Photo of the Day: Slender loris

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "An eight-month-old female slender loris waits to be given her first health check by the veterinary team at London Zoo."

Very cute.

I had no idea what a slender loris was until I checked Wikipedia. Apparently it's "a small, nocturnal primate found only in the tropical rainforests of Southern India and Sri Lanka."

There you go.

Photo of the Day: The Stonyhurst Gospel

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "The St. Cuthbert Gospel, the earliest intact European book, created in the 7th century, is displayed at the British Library in London. The British Library launched a campaign [last] Thursday to try to raise the final 2.75 million pounds (4.43 US Dollars) to buy the book."

The St. Cuthbert Gospel, also known as the Stonyhurst Gospel, is a Latin version of the Gospel of John. It supposedly belonged to Saint Cuthbert of Lindisfarne (died 687). 

As an undergraduate at Tufts, contemplating doing art history as a double-major with history (I ended up doing political theory instead), I took a wonderful (and intimate, with just eight students) course on medieval illuminated manuscripts. To this day, I hold the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and other such masterpieces, many on display at the British Library (and formerly at the British Museum) in awe. Indeed, one of the highlights of my life -- seriously -- was seeing the Book of Kells in person in Dublin. It's unbelievably beautiful. (Below is the remarkable "Chi-Rho" page, which depicts the two-letter christogram, a symbol/abbreviation for Jesus Christ (chi and rho for "Christ").)

I don't think the Stonyhurst Gospel is illuminated -- that is, it is all text, without the elaborate and colourful artwork that makes a manuscript "illuminated" -- but it's still pretty awesome. You don't have to be a Christian (and I'm certainly not) to admire it, nor to admire the Book of Kells, which contains the four primary gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), and other books like it. All you have to do is care about books, and about their history, and about the book as art.

And when you're talking about the oldest intact European book, well, that's pretty amazing.

Photo of the Day: Cleaning up the ExxonMobil oil disaster in Montana

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "A cleanup worker uses oil absorbent materials on the Yellowstone River in Laurel, Montana. An Exxon Mobil pipeline near Laurel, Montana, ruptured and spilled an estimated 1,000 barrels of crude into the Yellowstone."

With all the attention on Casey Anthony, the debt ceiling, and the Fourth of July long weekend, this story didn't get nearly the attention it deserved.

But it's yet another environmental catastrophe caused by the oil industry, a disaster that hardly registers because there have been so many and because apparently we're used to it by now.

Yes, of course, these things happen.

But isn't that the problem? Even if there isn't negligence or incompetence -- and it's not clear yet what happened here (the rupture may have been caused by the surging river, but the pipeline may not have been entirely secure in the first place, and it looks like ExxonMobil hasn't been entirely honest about the spill) -- this sort of thing can happen. And does happen. And when the pipeline runs just eight feet below the river, well, the consequences can be -- and are -- enormous and devastating.

Meanwhile, the cleanup continues. As does the suffering -- to the environment, to animals, to humans, to the economy.

It seems to me we should care more than we do.

Photo of the Day: Flooding in North Dakota

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This can't be good.

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "A home breaks apart as it is engulfed by Missouri River flood waters, Wednesday, June, 22, 2011 in the Hoge Island area of Bismarck, N.D."

For more on the flooding, and on this home in particular, see The Bismarck Tribune. The USGS also has useful information here.

This photo is making the rounds. See, for example, The Washington Post's report on the flooding here.

Photo of the Day: Memorial Day 2011 - Stony Point, New York

By Richard K. Barry

 

This picture appeared in The New York Times yesterday. It's a fairly ordinary shot depicting an older veteran and a young boy at a Memorial Day celebration. It could be anywhere, but it happens to be in my home town of Stony Point, New York. I grew up in the area. I still have family there, though I have lived mostly in other places for the past 30 years.

According to the Times caption, the older gentleman is Arnold Rist, who is 86 years old. The youngster is Thomas Cahill, age 3. On Monday, Mr Rist played taps, as, the caption states, he has done hundreds of times at military funerals. In April 1945, it says that he was among the soldiers who liberated the inmates of Dachau concentration camp.

My sister sent the picture and she and I were trying to figure out where it was taken. We are pretty sure it's at the Stony Point Town Hall because that's where the local parades ended when she and I marched in them as part of our high school band when we took part in the annual celebrations many, many years ago.

I mention all of this, in part, because I marvel at how the political right so aggressively claims patriotism for themselves as if those of us on the left couldn't possibly understand what pride in community and the sacrifice of others means. They like to paint all of their political opponents as radically different and therefore wrong about everything.

I do hate to disappoint people like that, but I grew up in a small town. I've worked hard to understand the history, culture, and politics of my country. I take pride in what is good and criticize passionately what needs work, which is not a bad definition of patriotism from my point of view.

If you want to disagree with me, do it on the facts and not on some bogus claim that you are more American than I am simply because you think you are, as you wrap yourself in the flag and refuse to listen to any other voice but your own.

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day and remembered to remember the sacrifices made by people like Mr. Rist and so many others.

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

Photos of the Day: Tornado devastation in Joplin, Missouri

By Michael J.W. Stickings

From The Atlantic, images of some truly horrendous destruction, the deadliest tornado in the U.S. in at least the past 60 years. It's hard to know what to say.

Photo of the Day: Exploding Chinese watermelons

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Guardian:

The flying pips, shattered shells and wet shrapnel still haunt farmer Liu Mingsuo after an effort to chemically boost his fruit crop went spectacularly wrong.

Um, yeah.

Photo of the Day: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, sexual offender

By Michael J.W. Stickings

That's IMF chief and leading French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn waiting to be arraigned yesterday in a New York courtroom.

There was a lot of talk he could beat Sarkozy next year and become France's next president. Now he's being held without bail at Rikers Island on charges of sexual assault, forcible confinement, and attempted rape:

Prosecutors had asked the Criminal Court judge, Melissa C. Jackson, to remand Mr. Strauss-Kahn, 62, contending that he was a flight risk. They also indicated that he may have been previously involved in a similar episode.

"Some of this information includes reports he has in fact engaged in conduct similar to the conduct alleged in this complaint on at least one other occasion," said Artie McConnell, an assistant district attorney, adding that the other occasion, which occurred outside the United States, was still being investigated.

In opposing bail, prosecutors highlighted the serious nature of the allegations.

"The defendant restrained a hotel employee inside of the room," Mr. McConnell said. "He sexually assaulted her and attempted to forcibly rape her," and when that failed, Mr. McConnell said, he forced her to perform oral sex.

Strauss-Kahn still has his defenders in France, of course, and some of them are alleging entrapment or otherwise that the police account isn't accurate. Maybe so. He's innocent until proven guilty, let us not forget, and he'll have his day in court to tell his side of the story. We shouldn't rush to judgement.

But, seriously, it doesn't look good, does it?

Photo of the Day: Osama martyr march in Pakistan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Photo from The New York Times: "Hundreds offered prayers for Bin Laden on a street in Karachi, declaring him a martyr."

Just a reminder, if we needed one, that killing Osama bin Laden does not mean killing "Osama bin Laden," or what he stood for, and fought for, and killed for. And while this means that the so-called "war on terror" isn't over (even if it doesn't make sense to think of it as a war in any conventional sense, or even as a war), what it really means, or should mean, is that there are still so many hearts and minds to win -- not to turn them into us but to turn them away from Osama (and "Osama").

Photo of the Day: Royal Wedding insanity 2

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Following up on my PotD post from yesterday...

The wedding is done. Over. But it's been hard to escape it today.

Even in Canada...

We have a federal election on Monday and yet our media have been swept up in the insanity across the pond, and all because this country is too pathetically servile, too disrespectful of our liberty, to cast off the British Monarchy for good, to toss it in the dustbin of our history, where it belongs. Even our most prominent journalist, CBC news anchor Peter Mansbridge, has been reporting from London. I find it all utterly revolting.

You can find photos all over the place. (Or you can just turn on the TV.) But here's another pre-wedding one. The insanity is palpable.

(Photo from The Globe and Mail: "Royal fans wait outside Westminster Abbey Thursday. The marriage of Prince William and Catherine Middleton takes place Friday in London, England.)

I'm embarrassed today even to have anything to do with Britain, even though my family lives there and I'm a British (and Canadian) citizen. It's a wonderful place, in many ways, a country I love.

And yet...

Photo of the Day: Royal Wedding insanity

By Michael J.W. Stickings

(We're going to try to make this a regular feature. So check back daily for Photo of the Day posts, usually around this time.)

Photo from The Globe and Mail: "A royal wedding fan prepares his overnight position on the pavement outside Westminster Abbey in London."

Have I mentioned, with so much attention on William & Kate and their impending nuptials, that I'm more ashamed than ever to be, as both a Canadian and British citizen, a "subject" of Her Majesty, and to be associated, even by nationality, with the masses of people who are obsessed with this stupid wedding?

And have I mentioned that I despise both the British Monarchy and monarchy generally?

And that, when it comes to Canada, the country I call my own, I'm a republican? It's truly shameful that our head of state is essentially a foreign monarch and that we kowtow, figuratively speaking (because we should never accept such submission), before an utterly ridiculous institution and an equally ridiculous family that has done nothing to deserve its position of privilege?

Well, there you go. Needless to say, I will not be watching the wedding on TV.