The (Post-) Christmas Tadpole

 

I needed something to post for Christmas, but I didn’t have anything, so I thought that I should just post this picture of a tadpole from 2019, but then I waited too late for Christmas.  

But anyway, here is the Christmas tadpole.  It’s either a Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus) or a Green Frog (Lithobates clamitans).  (I once read an explanation of how to tell the difference between the tadpoles of these two species by the distribution of black spots on the body, but I can’t seem to find that reference.)

And, in a way, this could be a Christmas tadpole; most other frog species start as eggs in the spring, and then change from tadpole to adult after a few months.  But the Green Frog often spends a year in the tadpole stage, and in this area the Bullfrog spends two years as a tadpole, and thus there would be individuals of both species still in the tadpole stage as December comes to en end, which it is doing now.  

Eddie Van Halen

Last fall I was blogging about the death of one of the musical icons of my youth, Ric Ocasek of the Cars, and now I must blog about the death of another, Eddie Van Halen, who died in October.   

 

Eddie Van Halen was the main creative force in the band Van Halen.  He is best known for his guitar playing, and in particular for bringing the technique of two-handed tapping to prominence within rock music.  

It wasn’t Eddie’s guitar, though, that made me a fan of Van Halen.  For on thing, I found his tone, on a purely sonic level, somewhat harsh and grating. (As I’ve gotten older I’ve found it less so, perhaps due to my ears losing sensitivity.)  And, maybe more importantly, in my own attempts at playing the guitar, I lack anywhere near the level of skill to pull off the sort of trickery that he could do easily.

What really appealed to me about Eddie Van Halen’s music was his absolutely huge synthesizer sound, perhaps the “biggest” synth sound that anyone has ever produced.  It was only employed on a handful of songs on a handful of albums in the Eighties.  They’re not the Van Halen songs that it’s cool to like, but they’re the ones that influenced me.  

Here is Van Halen’s biggest hit, and the first and perhaps best example of Eddie’s enormous synthesizer sound, just in case, for some bizarre reason, you’re not familiar with it.   

 

Halloween 2020

Halloween is usually a time when I do a lot of blogging, because the spookiness of the season somehow inspires me.  (If you want to explore this, just click the “Halloween” tag.) But I haven’t blogged this year, because, well . . . 2020.  

For Halloween in 2017, 2018, and 2019 I wrote a series of posts critiquing the osteology of decorative plastic Halloween skeletons,  My general sense is that, at this point, I’ve run out of types of skeletons to critique.  But then, I haven’t really looked this year, because 1) I sensed that my readership had lost interest in the series by last year, and 2) well . . . 2020.  

But then, are we even having Halloween this year?  I’m unclear here.  With respect to the child-oriented elements of the holiday, most specifically trick-or-treating, stores have aisles filled with Halloween candy just as always, but CDC guidelines seem to be ruling that trick-or-treating should be heavily restricted, if not considered outright unacceptable.  

And what about the grown-up part of Halloween, which involves wearing costumes while partying?  I saw on the television news that the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington will not be welcoming its usual adult Halloween crowd this year.  Earlier in the year I had expected that the pandemic would be pretty much over by now, and people would be using Halloween as the perfect occasion to cut loose with a massive party.  And Halloween is on a Saturday, which is the perfect day, because there’s no work or school, and no work or school the next day.  And there’s even a full moon on Halloween this year, which (I guess?) is the most appropriate phase for the occasion.  The only real problem, were we not in the midst of disease, would be that Halloween would be overshadowed by the rancor of the presidential election.  

I addressed the question of delaying Halloween on the blog many years ago.  

Maybe we can have two Halloweens next year. 

And so, ultimately, well . . . 2020 . . . 

Wild Turkey

 

Not much to say here . . . it’s a Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) . . . probably female . . . not at all uncommon in the world at large, but not the sort of thing that I normally see, especially standing calmly by a stream . . .   

Vegetation

In my attempt to continue my nature photo series, and post something for August, I’m putting up a picture about which I won’t have to write much.  

It’s just some foliage, and one can also see what looks like a little bit of lichen.

I don’t know how I came to take this picture.  I might have hit the button on my camera by accident, or I might have been trying to photograph a bird that flew from the branch at the last moment.  

But the picture is kind of nice . . . kind of peaceful . . . and very green . . . 

 

Eastern Gartersnake

Here is an Eastern Gartersnake (Thamnophis sirtalis) that I photographed at Jackson Miles Abbott Wetland Refuge.  

The refuge, which was formerly part of Fort Belvoir, is named after Jackson Miles Abbott. 

It is the only park that I’ve ever been to that has an unexploded ordnance warning. 

(In layman’s terms, this means that there might be some old artillery shells or similar items lying around that could blow you up.)

A Duck Standing on a Turtle

When things changed from Coronavirus News to Rioting and Looting News, I decided to end my foray into blogging about current events.  Now I plan to blog about a bunch of my recent nature photos.  

In our first picture we see a Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) standing on a Red-bellied Turtle (Pseudemys rubriventris) as the turtle basks on a log in the Potomac River.  

This is not the first time that I’ve posted a picture of a Red-bellied Turtle.  It’s not even the first time that I’ve posted a picture of a bird standing on a Red-bellied Turtle.  In 2015 I posted poorly-focused pictures of a Ring-billed Gull (Larus delawarensis) standing on a Red-bellied Turtle’s shell.  

Judging by claw length, the duck is standing on a female turtle, and the other turtle is male.  

More Plague Stuff

I am now in my third month of involuntarily growing a mullet, and as my hair is getting longer, it is starting to curl up at the ends, forming a sort of Triceratops frill.  Barbershops in the area are set to reopen tomorrow on a limited basis, but I will probably wait a while for the initial reopening chaos to subside. 

  When/if this pandemic ends, I am going to miss Coronavirus Traffic.  It’s not just that I have an easier time getting around on the rare occasions that I drive somewhere.  The whole feeling of outdoor suburban life seems to have changed.  There are few cars on the streets, people are out walking their dogs, children are riding bicycles.  It’s almost as if we’ve gone back to the Fifties.  Of course, I wasn’t around in the Fifties, so I’m basing that observation on the impression of the Fifties that I formed by watching reruns of Leave It to Beaver as a child in the Eighties.  

I will not, however, miss Coronavirus News.  I used to love relaxing with the local television news, back when the news was all about murders, fires, accidents, wars, and political conflicts.  But now that the news is only about the coronavirus, there is nothing relaxing in the experience.  And I have to wonder how much non-virus news is being ignored.  

The content of television news of the last few months would break down something like this:

 1%  Somebody saying, “We’re going to get through this.”

93%  Newscasters trying very, very, very hard to convince us that we’re not going to get through this.  

 6%  Weather

The two above opinions converge with the recent death of Eddie Haskell, or, rather, the actor who play him, Ken Osmond, who helped create my Leave It to Beaver-inspired concept of the Fifties, and whose death was mostly unreported due to the coronavirus dominating the news.  

Plague Year Listening

I am in my 4th or 5th or 27th or perhaps 118th week of working at home due to the pandemic, and I don’t like it.  I don’t like the pandemic, of course, but I also don’t like working at home.  I don’t have the self-discipline to do it effectively, and more and more it gives me the feeling that work has completely taken over my life.  

As I work, I have been listening to some items from my decidedly non-eclectic music collection.  In general I’ve been focusing on some of the more obscure elements, like solo albums and other things that I don’t normally hear, but some more significant elements have crept in as well.

And, for no good reason, I am putting a list of what I’ve been listening to on the blog:

Huey Lewis and the News Hard at Play

Ric Ocasek This Side of Paradise

Mark Knopfler The Princess Bride

Jim Capaldi Fierce Heart

Mike Rutherford Smallcreep’s Day

Yes Big Generator

Bruce Springsteen Tunnel of Love

Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla Keith Emerson Band featuring Marc Bonilla

Tony Banks A Curious Feeling

David Gilmour David Gilmour

The Doors Morrison Hotel

Huey Lewis and the News Huey Lewis and the News

Pete Townshend All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes

The Cars Candy-O

Genesis Duke

Robert Palmer Riptide

Eric Clapton Journeyman

Mark Knopfler Golden Heart

Steve Winwood Arc of a Diver

Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick

Bruce Springsteen Darkness on the Edge of Town

Pink Floyd The Division Bell

The Who Quadrophenia

The Doors The Soft Parade

Traffic Mr. Fantasy

Steve Hackett Cured

Van Halen OU812

Dire Straits On Every Street

Plague Year Hoarding

I have some observations about the current coronavirus pandemic on a scientific level, but as I am neither virologist nor epidemiologist, I should probably keep quiet.  

But I do feel that I can address a related phenomenon, the empty or nearly empty supermarket shelves that I noted in my last post.  

The empty shelves are generally attributed to hoarding; it is my theory that the hoarding is largely governed by a positive feedback relationship.  The hoarding begins with those who think that the pandemic will lead to complete societal collapse, at which point food and other consumer goods will be completely unavailable, and those with the somewhat less extreme belief that the pandemic will necessitate social isolation strict enough that people will be unable to go out to purchase consumer goods. 

This first wave of hoarders empties out various sections of the store, which creates an illusion of scarcity—the impression that there are long-term shortages.  More people then decided to hoard when they get the opportunity in order to secure themselves against these perceived shortages.  Supermarket shelves are again cleared out, which perpetuates the illusion of scarcity, prompting even more people to hoard. 

The population is, of course, finite, and the capacity to acquire and store goods is also finite, so even if everyone is eventually moved to hoard, the hoarding urge should at some point be sated.  Are we reaching that point?  Paper products are the category hardest hit by hoarding, and on my last supermarket visit there were some paper items in the paper aisle—no paper towels or toilet paper, but a few packages of tissues and paper napkins.  Perhaps the end is in sight.

Anyway, that’s my theory.  As theories go, well, it’s a theory.  And I like being able to use the phrases “positive feedback relationship” and “perpetuates the illusion of scarcity”.

Journal of the Plague Year

It is the stated policy of this blog not to address serious topics.  However, I don’t think that I can ignore what is currently going on in the world.  

A week ago, I was thinking that we were heading into what was either (A) the biggest public health crisis of my lifetime, or (B) the biggest over-reaction of my lifetime.  Now, though, I’m thinking that there might be a third option, (C), which would be both (A) and (B) simultaneously. 

Much has been happening, from a huge scale (populations of whole states being forbidden from leaving their homes) to my personal scale (the only way in which I could get food from a restaurant was to place a takeout order, drive to the restaurant, and have the order carried to my car by a man wearing plastic gloves).  But there is one experience that stands out in my mind. 

On Tuesday I was in a grocery store.  Whole sections of the store—bottled water, paper goods, meat, frozen foods, and more—were nearly or entirely emptied out.  As I was waiting in the checkout line, the man in front of me remarked to the woman running the register that the store must be unable to get any toilet paper.  But she responded that the store gets a new shipment of toilet paper every night, and every morning when the store opens at 6:00 there is a line of people outside who immediately buy up everything.

We are only missing some people in hazmat suites, and a guy with a military uniform and an assault rifle yelling, “It’s all gone to hell!”

Once they show up, we’ll know that we really are living in a movie about the end of the world.  

An Odd Musical Fact: Jussie Smollett

Last week we learned that actor Jussie Smollett is facing new charges of lying to the police concerning the attack that he claimed to have experienced last year.

This is the sort of serious, political topic that I do not cover on this blog.  

However, it is a good opportunity to remind the world that Smollett once recorded a rap version of one of my favorite songs, “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straits, as I originally blogged back in 2015.  

No, really, it happened:

In my earlier post I described this recording as a “potential sign of the apocalypse”, but somehow our world has managed to survive.  

Ten Years

It was ten years ago today that I began this blog.  It seems crazy that it’s been ten years, but then it seems crazy that I’ve done anything for ten years.  My original hope was to do something like two posts per week, but I just don’t have the energy to do that.  (I barely have the energy to get out of bed in the morning.)  I eventually settled on the goal of at least once post per month, and I have managed to meet that goal, with the exception of June of 2013.

I had also hoped to cover scientific fields that I find interesting, like paleontology and herpetology.  But that would require not only lots of research, but also coming up with something interesting and original to say about topics that other people cover in much greater depth.  And so I usually end up  posting random digital photographs, or writing commentary on shallow matters of pop culture combined with vague attempts at being funny.

The blog provides me with a minimal, old-school way of using the internet to keep in touch with people, without falling into the Sarlacc pit that is Facebook.  That’s useful, since almost all of my friends and family are now in other parts of the country,  

But the most enduring and important reason that I blog is that it gives me a false sense of accomplishment, thus making easier for me to sleep at night.   

The Turtles

Here are twenty-three turtles on a log in the Potomac River.  They are all Red-bellied Turtles (Pseudemys rubriventris).  (The species has appeared on the blog twice before.) 

I took the picture in May; now those turtles are sleeping in the mud at the bottom of the river.  And at this time of year we should all be sleeping in the mud at the bottom of the river. 

If you’re not able to sleep in the mud at the bottom of the river, at least take a few moments to think about the turtles who are.  

On the Bridge

Life will pass one by, like the cars on a bridge.  January passed me by in terms of blogging, so I am posting this picture to give me something for the month.