| BEN |
| BOTANICAL ELECTRONIC NEWS |
|---|
| ISSN 1188-603X |
| No. CDLI April 1, 2012 | aceska@telus.net | Victoria, B.C. |
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In spite of the fact that readers in North America favourably received the April 1st BEN of 2011, many Australian BEN subscribers asked me to unsubscribe them. The April 1st BEN had arrived there one day too late and most probably upside down.
When I offered the computer translation of a Christian Morgenstern's poem, my friend Hans Roemer read the April 1st BEN and agonized over his own translations. His final conclusion was that the English translation I posted was in fact quite good.
I promised to try another computer translation again this year. I did, but the results have been getting worse. From "dumb" people of the original poem, and the "stupid" people of the 2011 electronic translation, this year I ended up with the "idiots". Our generation is simply getting older.
Mind you, Christian Morgenstern's poems are difficult, if not impossible to translate. The following excellent translation of the Fish's Night Song by Max Knight is the only exception:
Original: Fisches Nachtgesang
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English Translation: Fish's Night Song
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Masterfully translated by Max Knight see http://lavape.sourceforge.net/doc/html/FishsNightSong.htm
Roger del Moral (University of Washington in Seattle) wrote me about a similar electrocution of a peeing dog in Seattle. City of Seattle had a second look at that case and looked for the correction of this problem:
QUOTE
Dear Adolf,
A couple of months ago in Seattle, a large dog stepped on a metal plate and was also electrocuted (it was already wet from rain). This unfortunate dog is, however, a hero. The Seattle City Light folks immediately surveyed their system and found at least 14 more "live" spots near poles that could have done the same thing. These have been corrected, the dog's owner financially compensated, but she is still very deeply hurt by the loss of her canine friend.
Roger
END-OF-QUOTE
Meanwhile in Toronto, the City of Toronto blames the Toronto Hydro for this problem: "The investigation of this incident was conducted by Toronto Hydro, Animal Services had no involvement in the investigation. Below is a response we copied on from another inquiry. Should you require further information, please contact Toronto Hydro."
The Toronto Hydro, on the other hand, pointed out that the incident referred to in BEN # CDXXXIV involved the pole of the Toronto Transit Commission. The Toronto Hydro has been exchanging metal covers with ones made from heavy plastic. See also: http://www.torontohydro.com/sites/electricsystem/residential/electricalsafety/Documents/HYDRO%20web%20fact%20sheet%20FINAL.pdf
In Montreal, they recommend to their pets to wear water-tight rubber booties to avoid electrocutions: http://www.montrealdogblog.com/12054/dog-electrocution-risks/
Vaclav Halek's ability to listen to mushrooms has been explained by psychologists as a case of SYNAESTHESIA:
"The first encounter Mr Halek had [with the music of mushrooms] could be a case of synaesthesia," says Peter Grossenbacher of Naropa University at Boulder, Colorado. Synaesthesia is when people experience the simultaneous blending of different senses - when one sensory experience triggers another, creating a sort of sensory fusion. Many artists were synaesthetes, including the composers Scriabin and Liszt, possibly Rimsky-Korsakov, certainly Gershwin and Messiaen; the painters Kandinsky and David Hockney; poets Rimbaud and Baudelaire and the writer Nabokov, whose entire family was synaesthetic.
"A hallmark of synaesthesia is that it is very idiosyncratic, peculiar to each person," says Grossenbacher. "So rather than tuning into some hidden reality that can be shared, they are having individual experiences." Messiaen once tried to explain his synaesthetic experience to an interviewer: "When I hear music, I see in the mind's eye colours which move with the music. This is not imagination, nor is it a psychic phenomenon. It is an inward reality."
Vaclav Halek described his creative process this way:
"When I find a mushroom I want to set to music, I sit on a block of wood and put the mushroom in front of me. Then I concentrate on it and pray, because I want to understand the specific essence of that mushroom. When I feel ready, I examine it and then breathe in, smelling its body. Shortly, I can hear a motif. However, I always check if the motif corresponds to the mushroom. Only then, I write down the tune. During writing, I check if the music agrees with the mushroom. When I finish, I experience a feeling of joy, and I thank God for being able to write the music."
For more see http://arts.guardian.co.uk/fridayreview/story/0,,1271606,00.html
For Halek's Mushroom Symphony go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIsPSTXc_V0
Stephen Ruttan, Local History Librarian in the Greater Victoria Public Library, reminded me of his article on the Pig War that he posted in the Tales from the Vault series: http://gvpl.ca/using-the-library/our-collection/local-history/tales-from-the-vault/the-pig-war
Almost the same time when I posted BEN # CDXXXIV, Rosemary Neering published her book on this last military conflict between what is now known as Canada and the Unites States of America: http://www.heritagehouse.ca/book_details.php?isbn_upc=9781926936017
In February 2012, Postmedia News and the Ottawa Citizen reported that, during the 2011 Canadian federal election, misleading phone calls were placed into at least 14 ridings, including Guelph, Ontario. Those calls directed voters to the wrong polling stations. The fraudulent automated calls displayed the phone number of a prepaid "burner phone", registered to a "Pierre Poutine" of "Separatist Street" in Joliette, Quebec.
The day before Election Day, the phone was activated and used to call Racknine, an automated call company with Conservative links. "Pierre Poutine" used the phone to record a series of messages, which directed voters to phony voting locations.
The investigation into fraudulent calls in Guelph revealed that thousands of automated calls were sent shortly after 10 AM on Election Day, telling people their voting location had changed. Complaints flooded in to Elections Canada, and a local returning officer called a Guelph area radio station at 10:53 AM and put out an advisory telling people to ignore the calls. Liberal MP Frank Valeriote received a call at his home notifying him that Liberal supporters were being targeted. It quickly emerged that there was an extensive campaign to discourage Liberal supporters. In under an hour, 100 voters arrived at the phony voting location. A signed affidavit indicates that 150 to 200 voters in Guelph showed up at a phony vote location at the Quebec Street Mall and some voters ripped up their voter identification cards in anger. He also noted that the voters who were targeted were voters who had been contacted by the Conservative Party and had also indicated they would not be voting Conservative. This has brought the opposition parties to allege that the calls were a campaign by the Conservative Party to intimidate supporters of other parties.
Lichen community composition was evaluated for both lichen cover and richness on a cliff face commonly used for recreational rock climbing. The sandstone outcrop is located on the Sibley Peninsula, which extends from the north shore of Lake Superior. One-hundred and twenty plots were examined. Each plot was 1 m2 in size, with 60 plots located on unclimbed cliff sections and 60 more located where recreational rock climbing regularly occurs. Lichen richness and cover were significantly lower on the rock climbing sections compared with unclimbed sections. Linear regression models indicated significant relationships with cover and richness to environmental response variables and climbing treatment. Detrended correspondence analysis indicated a separation of lichen community groups on this cliff, and major separations occurred between plots in each climbing treatment. Canonical correspondence analysis indicated a significant amount of community group variation between climbed and unclimbed locations related to climbing treatment and aspect of the plots. Climbing is found to have an impact on this sandstone cliff-face lichen community.
Harvesting of medicinal plants from wild populations is increasing worldwide, however, studies on sustainable harvesting techniques are lacking. In this exploratory study, we investigated the impact of leaf harvesting on Rhododendron groenlandicum (Oeder) Kron & Judd, a North American temperate shrub, used traditionally as a medicinal plant by the Cree Nation. The species is widely distributed, but Crees are worried that commercial harvesting could threaten local plant populations. Our study was conducted near the Cree Nation of Mistissini (James Bay, Northern Quebec). Three leaf harvest regimes were tested in 2008 and 2009: no harvest, all leaves harvested, and only old leaves harvested; each treatment was performed on 30 plants. The harvesting of all leaves had a negative impact on stem elongation after the first harvest, while leaf production and stem radial growth decreased after the second harvest. Two-thirds of the plants also died following the second regime of harvesting all leaves. The harvesting of old leaves had no significant impact on growth, leaf production, or survival of R. groenlandicum, even after 2 years of harvest. These results lead to the conclusion that sustainable harvest of this species is possible, but further study is required to make definite recommendations.
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