Fine Art Tuesday

 

Peder Severin Kroyer born 1851 in Norway. Raised by foster parents in Denmark. Died 1909.

Not Kroyer. Caught by the first person who commented.

Notable for capturing the social nature of physically arduous work.

Grab-bag

Glen Filthie posted a very short essay that is a "sleeper" in the sense that there is more than meets the eye.

Mr. Filthie points out that most "modern" law enforcement officials pull a vacuum when the perps do not leave an incriminating cyber-trail of evidence. Cyber evidence is very efficient to collect. Many organizations have become lazy. If it were a pump or a propeller we could say it was "cavitating".

The Powers That Be seem powerless in the face of opponents who are willing to ride a bicycle 2 miles from their extraction point, commit their mayhem on the high-leverage target and then exit stage-left. At 15 mph a bicycle covers two miles in eight minutes. Many bike paths are poorly monitored. A cross-bow bolt through the target and boogie. A mud-smeared license plate. No cell-phones. Done and done.

A pernicious myth

One of the enduring myths is that human nature evolves over time due to enforced rules.

While not created by Marxists, it was fully embraced by them.

To illustrate, this myth would have us believe that if we dock (cut) the tails of 10 or 50 or 100 generations of beagle pups then beagles will start being born without tails.

At a practical level, this theory impacts our lives with prosecutors who believe that "old" problems disappeared and no longer need to be adjudicated. They believe we have "evolved beyond" those issues and must now focus on "hate crimes" and "bad-think" and "systemic racism".

Medical "Misinformation" and Black Americans

What if Black Americans are way ahead of the curve?

There is a concept called "convergent evolution". The concept holds that if you have an ecological niche that offers a whack at a juicy slice of calories and protein and other resources, organisms will evolve to fill that niche.

If you visit various parts of the globe you will find "kangaroo mice-like" beasts everywhere. Genetically, it is clear that they evolved from different lines but they all look very similar.

What kind of personalities are attracted to professions with near-God-like powers of life-and-death? And within that profession, who would be attracted to the highest status, best paid positions with the least oversight? Might people with a high ability to premeditate courses of action and who are completely devoid of empathy and remorse find those jobs irresistible? In a word, "Psychopaths".

Psychopaths avoid the bleeding-edge of science. They prefer the sure-thing of "proven" science where they can pull a "cow-bird" and push the other eggs out of the nest.

***Disclosure: The following idea is considered heresy by the Catholic Church***

One intriguing concept is that God created near-humans during the six days of Genesis but they lacked self-awareness and/or empathy. Adam was the first human to have empathy and self-awareness with Eve being the second. This work-around was proposed by those who wondered "Who did Cain procreate with?"

So, is it "murder" to execute a near-human? Does it violate the Ten Commandments?

The Catholic Church says it does violate the Ten Commandments because only God can truly examine a human or near-human's conscience...or even determine if the near-human's conscience exists.

***End of heresy discussion***

Sadly, the "good science" gets jettisoned along with the junk, for-profit "science".

It pays to pack your own parachute and do your own research. 

In my opinion, it is still good advice to exercise, eat a wide variety of foods, eat and drink in moderation, sleep well, keep your trousers and your lips zipped, get sunshine and avoid stupid, impulsive people. Take care of your teeth and your feet. Beyond that, everything else is up for discussion.

A distraction

 

 3:24 run-time

Girls being pretty and looking happy

A Conversation Overheard

I was sitting in a comfortable chair while waiting for the socially-adept and very vivacious Mrs ERJ to finish chatting with her friends from church.

The chair was mostly out-of-sight and is a good place to listen. It was also near the Christmas tree that is adorned with tags with donation opportunities.

One of the personalities at church is Gloriously Victorious. That is not her REAL name, it is her name translated into English.

Gloriously Victorious was telling one of her buddies that she was snow-birding down to Florida in the near future and she was going to donate all of the food in her freezer (that has not expired) to the St Vincent de Paul food-pantry.

I thought that was genius! She doesn't need to worry about her freezer going Tango-Uniform while she is soaking up the sun and coming back to a stinking, drippy mess. She will unplug the freezer after emptying it and start fresh when she comes back

I doubt that all food-pantries are equipped to take frozen foods but some are. According to the conversation I was eavesdropping on, this is something that Gloriously Victorious has been doing for several years.

It might be worth your time to call around to the local food-pantries if you find yourself heading to warmer climes to pass the winter away.

Clayton and Krystal: Book-club

It was Betty’s turn to host the Lolium Lady’s Book-club.

The club had been meeting for over ten years and they had been plumbing the depths of serious non-fiction. In turn the local librarian had recommended books by Gladwell, Diamond, Levitt, Covey, Hallinan and others.

The ladies shied away from biographies because they tended to be fawning and uncritical.

Not every lady read the assigned pages but enough did. And the ones who did were able to sketch it out with enough detail that the laggards could participate in the discussion.

There were few surprises. Meeting at Betty’s meant lapsang souchong tea, freshly baked ginger-snaps and pineapple upside-down cake.

The ladies were agog at Betty’s “new” stove. Betty changed elements in her decore about as often as the Supreme Court elected a new Chief Justice.

Betty milked the moment. Most of the “girls” played along and let Betty savor the moment. As expected, LaDoyen tried to steal the moment. She was politely ignored with selective deafness.

By the end of the club meeting, Betty had allowed the fact that Clayton Cummins had done the work, that he had showed up the day after she called and that it had cost “about $600 + parts” to be wormed out of her.

LaDoyen (Christened Diane but re-invented while away at "University") criticized the 7 feet of horizontal run and said “It looks dumb!!”

Betty serenely replied, “It may look dumb but most of the heat comes from the stove pipe. The wood burns in the stove but the pipe is what moves it to the room.”

LaDoyen didn’t have a good reply for that and decided that getting another slice of pineapple upside-down cake would give her a reason to not get into another argument with Betty.

Theresa Andruusenko approached Betty afterward and asked for Clayton’s number. Betty shared it, knowing that if Theresa had it then it was as good as broadcast to the entire township.

***

The receptionist found Krystal in the peritoneal dialysis “stick” room clutching Dale Mendoza’s hand.

Dale had coded while Krystal was threading the large-bore catheter through his abdomen wall.

Dale handed her the crucifix that hung around his neck and ground out “It was my father’s” through gritted teeth.

Krystal held his hand and paved his way to the Pearly Gates with simple, heartfelt prayers.

The center’s manager barged in while the receptionist was comforting Krystal. He told her to get back to work and informed her that it was against company policy to accept gifts from patients.

The staff threatened a mass walk-off unless he backed-off. Knowing that retreat is sometimes the only viable option, he fled to his office and played solitaire on his computer for the rest of the shift.

For the first time in her career, Krystal allowed herself to be taken to the bar after work by her work-mates. One of her work-mates drove her home...all the way to Lolium Township. A second work-mate drove Krystal's car. Nobody left vehicles unattended in the city anymore.

---This is a good place to pause the Clayton and Krystal series---

Obsolete rifles

 

An early, export Mannlicher Schoenauer

(Vilhjalmur) Stefansson resumed his explorations by sledge over the Arctic Ocean  leaving Collinson Point, Alaska in April 1914. A supporting sledge turned back 75 mi (121 km) offshore, but he and two men continued onward on one sledge, living largely by his rifle on polar game for 96 days until his party reached the Mary Sachs in the autumn.   Wikipedia

"...polar game..." meant seals which had to be anchored with head or spine shots and polar bears which are enormous and dangerous. Seals were often targets of opportunity, seen while rounding an ice-heave. The distance might not be great but the shot had to be made in a hurry and had to be spot-on or the seal slipped down the hole.

WDM "Karamojo" Bell, a prominent elephant (ivory) hunter in Africa in the early 20th century, also used the rifle in its original 6.5×54 chambering with considerable success. The ability of the diminutive 6.5×54 cartridge to take the largest and most dangerous of the big game species, such as African elephant and Cape Buffalo, was due in the main to the high sectional density of the 6.5mm projectiles used in the rifle, although precise placing of the shot was imperative. Because the original factory loads for the 6.5×54 projectiles were long and heavy  relative to their diameter, they proved capable of very deep penetration through muscle and bone. This, coupled with the relatively low recoil of the cartridge, facilitated accurate shot placement into vital organs such as the heart or brain.    -Wikipedia

 

So, what ballistic magic did this ancient cartridge offer?

Optimistically, 160 grains at 2400fps or 140 grains at 2500fps and a modest, African-heat-friendly peak pressure of 52,000 psi. In truth, actual velocities were probably a hundred feet-per-second less than those values.

Much of the magic had to do with the platform. About 7 pounds in sporting trim with a 19" barrel which was a good six inches shorter than most other bolt-actions of the day. You are much more likely to be "get lucky" if you are always carrying your rifle as opposed to having in on the sled.

If you are a reloader, you can match the 6.5X54mm M-S ballistics and pressures by reloading the .260 Remington with the "starting loads" for H-4895, H-4350 or H-4831. "Stick" powders are desirable for modest pressures because their performance doesn't fall-off like some spherical powders do at lower pressures.

Put it in a bolt-action with a 70-degree turn lock-up like a Ruger American and mount a Red-Dot scope or flip-up aperture sights and you are rocking and rolling like Vilhjalmur and Karamojo.

Climate wobble

I am not totally on-board with man-made climate change but I do believe that the climate has internal feedback mechanisms that can cause weather to go over-center like a fat-kid on a teeter-totter and stay pinned there for prolonged periods.

In time, the fat-kid will lose enough weight that the teeter-totter will "behave" until another fat-kid sits on one side of the pivot or the other.

So it seems prudent to hedge ones' bets just like one might have more than one kind of investment in your retirement portfolio.

Drought tolerance

If you make a slightly more than causal review of the research, much of what is called drought tolerance are adaptive responses to wild-fires.

The thinking is that drought stress makes trees more vulnerable to diseases and bugs. Dry, standing dead-wood makes for wild fires. Some trees have adaptations that allow them to dominate after a fire. A short, incomplete list includes:

• Thick, fire-resistant bark
• The ability to throw up stems from the roots
• Latent buds at the base of the tree
• Wood that rots slowly so the tree doesn't succumb while a burn wound is healing over.
• Seeds that require heat before germinating
  

Some species have more than one strategy. Black Locust, for instance has thick bark in adults, throws up stems from roots, the wood rots slowly AND the seeds need exposure to heat to break-down the waterproof coating around them.

Other species (and gensus) are largely lacking these strategies except for a few rare individuals. Maples are an example of this.

Finding the rare individual

Suppose one were to engage in the Quixotic quest to produce a seedling orchard of southern oak species* that are tolerant of low-oxygen soils AND resistant to fire. These two characteristics rarely go together. Low-oxygen soils is code for "swamps" and wild-fires are a rare event in swamps. Oak species that grow in swamps are usually vulnerable to fire.

Southern North America is rich in oak species that are tolerant of flooded and low-oxygen soils: Overcup Oak, Willow Oak, Nuttall Oak, Water Oak, Pin Oak (palustris), Shingle Oak.

There are also some oak species that are notably resistant to fire: Bur Oak, Post Oak, Blackjack Oak, Gambels Oak, Shinnery Oak, Black Oak and in the north, Hills Oak.

One strategy would be to create hybrids of the two groups and then sort for flood tolerance and fire tolerance. 

Sometimes you will stumble across natural hybrids. Locally, there are trees that are intermediate in leaf characteristics between Shingle Oak and Black Oak. That might be an easy place to start.

How would you sort for fire-resistance?

One way is to snip the one-year-old seedling at ground-level which mimics what fire would do and to select the seedlings that are the quickest or most vigorous in their recovery. The individuals that have viable buds between the "seed-leaves" (cotyledon) and the surface or have the ability to throw shoots from roots should rise-and-shine.

Seeds are cheap. Growing them to adulthood before sorting them for stressors is expensive. The smart move is to find a way to sort seedlings at the youngest possible age. My thinking is that some individuals of "swamp species" might have genes lurking in the wood-pile from an earlier dalliance with a fire-tolerant species that might occasionally surface if you are looking for them.

The big win here is that snipping the seedlings near ground level increases the number of latent buds at the base (i.e. coppicing). So even if there is no discrimination between the seedlings, the snipped seedlings will, as individuals, have an enhanced bank of latent buds should they experience fire stress. It is analogous to root-pruning to increase the number of fine, feeder roots except it is to increase the individual's ability to recover from a fire.

*Southern species are likely to offer resilience to the stressors associated with wobble in the "hot" direction.