Fish for Friday

Edited by Morris Dean

[Anonymous selections from recent correspondence]

For the first time, the USDA has asked Americans to think about the environmental impact of the food we eat. Unsurprisingly, the cattle industry doesn't like it one bit.
    A diet heavy in red meat is unsustainable – and raising cows produces five times more greenhouse gasses than other animals raised for meat....
    Cows use 28 times more land and 11 times more water than other animals to produce the same amount of meat. Livestock production crowds out biodiversity, pollutes our water and hastens species extinction – and runoff from cattle lots can contaminate crops and destroy aquatic ecosystems. The cattle industry is also the country's biggest user of antibiotics.
    Industry insiders are lobbying hard to change the USDA's advice. But we can put a stop to corporate influence by submitting comments to the USDA and showing that there’s widespread support for its new dietary guidelines.
    Let the science speak for itself! Submit a comment to the USDA demanding that it keep its recommendation for us to consume less meat.
    We’ve got to act fast: the USDA is accepting comments on its Dietary Guidelines until TODAY [May 8]. If hundreds of thousands of us submit comments supporting the USDA’s stance, we can stop the cattle lobby from blocking action on climate change.
    More information:

• New U.S. Dietary Recommendations First to Consider Environmental Impact, National Geographic, February 20, 2015
• Study: To Cut Down On Environmental Impact, Eat Less Beef, Huffington Post, July 21, 2014

You've been reading Jonathan Franzen's essays. Have you come across this gem yet:

China in general, in its headlong pursuit of money, with fabulous millionaires and a vast underclass and a dismantled social safety net, and with a central government obsessed with security and skilled at exploiting nationalism to quiet its critics, and with economic and environmental regulation entrusted to incestuous consortia of businesses and local governments, had already been striking me as the most Republican place I’d ever been.

You can read the essay that comes from in The New Yorker: "The Way of the Puffin."

Testing football helmets, 1919

I think the Republicans are wrong about an awful lot. But you have to give them one thing: They know how to stay on message.
    The Republican message is simple: Government is the problem. If we just cut taxes and regulations, then voila! Prosperity will follow. It's wrong – dangerously wrong. But the echo chamber of conservative think tanks, right-wing media, and Republican politicians repeats it over and over and over.

Have you ever wondered...how the Big Bird suit worked?

Check this out before you do anything else today: "Eye-Opening Short Video [by Spencer Cathcart] Summarizes Everything That’s Wrong with Our Society" [8:28]:

It's very good. And there's a written commentary [by Arjun Walia].

When wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the United States after being absent nearly 70 years, the most remarkable "trophic cascade" occurred. What is a trophic cascade and how exactly do wolves change rivers? [4:34]


Nanosecond photo:

A mother's love transcends all species. From elephants to pigs, the maternal bond is strong throughout the animal kingdom. "These Animal Moms Are Impressive—So Why Are They Being Treated Like This?" [People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals]

Sometimes what a pilot sees in a day, people won't see in their lifetimes. New Zealand has some truly amazing scenery. I often have wondered why the airline industry doesn't have a live video feed from the aircraft's nose streamed into the cabin in order to amuse and bedazzle weary travellers. It must take great faith in your instruments to pilot an approach like this but the rush must be amazing. [4:11]

Daytona Beach in the 1950s

Harley Davidson's beginnings

Having a bad day?

A mathematician, a physicist, and an engineer were each given the following problem to solve.
    A school dance floor included a straight line down the middle dividing the floor in two equal halves. Boys were lined up against one wall and girls against the opposite wall, each facing the center line. They were instructed to advance in stages towards the center line every ten seconds, where the distance from the person to the center line at each stage is equal to one-half the distance at the past stage.
    That is, if the starting distance from the wall to center line was D, the progressive series of distances at t = 0, 10 seconds, 20 seconds...10n seconds to the center line is (D, D/2, D/4, D/8, .....D/2n).
    The question is, when will they meet at the middle?
    The mathematician said that they would never meet.
    The physicist said they would meet when time equals infinity.
    The engineer said that in one minute they would be close enough for all practical purposes.

"Tree of 40 Fruit"

Another box you can eat after finishing the chocolate inside:

Limerick of the week:

The youths who frequent picture palaces
have no need for psychoanalysis,
    and though Dr. Freud
    is distinctly annoyed,
they cling to their long-standing fallacies.

[Found at Extremely Smart]

Copyright © 2015 by Morris Dean