castor fieber

Decades after the extinction of the wild population and subsequent reintroduction programmes in the 1950s, the beaver is making a come-back in Switzerland. Its successful return, however, is being threatened by the same human encroachment that probably caused the animal to die out in the first place: Swiss terrain and the roadways that crisscross it creates sanctuaries, albeit isolated ones, and beavers colonies do not get to sample much genetic diversity due to traffic.

To maintain and promote healthy populations, there should be congress between members on both sides of the Rhône. Animal advocates in the Geneva (Genf) region were hoping to make drivers more cautious and aware of the beavers’ plight and need for an increased range through new signage. The government of the capital of the confederation in Bern, however, did not appreciate this unsanctioned effort—though vetted by the canton. By law, the only official animal crossing traffic sign features a deer in a warning triangle—regardless of what might creep, fly or gallop into the road—boars, wolves, foxes, hedgehogs, bears, etc. I thought that reasoning was a little unfair and obtuse at first, but then I realized probably the same restriction is in effect in Germany, since thinking about it, I’ve never seen anything besides a leaping deer warning, except for farm animals and for frogs on the march. Maybe the government will change its mind and allow their signs, and regardless, the group and the beavers probably got more attention out of the controversy than had they just been left alone.

holiday cavalcade: memento mori and yakety sax

Although November seems brimming already with holidays and observances, beginning with All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day, Armistice Day and the American traditions of election day, Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving, and the beginning of the season of Carnival—plus the general preparation and planning for celebrations to follow, which team up like some festive Voltron to really fill one’s calendar, the peripatetic and always interesting Mental Floss complements the month with fifteen alternate and off-beat anniversaries and fests.

On the coat-tails of Halloween and Día de los Muertos, there is a rather morbid but necessary invocation on 2 November for one to draft his or her own epitaph, since that’s a part of estate planning more enduring than one’s will—what’s on one’s tombstone and by what pith and consequence one is remembered. The anniversary of the discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun, and awakening of the curse, by British archaeologist Howard Carter comes on 4 November, with the tumultuous remembrance of Guy Fawkes Night coming right afterwards. Later, on 14 November, as two more sort of macabre reminder, it is the US public-service announcement call to take back one’s unused and unneeded prescription medications to the pharmacy to prevent misuse, also possibly a cue to reassess one’s health and whether the meds are working, and it is the United Nations’ World Diabetes awareness day. To lighten the mood a bit, there are the interstitial anniversaries of the invention of the saxophone by Adolphe Sax on 6 November and following on 7 November another challenge one’s embrasure with International Tongue Twister Day. See the complete list at Mental Floss, but the month ends with day honouring Mars, the red planet—as our cosmological neighbour and not as a ruling-house or as the god of war, who already has a month named in his honour. What other holidays and occasions can you think of that are vying for attention during this time and might be a refreshing distraction from the mainstream holiday-hustle?

a new hope

There has been an explosion of rash and petulant criticism of the news announcement that the Disney Corporation will acquire Skywalker Ranch, and proposes to carry on the saga through to its conclusion, as was the original vision, and beginning production of Episode VII in the coming year. While I was disappointed with the prequels and am wary of certain eddies in production, I do feel that there is little cause to worry over spoiling the memories of a classic.

plus ça change

Declarations by a few historians regarding their declaration of the Wikipedia project to be nearly complete proved quite provoking to many dedicated editors and chroniclers, but this pronouncement—certainly not of demise and redundancy but quite the opposite in terms of utility and comprehensiveness—does pose an interesting point of departure for the open encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, despite what the critics and academics say and inherent imperfections, is a storehouse of human knowledge in all disciplines as well as a virtual gloss of that which only exists in human imagination, describing in great detail fantastic universes that would make our small, contradictory and poorly understood one envious for attention.
 Historians argue that there only is so much that one can distill in the form of an article before passing out of the bounds of the project—Wikipedia is not meant to reflect the whole of its platform, the internet, and has standards of notoriety, endurance and significance as well as a duty to scholarship, and with over four million articles in English and over a million auf Deutsch (stubs excepted) one begins to tax his creativity and resources looking for something fresh to write about.
 Of course, Wikipedia is expanding through translation into other languages and complimenting translated outlines, sister-projects and speciality portals, as well as encapsulating current events in an archival fashion, but, aside from the high quantity of topics covered, it seems that this assertion of approaching conclusion is based on the lack of emendations and counter-edits of established and heady historical articles and many other broad subjects.
While no one is saying that fewer changes equates to a lack of engagement or new authors going away having found that everything’s already been written, I don’t think it signifies anything more (nor less) than a level of maturity in style and presentation and execution that was crafted and molded by the forum itself, and curiosity, whether with or without a vehicle for immediate expansion or expression, and the sense of discovery and re-discovery are inexhaustible and will probably never become moribund or again seek out the protection of the slant of the victorious and influential.

gazetteer or atmospheric transients

The toll and scope of disaster, whether from the projections of actuaries and the hand-wringing of emergency-services or surveying the aftermath through the most empathetic lens, is never really compartmentalized, never fully reckoned and consigned to the past. Reconnaissance that brings tragedy and all its frightfulness cinematically close and is filled with superlatives, historic records to be broken, can make it seem like we are hurdling one closed catastrophe after another—with a process of rebuilding and recovery allowed but discussed little.

The stupendous damage done from the Caribbean up the eastern flanks of the US and Canada also, I think, is something we are tempted to contain but is as resistant to that as any other hardship survived and then forgotten, only reminded by almanacs and dizzyingly unreal heights of high water marks, not only because every stern warning of calamity has come to pass (mostly heeded to and fatalities were mitigated) but also due to the chilling effects of preceding wreck and ruin: the mishandling of Hurricane Katrina, the chaos of Fukushima and most recently the incarceration of Italian geologists for underestimating the severity of the last earthquake to strike the north of the country. For all the closeness and willingness to share, live and as it happens as well as thoughtfully remembered and recorded, society as a whole, I think, tends to permit the coping and the healing of a natural disaster, as opposed to something wholly prosecuted by man, to bleed into the present, after a seemly period of silence, for comparative purposes and to set new benchmarks. I hope that episodes with this sort of destructive power and worse do not become so commonplace and frequent as to force commiseration, but I fear that pollution and imbalanced has made the weather unpredictable and balky and any of us could come up against such challenges at any time. Reclaiming one’s lives and livelihood is a private matter—again, something that society would rather leave buried, perhaps because of an inarticulate fear that should such experiences become too ubiquitous, recovery for anyone becomes a prospect too far gone, the tipping point breached. Regardless of how we try to move on, the people affected by this disaster, however, should know that they don’t suffer alone and that their plight is not merely a rehearsal.

tragbares

A comprehensive study commissioned by Greenpeace Germany of sports- and outdoor wear articles has determined that virtually all coats, jackets and clothing treated to be weather-proof retain those harmful chemicals.

It is not quite like the formaldehyde that leeches from furniture and carpets over its lifetime and exacerbates chemical sensitivities in people who live with it, but rather poses little risk of harm to those who wear the items—though the news, I suppose, could have been spun to incite a riot. The cumulative run-off of the manufacturing process, however, does present a hazard, with the polyfluorinated compounds (PFCs) that don’t degrade naturally and have the potential to build up in the environment, detrimental effects finding their way back to these outdoorsy types—really all and any consumer since it’s hard to find a new piece of clothing without such enhancements, like trying to find a telephone without a camera or a light bulb or a Quittung that is not a poisoned dart. The argument Greenpeace offered was a rather reasoned one: considering that some adventurers and professionals really do need to keep warm and dry even in the most violent weather, governments should not be harnessed with the responsibility of fully detoxing our jackets but consumers should instead take on the social conscience of asking retailers what went into making this or that coat and what traces are left behind and make a choice, since we all don’t need to be fully buffered from the elements at all times. Besides, so girded, one usually just stays dry for the first volley or so and a sustained downpour usually leaves everyone drenched.

we won't be pwn'd again

Via the ever splendiferous watchers at Boing Boing, Electronic Frontier Foundation reports on what struck me as a new tact on the part of the entertainment industry and intellectual property chieftains but is just I suppose the latest assault in the bullying-desperate attempts to alienate ownership, entrepreneurship and fair-use. Essentially, an international textbook publishing house has placed an injunction against a student from selling his used learning materials, because, they argue, the content was manufactured, compiled overseas and therefore not subject to the legal principle of first sale, a doctrine that makes venues like eBay and flea-markets and charitable giving possible because one is selling one’s ownership of the thing and not the copyrighted content of it. The US Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments, for what seems like a sophisticated and possibly pervasive loophole, since there’s little that is created without non-domestic contributions, and is expected to strike the publisher’s case down as clawing.

For companies to be able to dictate what can be resold or given away after they’ve made their initial profit seems absurd and specious, if not blatant overstepping.  Industry, however, has been codifying and campaigning against the idea of right to property or some time, through various avenues and with unbalanced successes, attempting to extend the lifetime of copyrights and franchises and introducing a little estranging thing called an end-users’ licensing agreement (EULA), which is not a bill-of-sale but rather a permit to use and enjoy their goods and services within strictly defined parameters. While I do not think that the American high-court would open up a legal framework to criminalize garage sales and that there’s no way to argue stealing and counterfeiting out of piracy, there is a creeping and seemingly relentless offensive in favour of large-holders that is in the interest of everyone watching carefully.

in season: butternut-salmon lasagna

There was a bit of confusion, mincing terms, when it came to identifying a Butternut squash (Birnenkürbis, “pear-squash”) distinct from a pumpkin (Kürbis) and the gourds (Winterkürbis) and the weirder varieties of bumpy and pie-faced squashes used to decorate stoops and storefronts for Autumn. Kürbisse are more generic (and diverse) than I thought, referring to any member of the Cucurbita family, native to Central America and separate from their European analogues of beets and turnips, including zucchinis and cucumbers, but once that was cleared up, we were ready to try something new.
For this dish to serve 3 to 4, one will need:

• A medium casserole dish
• A large Butternut squash, enough to get 1½ pounds from (600 – 750 grams), minus the skin and seeds (a slender squash, as compared to a dumpy one with wider squash hips tends to have less seeds) 
• A bit of butter, flour (about 4 tablespoons each) and salt and pepper and fresh dill (chopped) and nutmeg (Muskat) for seasoning
• 1 cup (250 ml) of cream
• 2 cups (500 ml) of vegetable stock or bullion 
• A 9 oz (250 g) package of smoked salmon (fresh or from the refrigerated section)
• About 7 oz (200 g) of grated cheese (gouda or mozzarella) 
• A 4 oz (about 100 g) package of lasagna pasta 
• A large onion

Begin by shelling the squash and removing the seeds, and then slice the squash into small cubes and set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 400° F (200°C). Peel and dice up the onion, frying it in a large pan until glassy in some butter over medium heat. Add a few pinches of flour to the pan (about a tablespoon in all) then pour in the broth and the cream, reducing the heat, and add the graded cheese, seasonings and garnish with the bundle of dill. Mix and leave on low heat for around five minutes. Take the uncooked lasagna noodles and arrange in layers in a casserole dish (grease with a bit of butter) apportioning slices of the salmon, squash and a dousing of the sauce, three layers deep. Pour the remaining sauce over the top, spinkling a bit more cheese over it, and allow to bake for about 45 minutes. Enjoy with a fine Moscato white wine.