BEYOND THE PALEWALL (10)

 1. Real Puzzling
   Many people up here are indoors working on jigsaw puzzles because that beats going outdoors or watching the news. A large 1000-piece puzzle, solidly coloured and with irregular edges, can keep you busy for quite a while. Looking for a bigger challenge, some senior folks in Utah, where they probably don't want to go outside either, ordered a 75 pounder consisting of 60,000 pieces. They went to work:

Over the next four months, about 50 seniors spent four hours a day piecing together 60 different 1,000-piece puzzle sections featuring a world map and 187 images of artwork by Dowdle of scenic landmarks such as the Colosseum in Rome, the Taj Mahal in India and U.S. national parks.
Last month, after the 60 puzzles were combined into one piece of art spread across 16 banquet tables, the senior center put its 8-by-29-foot creation on display for the public.

   Dowdle, the puzzle maker, operates "Dowdle Folk Art" which, conveniently enough is just down the road from the Springville Senior Center where the puzzle he made is on display. You can order "What A Wonderful World" - The World's Largest Puzzle" by clicking on this link. Before you do so, you should know that it is about 8' tall and 29' long and costs $1,027.00 in real dollars.
   All of this was learned from: "Utah Senior Center Tackles Loneliness With a 60,000-Piece Puzzle," Ruth Nielsen, Washington Post, Feb. 17, 2024. If you want to learn more, see the * Largest Jigsaw Puzzles in the World," Nancy Levin, largest.org, Jan. 19, 2023. The smallest offered is the 33,600-piece, "Wild Life" which costs $600 also real dollars. 

2. Build A Border Wall - A Northern One!
 Former presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy suggested one needed to be built because of the fentanyl problem, and Nikki Haley pointed out the problems presented by 500 people on the terrorist list who crossed over from Canada. More Republicans may be scrutinizing the Canadian/American border because of an article such as this one:
"Migrants Face Cold, Perilous Crossing From Canada to New York: Increasingly, Migrants From Latin America Are Risking Their Lives to Cross Illegally Into the United States Along the Northern Border," Luis Ferré-Sadurní, The New York Times, Feb. 11, 2024.

   As migrants continue to overwhelm the southern border in record numbers, a growing wave is trying an alternative route into the United States: across the less fortified, more expansive Canadian border….

More than 12,200 people were apprehended crossing illegally from Canada last year, a 241 percent jump from the 3,578 arrested the previous year. Most of them were Mexicans, who can fly to Canada without a visa and may prefer the northern border to avoid the cartels that exploit migrants in their country.

3. Dire Headline of the Decade - "Is the Media Prepared for an Extinction-Level Event?" 
 The subtitle of Clare Malone's Atlantic article (Feb.10) continued this way: Ads are scarce, search and social traffic is dying, and readers are burned out. The future will require fundamentally rethinking the press’s relationship to its audience. She reports on
 A report that tracked layoffs in the industry in 2023 recorded twenty-six hundred and eighty-one in broadcast, print, and digital news media. NBC News, Vox Media, Vice News, Business Insider, Spotify, theSkimm, FiveThirtyEight, The Athletic, and Condé Nast—the publisher of The New Yorker—all made significant layoffs. BuzzFeed News closed, as did Gawker. The Washington Post, which lost about a hundred million dollars last year, offered buyouts to two hundred and forty employees. In just the first month of 2024, Condé Nast laid off a significant number of Pitchfork’s staff and folded the outlet into GQ; the Los Angeles Times laid off at least a hundred and fifteen workers (their union called it “the big one”); Time cut fifteen per cent of its union-represented editorial staff; the Wall Street Journal slashed positions at its D.C. bureau; and Sports Illustrated, which had been weathering a scandal for publishing A.I.-generated stories, laid off much of its staff as well.
The Fahrenheit 451 of everything without the fires.

4. Rankled by Rankings (again):
   The rankings game is played by most universities which hide low numbers and seek the higher ones. Although most would like to opt out, it is difficult to do so and arguments about how the rankings are done and disagreements between those ranked continue.
   Among the recent rankings disputes, you may have missed this one. It does not involve U.S. News & World Report or Maclean's. It does involve the Chinese (again) and math, but in this case neither of those subjects is inscrutable.

  To Disraeli's, "lies, damned lies and statistics," math can be added. It may even be the case that you can have a highly ranked math department in a university where there is no department of mathematics. Here is all you need to know and you don't need to know any math to understand it: "Citation Cartels Help Some Mathematicians - and Their Universities - Climb the Rankings," Michele Catanzaro, Science, Jan.30, 2024.

Cliques of mathematicians at institutions in China, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere have been artificially boosting their colleagues’ citation counts by churning out low-quality papers that repeatedly reference their work, according to an unpublished analysis seen by Science. As a result, their universities—some of which do not appear to have math departments—now produce a greater number of highly cited math papers each year than schools with a strong track record in the field, such as Stanford and Princeton universities.

   The ranking wars will continue, however, and if you google any university, the rankings will appear since good ones can be found somewhere. Those pictured are currently displayed at the university close by. 

The Plight of the Pangolins

Pity the Pangolin
I recently wrote about endangered species and have posted about the "insect apocalypse" and the passing of the passenger pigeons. Now I will move on to consider pangolins which I did not know existed and soon won't. After that I will offer a few words about totoabas.

Pangolins are anteater-like mammals that are (soon to be were) found in Asia and Africa and I don’t think I had ever seen the word until I read that 9 TONS of their scales have just been seized from one ship in Hong Kong. Apparently the 9 tons represents around 14,000 of the little critters.I guess I missed the article from 2013 about a ship carrying 22,000 pounds of pangolin which hit a reef in the Philippines.
   I should mention that, perhaps acting as ballast, there were also 1,000 elephant tusks in the same shipment.

Totoabas

   

Totoabas are fish that are found in increasingly decreasing numbers and only in the Gulf of California. Recently, “Chinese customs officials have confiscated 444 kilograms (980 pounds) of totoaba swim bladders, estimated to be worth about $26 million.” Note, that weight is just bladder weight; I am not sure how many totoabas were involved.
In both cases the main reasons for the slaughter are ‘medicinal’ ones and the Chinese are involved. Apparently the Chinese apothecary profession is not as advanced as the one producing the 5G communication networks. It is unfortunate indeed that, while we are losing so many species simply as collateral damage, others are being deliberately destroyed for medicinal reasons without merit.
Sources:
The Wikipedia entries for both species are very good.
I learned about the poaching of the pangolins from: "9 Tons of Pangolin Scales Are Seized in Hong Kong, Tiffany Mat, New York Times, Feb. 1, 2019. For earlier articles see: "A Struggle to Save the Scaly Pangolin," Erica Good, New York Times, Mar. 30, 2015 and "No Species is Safe From Burgeoning Wildlife Trade," Bettina Wassener, Mar. 12, 2013.

For the totoaba see the website of the Intercultural Center for the Study of Deserts and Oceans (CEDO) and the entry for "Totoaba". For a recent smuggling case see: "China Seizes Totoaba Swim Bladders Worth $26 Million, Arrests 16," Mongabay.com, Dec. 29, 2018.

Ruckus in Richmond

Diversity is Difficult

    You may recall that back in my year-end rant I warned you about being careful about what you say and that there are many words which should not be used at all. You need to speak very carefully and carry a very big stick.

   Additional evidence supporting my prescience arrived last week in the form of a sign in Richmond which was advertising for a person who spoke Chinese. There are many Chinese in Richmond. A controversy ensued. Here is the sign; see if you are linguistically savvy enough to spot the problem.

  The problem is clear enough if you have been paying attention. A hint: it is not a philological issue over whether what is wanted is a speaker of Cantonese or Mandarin.

    When the error was called to the attention of the profusely apologetic owner he realized immediately that he should have advertised for someone who spoke Chinese (Mandarin, etc.) and not a Chinese person. Whether he was spared a visit to the Human Rights Tribunal, I am not sure. Whether it is okay to hire a Chinese person, I am not sure, but I suppose it is okay if they speak Chinese.

  This all happened in Richmond, B.C. not Richmond, VA. If you live in that Richmond, don’t advertise for an African-American Sales Person. Look instead for an Ebonics speaker.

Nothing Is Sacred

Foreign Ownership of Our Stuff

Although the deal has not been done and the proposed takeover is a ‘friendly’ one, there is currently some consternation, particularly in British Columbia, about the potential takeover of Whistler Blackcomb by Vail Resorts which is located in Colorado. When I was out in B.C. last fall, there was also considerable concern about the Chinese purchase of the ‘United Kingdom’ building. Of course, they have already purchased most of the nice houses in Vancouver. As well, you may recall, the Chinese bought the formerly Canadian oil and gas company (Nexen) located  next door in Calgary which perhaps should be even more disconcerting.

All this howling about the hollowing out of our manufacturing and leisure industries needs to be kept in perspective, however,  since the same thing is happening in the United States. I seem to recall that when the Pope recently visited New York and rooms for the rich were in short supply, it was difficult to find space in either the Waldorf Astoria (Chinese-owned) or the The Pierre (owned by the Tata Group, which is Indian - which is, by the way,
 a demonym we are about to lose - more later). And, if the Pope went to a movie, it was likely a Chinese one (not Grauman’s - that’s in L.A.) because back in 2012 the Chinese bought AMC which was then one of the largest movie chains in the country and the deal the largest takeover of an American company by a Chinese one. Even the ham in the sandwich likely came from that old Virginia firm, Smithfield’s which - you guessed it.

My purpose here is to supply you with schadenfreude by listing recent foreign takeovers of iconic institutions in the United States. First, the icon; second, the date founded and third, the occupying power:

1. Lucky Strike, 1871, England

2. Budweiser, 1852, Belgium

3. Vaseline, 1876, England

4. Good Humor, 1923, England

5. Hellmann’s, 1913, England

6. Purina, 1894, Switzerland

7. French’s, 1876, England

8. Frigidaire, 1918, Sweden

9. Popsicle, 1923, England

10. 7-Eleven, 1946, Japan.

So. surprisingly, England is the real culprit. Surprising, as well, is the fact that ‘French’s’  is American. They must have taken a ‘hit’  back when the French were regarded as “cheese eating surrender monkeys”.

Caveat lector: I dislike using foreign language phrases since I speak, write and understand only one - ‘merican, mid-Atlantic English.  But, it succinctly warns that the reader should beware. The deal in British Columbia is current (c. August 2016) and you can check on that. If I does not go through, I deserve no credit or blame, but it did happen, or not.  As for the current ownership of companies by companies in other countries, those data were taken (borrowed) from an article in the newspaper USA Today  and you have to admit that they do listicles pretty well. (Specifically see: “10 Classic USA Brands That Are Now Foreign-Owned”, Thomas C. Frohlich and Michael B. Sauter, USA Today, Dec. 8, 2013). As for the Pope, I think he visited New York recently and that the hotels named do not belong to Trump,

I say all of this because I realize that blogging is just another form of ‘vanity publishing’. That is, none of the information above was vetted by a copy editor or a real editor or by an owner who would probably have spiked the story. Keep this in mind when you mouth-off around the water cooler that the Chinese own what you thought was your very own ham company. For all I know, it could have been sold to an Israeli firm and Putin could own Popsicle. Do a check since things change quickly in the corporate world in which we live.