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Monday, March 31, 2003
Everyone not talking about the war is talking about the weather. March made a valiant attempt at lion-leaving by sending us one last snow-storm. DC is enough of a heat island that nothing accumulated. But the suburbs had a Christmas-card look to them, as the web cam in Panabasis revealed. And yes, I finally got the Mavica working again. Expect more documentation of the DC spring. Sources of informationThanks to Poynter.org for creating an interactive map showing the locations of embedded and independent reporters in Iraq. Independent reporters in Baghdad include:
Meanwhile, the Washington Post provides a War blog roundup, which includes my personal favorite, The Agonist, Sean Paul Kelley's labor of love. (When does this man do his day-job?) No longer in Iraq:
Friday, March 28, 2003
More on the Zoo auditThe Washington Post points out what Smithsonian staff have long known: that the problems at the National Zoo are caused in large part by shortfalls in the budget.The severe staffing problems are caused by federal budget tightening that forced the zoo to leave jobs unfilled, so current employees are overworked, the report said. Funding cutbacks in 1996 forced a wave of retirements of experienced staff members, and some of their replacements had no experience caring for the animals they were supposed to oversee, the report noted.Dare we hope that Congress can be shamed into increasing appropriations? WitnessesNadia D. talks to her relatives in BaghdadI got through to him after many tries last night. The bombing of the market was only a few blocks away. He sounded terrified and very angry. This is a residential neighborhood that's out of the way -- away from the center of the city. No one would've ever thought it would be a target. I asked him if he thought there was anything there to target, and he answered, "Absolutely not -- nothing."Anthony Shadid interviews Karima, a mother of eight Sitting on mats lined against the wall, her daughters -- age 16, 15, 13, 12 and 11 -- giggled, awkward in the presence of a foreigner. Overhead was a portrait of the prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein, a resonant symbol of suffering in Shiite theology. Hanging over a battered refrigerator, its white paint peeling and its rusted handle broken, was a porcelain blue plate that read "God." Thursday, March 27, 2003
In an earlier post we reported on sea lions used in the war in Iraq. But pinnipeds are not the only marine mammals who have been drafted. Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) are also doing war duty in the Persian Gulf, using their sonar to locate mines. The dolphins don't actually poke at the mines. They keep their distance, and set out buoys so their human partners can deal with the hazard. Zoo accreditation delayedFrom today's Washington Post:The National Zoo's application for reaccreditation was put on hold yesterday amid controversy over a recent spate of animal deaths, forcing the world-renowned institution to make improvements and wait at least six months before it can reapply for full accreditation.This is the first time since accreditation became manditory in 1985 that the Zoo's application has not been granted on schedule. Persistent problems with rodents and several controversial animal deaths are blamed for the delay. Tuesday, March 25, 2003
Pinnipeds 1, Humans 0Usually a conflict between humans and other animals is resolved in favor of the humans. So I was delighted to see that San Diego is protecting the rights of the seals who have moved into the Children's Pool, a protected area at La Jolla beach. [photos] [more photos, and maps (PDF)] The pool has been closed since 1997 to protect the marine mammals and to shield humans from disease caused by fecal contamination.But recently the humans attempted an invasion, swimming along the beach to the pool to prove that pinnipeds and humans can coexist. The humans were promptly routed by the scratching, biting seals. The National Marine Fisheries Service also disapproved. You'll notice that the URL for this story implies that it is part of the war coverage from Iraq. I suspect the webmaster has a sense of humor. Ticks aplenty, ticks galore!The U.S. National Tick Collection, a little-known part of the Smithsonian's taxonomic holdings, is housed at Georgia Southern University. The collection, on long-term loan from the Smithsonian, includes 700 of the 850 known species of ticks. Curator James Kierans can usually identify specimens from memory. "With a group of 850, you can keep most of the information in your head," he modestly explained. There are also national mite and chigger collections. Monday, March 24, 2003
WitnessesI deal better with details than abstractions. Phrases like "weapons of mass destruction" leave me feeling slightly glazed and dizzy. But a concrete image, such as a Kurdish soldier killing an injured starling for dinner, focuses my attention. Here is today's crop, unfortunately scanty, of witness accounts from Iraq:Anthony Shadid in Baghdad, for the Washington Post For weeks, the daughter-in-law helped prepare the house for war. She and her husband hauled a mattress downstairs, setting up their bedroom in the dining room. The family rearranged furniture so that they could sprint to open the windows. Sofas and tables were cloaked in dust cloths to protect them from flying glass and debris. Two rifles and bags of ammunition were propped against the wall.Mike Gallagher from Baghdad, for the UPI The bombs come at any time, without warning. They wake you up brutally; the hotel room shakes violently. Some of us sleep with our boots on, just in case. Everyone is stocking up on food and all the foreigners are swapping telephone numbers in case some of them don't make it back home. The news of Terry Lloyd of British Independent Television News being killed in Basra isn't encouraging.Jason Burke in Chamchamal, for the Guardian The chicken feast made us popular. It is fairly obvious why. The local militias are ill-disciplined, ill-equipped and ill-fed. Earlier this evening I watched two peshmerga fighters apparently rush to the rescue of a starling that had semi-electrocuted itself on a loose mains cable in the street. They warded off mangy dogs with their AK47s and then gently bent down to scoop up the battered bird. And then they broke its neck and gleefully indicated that it was to be their dinner.and the magnificent Salam Pax, in the heart of it all: today my father and brother went out to see what happening in the city, they say that it does look that the hits were very precise but when the missiles and bombs explode they wreck havoc in the neighborhood where they fall. Houses near al-salam palace(where the minister Sahaf took journalist) have had all their windows broke, doors blown in and in one case a roof has caved in. I guess that is what is called "collateral damage" and that makes it OK? Friday, March 21, 2003
What may be lostOn Metafilter today, a set of links to contemporary Iraqi art:
Last year's article, but still relevant: Iraqi cultural heritage is being frittered away as cuneiform tablets are sold for a pittance on eBay. One hopes that Salam Pax, blogging from Baghdad, is all right. His weblog, Where is Raed?, was last updated at 7:05 AM local time. He reports: The most disturbing news today has come from Al-Jazeera, they said that nine B52 bombers have left the airfield in Britain and flying "presumably" towards Iraq, as if they would be doing a spin around the block. Anyway they have 6 hours to get here. Last night was very quiet in Baghdad. Today in the morning I went out to get bread and groceries. There were no Ba'ath party people stopping us from leaving the area where we live, this apparently happens after the evening prayers. But they are still everywhere. The streets are empty only bakeries are open and some grocery shops charging 4 times the normal prices, while I was buying bread a police car stopped in front of the bakery and asked the baker if they had enough flour and asked when they opened; the baker told me that they have been informed that they must open their shops and they get flour delivered to them daily. Groceries, meat and dairy products are a different story. One dairy product company seems to be still operating, not state owned, and their cars were going around the city distributing butter, cheese and yoghurt to any open markets. Meat is not safe to buy because you wouldn't know from where and how it got to the shops. Anyway we bought fresh tomatoes and zucchini for 1000 dinar a kilo which would normally be 250. and most amazingly the garbage car came around.See also Diane's notes on her ongoing correspondence with Salam in her weblog, Letter from Gotham. Salam provided a link to this satellite photo of Baghdad. It is large, but worth the download time. Fareed Zakaria's essay, The Arrogant Empire, recently linked from Arts & Letters Daily. Thursday, March 20, 2003
Rainy weatherIt's pouring in DC today. The reading room is leaking. I have donated my recycle bucket to catch the drips. I check the level when sirened motorcades dash past the museum, drawing us all to the windows.There's only one news story today. Two Iraq weblogs from the BBC: Iraq at a glance Middle East reporters in depth A British officer's speech to his troops, and Tony Blair's speech to the House of Commons The Agonist, a private weblog currently focused on up-to-the-minute Iraq reporting And, from Salon, a reporter bids farewell to Baghdad Wednesday, March 19, 2003
The things one learns from Google.... Weary of war rumors and craving a pinniped break, I ran a Google News search on "sea lion". Thus I learned that the most popular ice cream parlour in Baghdad is named Al-Foqwa, "The Sea Lion". Perhaps from the Latin Phoca? Or did the Romans learn of pinnipeds from the Arabs? Whatever the etymology, Iraqis are eating ice cream, arranging marriages and generally carrying on with everyday life in the face of an unprecedented invasion, which many suspect they will not survive. Monday, March 17, 2003
Fish prophetTalking fish have been a staple of folklore for centuries. Now, from the mystical land of New York City comes the tale of a carp that addressed its slaughterers in Hebrew, predicting the end of the world. The story has spread worldwide, perhaps prompting this variant from Israel, in which a jar of gefilte fish addressed the man who opened it in Yiddish-accented English. The jar declared:Oy, vey,Or, perhaps, "his bum". Garel S. Karp, the opener of the jar, was not sure about the final word. Neither the carp (now defunct) nor the gefilte fish (now eaten) were available for further comment. Thursday, March 13, 2003
The largest living pinniped Mirounga leonina [It seems to be a popular search term lately. Someone must have a school assignment.] Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Lists of things in the movies
[List revised 3/12/2003] Friday, March 07, 2003
Thursday, March 06, 2003
RaptorThere was a CD burning. The computer could not be disturbed, so I wandered out to watch the clouds, dark rolls unraveling like wet wool. A scattering of gulls cast twinned white arcs against the watercolor gray. One bird swung apart on broad dark wings. No gull, that. It was a hawk. I hung on his every pivot as he backed and stalled and hovered over the Hirshhorn. Then, pure as lightning, he closed his wings tight and fell. A rat? I wondered. Perhaps a pigeon. Whatever the target, by mid-stoop he had missed it. The broad wings flared again and he danced in nervous dolphin-leaps down Independence toward the Department of Engergy. Then, when he had nearly vanished in the concrete distance, he returned, flaring and swooping directly toward me. For a moment I thought he would hit the glass. Then, with a spread and flick of fingerlike feathers, he banked against the air before the windows. For one moment every feather was visible -- wings splayed, tail held closed, twitching like a rudder. Then he was off again, crossing the Mall, rocking and flickering through the gray air in a trail of small, joyful, eloquent arcs. Tama-chan gets his juminhyoIn other pinniped news, Tama-chan, Tokyo's wayward seal, has been granted an official Japanese residence card, or juminhyo. This is all very kawaii and heartwarming, until you realize that people of foreign descent who have been living in Japan for generations cannot get residence cards, and are in fact considered non-persons. The Japanese gaijin and zainichi communities admit the seal is charming, but are still a bit peeved.
Let slip the sea lions of war!The use of animals in war is an old story. Some of them, such as the WWI carrier pigeon Cher Ami, become famous. The charismatic beast in the impending war in Iraq is Zachary, a 19-year-old California Sea Lion who has been trained to locate enemy frogmen. Other animal conscripts in the Gulf include chickens; the Iraqis are rumored to have kamikaze camels. |
