustrations), though the pure text is available here (via Project Gutenburg).  Enjoy!

We got up tolerably early on the Monday morning at Marlow, and went for a bathe before breakfast; and, coming back, Montmorency made an awful ass of himself. The only subject on which Montmorency and I have any serious difference of opinion is cats. I like cats; Montmorency does not.

When I meet a cat, I say, “Poor Pussy!” and stop down and tickle the side of its head; and the cat sticks up its tail in a rigid, cast-iron manner, arches its back, and wipes its nose up against my trousers; and all is gentleness and peace. When Montmorency meets a cat, the whole street knows about it; and there is enough bad language wasted in ten seconds to last an ordinarily respectable man all his life, with care.

I do not blame the dog (contenting myself, as a rule, with merely clouting his head or throwing stones at him), because I take it that it is his nature. Fox-terriers are born with about four times as much original sin in them as other dogs are, and it will take years and years of patient effort on the part of us Christians to bring about any appreciable reformation in the rowdiness of the fox-terrier nature … and, therefore, I do not blame Montmorency for his tendency to row with cats; but he wished he had not given way to it that morning.

We were, as I have said, returning from a dip, and half-way up the High Street a cat darted out from one of the houses in front of us, and began to trot across the road. Montmorency gave a cry of joy - the cry of a stern warrior who sees his enemy given over to his hands - the sort of cry Cromwell might have uttered when the Scots came down the hill - and flew after his prey.

His victim was a large black Tom. I never saw a larger cat, nor a more disreputable-looking cat. It had lost half its tail, one of its ears, and a fairly appreciable proportion of its nose. It was a long, sinewy- looking animal. It had a calm, contented air about it.

Montmorency went for that poor cat at the rate of twenty miles an hour; but the cat did not hurry up - did not seem to have grasped the idea that its life was in danger. It trotted quietly on until its would-be assassin was within a yard of it, and then it turned round and sat down in the middle of the road, and looked at Montmorency with a gentle, inquiring expression, that said:

“Yes! You want me?”

Montmorency does not lack pluck; but there was something about the look of that cat that might have chilled the heart of the boldest dog. He stopped abruptly, and looked back at Tom.

Neither spoke; but the conversation that one could imagine was clearly as follows:-

THE CAT: “Can I do anything for you?”

MONTMORENCY: “No - no, thanks.”

THE CAT: “Don’t you mind speaking, if you really want anything, you know.”

MONTMORENCY (BACKING DOWN THE HIGH STREET): “Oh, no - not at all - certainly - don’t you trouble. I - I am afraid I’ve made a mistake. I thought I knew you. Sorry I disturbed you.”

THE CAT: “Not at all - quite a pleasure. Sure you don’t want anything, now?”

MONTMORENCY (STILL BACKING): “Not at all, thanks - not at all - very kind of you. Good morning.”

THE CAT: “Good-morning.”

Then the cat rose, and continued his trot; and Montmorency, fitting what he calls his tail carefully into its groove, came back to us, and took up an unimportant position in the rear.

To this day, if you say the word “Cats!” to Montmorency, he will visibly shrink and look up piteously at you, as if to say:

“Please don’t.”

Although this book was originally intended as a serious travel guide for those who wanted to visit the sites along the Thames River, it actually is more of a series of very witty anecdotes of the amusing adventures of three friends and their dog.  Here are a couple of on-line reviews which have also cited some of their own favourite portions of the book.  And, based on the above cat and dog encounters, it appears some of his writing is quite timeless.

Today’s hockey games at the Vancouver 2010 Olympics showcased unfortunate defeats for two country’s teams, which was felt particularly hard for us, the estimated 98,090 people of Czech descent currently living in Canada.  I didn’t actually watch the majority of these games, but after some exemplary plays on both sides, the final scores were:

Russia vs Czech Republic:  4 - 2

United States vs Canada:  5 - 3

Given the history of Russo-Czech relations, as well as the ongoing rivalry with our American friends to the south, this can make these losses even more difficult.   Although both the Czech and the Canadian teams still have an opportunity to win medals, as a result of these games and the current standings, the Russians and Americans earned byes which allow them to rest and avoid additional rounds of qualifying games, which the other hockey teams will have to play.

What this means is that at the end of these Winter Olympics when the Canadian and Czech hockey teams stand on the podium with their gold and silver medals, their victories will be even more commendable, since they will actually have had to work a lot harder to earn them.

I’m not a smoker, but I’d say one of the neat things about having this habit is how long you can extend a cigarette’s usage - a single cigarette can actually be enjoyed multiple times, and by numerous people.  Sure, the best part of the smoke would be the initial user’s inhalation of the cigarette, but as long as the exhaled second-hand smoke remains in the air, there is still an opportunity for the smoker and all other bystanders to partake, and make use of that cigarette’s contents.

I would have thought that this would be the end of it, but a study has indicated that a cigarette can potentially be enjoyed even after the lingering smoke has dissipated.  This study has come up with the concept of “third-hand smoke” to describe the remnants from a cigarette’s smoke left behind on the surface of furniture, car seats, rugs, pets, clothes, and other materials long after the cigarette has been extinguished.  Although the study (actually, more of a telephone survey) did not actually involve taking samples of surfaces and dust in a smokers’ homes (which, without empirical results, would understandably make some question the theory), but according to the experts, one can delight in a cigarette long after the last puff by touching some surfaces.

As well, there appears to be evidence in a study published a couple of days ago that the third-hand smoke surface residue could theoretically react with certain substances in the air to form new and active compounds.  Should this then be considered fourth-hand smoke?  Compared to one-time only consumables like chocolate or Fresca, it seems that cigarettes just keep on giving, even when unlit.  Now that we are becoming aware how far they can go, the question becomes (especially for those on a budget), if someone remains in an enclosed space, could fewer cigarettes thus provide all the nutrients one needs for the day?

I currently have no plans to see it, but couldn’t help but hear that blockbuster film Avatar is doing so successfully.  This, despite a review which said, “Great entertainment puts plot first, character second, dialogue third, idea forth, music fifth, and spectacle last, as Aristotle noted. Cameron reverses this in Avatar.”

But, since being released on December 18, it did not take long for its box office returns to leap into the billions, with total worldwide earnings pegged on February 1st at $2.04 billion.  By standard accounting, it has now earned more money worldwide than any film before it, recently beating Titanic’s worldwide earnings of $1.84 billion, which had held the record since 1998.  However, as shown here, a more conservative estimate of Avatar’s global earnings, which also accounts for inflation, puts that movie at #4, beneath Gone With the Wind (#1), Titanic (#2), and Star Wars (#3), but just above E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (#5).

As well, all time domestic box-office records can be found here, which has its own different take, as it does not appear to account for inflation (which is why Gone With the Wind is at #99).  At the time of this writing, Avatar was only $2M below Titanic, though I’m sure the two will change places on that list  shortly.

Regardless, the ongoing Hollywood box office returns competition involving James Cameron films brings me back to a classic little video I came across in around 1998.   Titanic had been released and was well on its way to becoming the highest-grossing movie in the world.  It was still a year before the release of the first of the new Star Wars prequels in May 1999, and Titanic presented a direct challenge to the box-office supremacy of the sprawling Star Wars franchise.

Video editing at the time was not the more simplified task it has become today, but it did not stop John Bunt from putting together this five-minute parody film, ‘Tie-Tanic” which cleverly combines elements of the two movie behemoths.  The basic plot: Titanic threatens the box office dominance of Star Wars.  The Galactic Empire will not stand for this.

Is it not already time for a similar blow to be leveled against Avatar?

I wouldn’t say that I have a very strong sweet tooth, but occasionally, I come across some candy which is especially tasty to me.  At a friend’s wedding recently, they had a candy table, where I rediscovered the gelatin-based and quite refreshing gummi colas.  They combine the texture of a gummi candy (gummi bears, of course, being their most infamous form since 1922), the flavour of a slightly flat cola drink (it’s hard to carbonate these, after all), and the appearance of a half-full bottle.  A well thought out presentation!

Then, my wife returned from Europe with a bagful of an even tastier incarnation from Haribo called “Happy Cola”, which cannot be found very easily on this side of the Atlantic (the bag featured six different translation of the ingredients, none of them English).

Well, that 200 gram bagful, pictured here, did not last, as I went through it quite quickly… I found out you can get ten times that amount in one package if one wishes to get a more ample quantity via the 5-pound bags available on Amazon.  But before I considered that step, I checked out the nutritional value, and wondered how it compared to an actual bottle of cola.   Approximately 770 calories in the bag, and 400 calories in a 1 litre bottle of Coca-Cola… nearly double.  As for sugar levels, my research indicated that there are 58.4 grams of sugar per 100 grams of the candy.  Therefore, a 200 gram bag of Happy Cola is has a little more in sugar quantity compared to a full 1-litre bottle of Coca-Cola with its 108 grams.  This is well-illustrated on a handy site I came across a while back, ‘SugarStacks‘, which uses piles of standard sugar cubes as a visual aid to indicate how much sugar is contained in common “food” products.  However, because Happy Cola contains neither caffeine nor phosphoric acid, it does not quite have the long list of negative effects which come upon your body within 60 minutes of drinking a bottle of Coca-Cola.  As well, Happy Colas have 7.7 grams of protein (per 100 grams), an important component for the body, which is decidedly absent in any cola drink.

It is thanks to the venerable cola drink that we have this quaint bottle-shaped candy, but there may be some minor advantages to consuming it in gummi form.  In the end, it’s probably better to have neither.

As someone who rarely gains an appreciation for newer music (past articles here indicate how I tend to have steeped myself in Schubert, hymns, and the Red Army Choir, with occasional forays into Johnny Cash and other classic bands), I would not have expected that a fresh new electronica-ish group (who doesn’t do Commodore 64 remixes) would catch my attention.  I recently returned from a brief holiday to visit relatives in eastern Europe; that part of the world tends to have surprisingly interesting and eclectic tastes in music.  While there, my new brother-in-law introduced me to a regional musical act known as ‘Parov Stelar’.

I was quite impressed!  I invite you to check out this jaunty fusion of electronica and big band music with a visual backdrop of antiquarian movie dancing scenes - “Chambermaid Swing”:

That is the official music video, and is shortened from the actual album track, which goes to an on-going dynamic build-up for nearly five minutes (also available on YouTube here, but is not a music video).  Parov Stelar, a musician who comes out of northern Austria, has been around since 2001.  Eight years in, I do hope this isn’t another one of those occasions where I’ve heard of something a long time after everyone else I know has, as I did notice that a search term in Google with this band gets 433,000 hits.

Anyway, it’s nice to discover that I am not actually that stodgy, and that there are still occasional gems in newer music!

I greatly enjoyed the 1989 Jack Nicholson / Michael Keaton comic-book based superhero action thriller, Batman, when it originally came out to movie theaters.  Nicholson’s performance as notorious archnemesis The Joker in that film was outstanding, and it is still worth watching twenty years later.  The Joker’s overwhelming insanity and colours are a perfect foil to Batman, a dark and serious bulwark of justice.   Last year, in the revamped series of Batman films, the same infamous supervillain made his debut in The Dark Knight, with an equally iconic performance by the late Heath Ledger (a clever fan-made movie trailer with both of them can be found here).  Some suggest the dread persona Ledger took on to be the Joker for that final film may have been the cause of his own death.

But who would have thought that imagery of Heath Ledger’s Joker, despite the obvious dastardly associations, would become a source of political statements in the U.S.?

Here is an image of Heath Ledger’s Joker from the Dark Knight movie, which came out to theaters in July 2008:

Around the time this film made its debut, Vanity Fair magazine featured a Jokeresque caricature by Drew Friedman of then-president George W. Bush.  It was printed as a visual comment, entitled ‘No Joke’, when he had six months remaining in his administration:

During the current president’s successful election run, Shepard Fairey’s iconic “Hope” poster of Barack Obama, created in January 2008, became a widely recognized symbol of his campaign:

That above icon of the former presidential hopeful was later modified by James Lillis in November 2008.  Entitled “The Audacity of Joke”, it combines Batman fandom with political statement (albeit unintentionally, apparently):

As well, the October 23, 2008 issue of Time Magazine featured a cover story about the presidential hopeful, entitled ‘Why Barack Obama Could Be the Next President”:

That cover photograph was then usurpsed by Chicago-area student Firas Khateeb, who modified it in January 2009 to create the following Jokeresque image:

Someone in the last couple of weeks then took the above image, added the word “Socialism” at the bottom, and has posted it around the cities of Los Angeles and Atlanta:

The Joker, an egomaniac known for his clownish appearance, brilliance, as well as his psychopathic unpredictability, may or may not be an appropriate connotation for the above politicians, but a search with the word “joker” at PoliticalCartoons.com does reveal others who have been caricatured similarly.  Certainly that most recent poster has generated more debate than any of the others, with interesting commentary on its artistic significance.  Visual satire has always been a ready tool for expressing disagreement with the jokers in power.

New climate change regulations have successfully passed through their initial step in the U.S. House of Representatives recently  (though its passage through the U.S. Senate is still not guaranteed when it comes up for a vote there in October),  after years of growing public interest, understanding, and knowledge about the issue of climate change/global warming.  It seems, however, that the longer the issue is around, the more skeptics there are amongst the public (including here in Canada).  In a democracy, this would typically mean that there are more politicians keeping an ear to the whims of their electorate, who may then consider backing out of supporting climate change legislation, due to worries of this bill’s impact during an economic slowdown, and to their own individual future electability.

To delay passing this climate change bill would of course be a major letdown for many.  Ever since the human-affected climate debate began in the 1970’s, it has taken quite a lot of time to actually come so close as to have it passing as a law in the United States, which is the developed nation with the highest contribution of carbon emissions.  The intention of this bill, of course, would be to add regulations to encourage carbon-reduction strategies in order to attempt to reverse the rise in temperatures.

However, even if this bill doesn’t pass - which may then, as some suggest, endanger civilization as we know it with an ever-rising temperature curve - it seems that existing climate change legislation enacted elsewhere, such as the Kyoto Protocol, has already done the trick!  Despite a rise of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States (since 1990) of 20%, in Canada of 27%, and in China of 150% [source], there are already numerous visible evidences of success:

• Chicago has had its coldest July in 67 years, as well as an unusually cold June.
• New York has had the coolest June and July since 1903.
• The northeast United States has had some of its coldest temperatures since 1940.
• Wisconsin was expected to beat a record low originally set in 1900.
• Actually, 1100 places in the States have reported new record lows.
• Unusual cold has also been experienced in New Zealand, South Africa, and of course, here in Canada.
• As well, a recent record increase in arctic sea ice, this year’s low tornado season, and the lowest hurricane season in 30 years shows that many climate change issues are in retreat!

Although some stakeholders suggest that this inconveniently cold weather is all part of a natural cooling trend or even that the entire climate change debate is fully media-contrived, I wouldn’t minimize the positive results of Kyoto just yet!  After all, Denmark reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 22.2%, and France by 6.1% from 1990 levels.  Even if CO2 is an odourless gas which makes up a mere 0.04% of the atmosphere, these are not insignificant figures, especially if they’ve somehow been able to counteract and significantly reverse the effect of warming from the rest of the world.

As well, there have been previous summers with very cold weather, notably in those years following the volcanic eruptions of Mount Pinatubo in 1991, Krakatoa in 1883, and the infamous “year without a summer” in 1816 attributed to Mount Tambora.  But, there was no large volcano sending ash and particulate matter into the stratosphere this year to blame it on; this time, it seems that we can thank human ingenuity and regulations for the sudden drop in temperatures.

This at least gives U.S. lawmakers time to relax and not feel they have to hurry and instead maybe pay heed to their skeptical electorate, thanks to the very dramatic success of Kyoto; North American lifestyles need not adjust too dramatically, thanks to the hard work of our friends overseas.  We can now sneer at the skeptics who told us that the Kyoto Protcol was pointless, and that it would be impossible to measure whether it’s having an effect or not.  As well, the International Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore’s ‘Inconvenient Truth’ film can feel vindicated - they were right all along, but I think neither of them would have expected we’d see success so quickly.   Also, the West can stop anxiously feeling it has to lecture Africa about how it ought to develop itself, which is a bonus.

Actually, I would be a little concerned if the U.S. climate change bill did ultimately pass; on the Monday morning of this past May’s Victoria Day weekend, I awoke to a blanket of snow-cover outside my window here in Alberta.  The summers are already brief enough in Canada as it is, and I wouldn’t want the U.S. to pass it as law and make them even  shorter!

Every year, it seems that I am reporting on the same massive North Korean white elephant.  In June of 2007, I wrote an article about the Ryugyong Hotel - simply out of amazement that this building actually exists.  This 330-meter tall pyramidal hotel is in the country’s capital city, and has remained an incomplete concrete shell now for 22 years.   It is currently the 24th-tallest building in the world (down from the 21st when I originally wrote that article).  Then, in August 2008, I wrote a follow-up article, surprised that the tallest abandoned building in the world was actually under construction again - but it only seemed to be for the establishment of a cell phone tower by an Egyptian-based mobile provider, Orascom.  An article by Michael Madden provides some additional interesting background.

Well, imagine the changes a year brings.  Out of curiosity, I investigated what the latest news is with this 110-story concrete faux-pas, and now learn that the North Koreans are ambitiously planning to complete it by 2012!  To quote the article, “The Ryugyong Hotel is becoming the largest symbol of the North’s plan to construct a ‘Strong and Prosperous Nation’ by the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung.”  It goes on to say that after it rises like a “phoenix”, it will have 10,000 private residences.  Their recent May Day celebrations showed a large amount of fireworks going off around the building, which now sports a shiny glass panel cladding, instead of the dull grey concrete it wore during its years of construction inactivity.  This will certainly make it look a lot better - I’m not sure about what’s going on inside, though.  But at least now they won’t have to spend time airbrushing out the hotel from official photographs of Pyongyang’s skyline.  Especially if it’s going to look like this.

According to what may be the closest thing this building has to an “official site“, the Ryugyong Hotel is also getting the development done by Emaar Properties - a proprety management company which was involved in the Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, so apparently they do have the experts on board (though the 818-meter Burj will remain empty for at least a year after construction… just like the rest of the once artificially hyper-bustling city of Dubai).    As Kim Jong Il grooms and tries to build support for his successor, 25-year-old Kim Jong-un, perhaps turning such blatant government waste into something worthwhile may help give him some standing… but ultimately, this building could really only impress North Koreans.

I recently heard a delightful folk song which was performed in the show ‘Mad Men‘ (an intelligent drama series about individuals working in a fictional Madison Avenue advertising firm in the 1960’s - I received its first season on DVD as a gift - props, bro!).  The music really struck me - a very nice melody, with pleasant harmonies during the round.  The lyrics themselves also caught my attention:

By the waters, the waters of Babylon,
We lay down and wept, and wept, for thee Zion,
We remember, we remember, we remember thee Zion.

(Note, if the above clip is not working, click a second time on the video or here, and it will take you to the video on YouTube.)

These words were actually taken (with slight paraphrasing) from the Bible - the first verse of Psalm 137:

By the rivers of Babylon,
There we sat down and wept,
When we remembered Zion.

It is appropriately both a sad passage of Scripture, and a melancholy tune  - the period of its writing occurred between 586 to 536 B.C., during the time of the Israelites captivity in Babylon.  It is a tremendously poetic Psalm, beautifully expressing the exile of God’s people in a foreign land, just as Christian believers today are sojourners in this world.  Charles Spurgeon, in his detailed commentary on this Psalm excerpted from his 1885 classic, ‘Treasury of David’, shares some deep thoughts on the context and meaning of this first verse:

Water courses were abundant in Babylon, wherein were not only natural streams but artificial canals: it was a place of broad rivers and streams. Glad to be away from the noisy streets, the captives sought the river side, where the flow of the waters seemed to be in sympathy with their tears. It was some slight comfort to be out of the crowd, and to have a little breathing room, and therefore they sat down, as if to rest a while and solace themselves in their sorrow. In little groups they sat down and made common lamentation, mingling their memories and their tears. The rivers were well enough, but, alas, they were the rivers of Babylon, and the ground whereon the sons of Israel sat was foreign soil, and therefore they wept. … Nothing else could have subdued their brave spirits; but the remembrance of the temple of their God, the palace of their king, and the centre of their national life, quite broke them down. … They did not weep when they remembered the cruelties of Babylon; the memory of fierce oppression dried their tears and made their hearts burn with wrath: but when the beloved city of their solemnities came into their minds they could not refrain from floods of tears.

You can get a .jpg of the basic sheet music for ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ here.  This traditional tune was performed a little more famously by Don McLean (appearing as a track titled ‘Babylon’ on his widely-disseminated 1971 ‘American Pie‘ album), as heard in the video clip below, with some highly varied accompanying imagery:

Others have shared some of their thoughts on Psalm 137 at their own blogs, particularly from the perspective of being a Christian and its current application.   It slightly surprised me to hear this tune in a non-Christian show, but then again, I’ve posted articles before (here and here) about tunes that have become popular, despite their obvious Biblical references.   It is a book that is still relevant - and whose message still appeals today.