Mutiny on the Bounty

Today is the 219th anniversary of the Bounty mutiny. I am celebrating Bligh's incredible navigational skills and his success in reaching landfall after a journey in an open boat of over 3,000 miles. I don't have much to say about the mutineers. Most of them met a sorry end.

You can tell where my sympathies lie.

World Graphics Day

April 27 was World Graphics Day. It is the anniversary of the International Council of Graphic Design Associations. I missed it, but in reading about the events, I was most amused by the "No Graphics" day event. Imagine a world with no graphic design - especially a supermarket with no graphics to illustrate the packaged food. Boring. Go thank a designer.

Punc-, punc-, punc-, punctuation

I remember learning punctuation in school. There were rigid rules for, what it turns out, is a fluid and evolving tool to make written language more understandable. Came across this interesting piece the other day on the subject.

In casual correspondence my rule of thumb has always been, why use a bunch of different punctuation marks, when a dash - (m-dash, please) - will suit so many purposes?

This made me think about the etiquette of letter writing. While it still is used in business, personal letter writing has declined precipitously. It has become so much easier to pick up the phone. But now a whole new world of language usage is evolving through technology. As David Crystal writes above, "The biggest punctuation changes since the Renaissance are about to hit us, because of the Internet."

Celtic Music

I went to see the Chieftains on Saturday night. As they were coming on stage, I saw a drummer, ok, a keyboarder (keyboardist?), right, a harpist in jeans who was female, another girl, this one in a red dress and some strappy, high heeled sandals. Wait a minute - girls? Then came the piper, fiddler and a fellow on guitar - four of them looking much younger (and more female) than I remembered the Chieftains to be. So, it turns out that I saw the Chiefs or the Tains, because only two of the Chieftains were actually on stage that night.

Sigh. It was a good, although somewhat subdued, concert. Some of the good old tunes. Some pretty snappy Irish step dancing - by a very peppy woman from Long Island and a couple of brothers named Pulaski. Ahhh, the Irish are everywhere.

I've got to get me a pair of shoes that make noise like that.

Hawks in the city

I was lucky today and saw two red tail hawks hunting the railroad tracks as I left work. I work in the middle of the city in a medical-educational complex, so this was a treat. There are enough open spaces with a large cemetery near by and a parkway that leads down to Lake Erie, that hawks can also make a living here.

Beelzebufo

This has been reported widely, but I still think it is cool (but mostly creepy.) It is the devil frog that was 16 inches long and weighed 10 pounds. The modern goliath frog is about 12 inches long and weighs about 7.5 pounds. It is found in west Africa. More.

Happy Belated Birthday, Darwin

I thought this was an appropriate posting for Charles Darwin's birthday (Feb. 12, 1809). Researchers have found a 48 million year old skeleton that has proven to be a close relative of whales. The skeleton which is the size of a small deer was found in India. It is a small, even-toed ungulate. The report that I saw in the National Science Foundation news says the whale relative was a plant eater, indicating that the adaptation modern whales have made to become carnivores happened after their adaptation to an aquatic life style. More here.