Olde Posts Addenda (5)

  Since all of the news is "breaking" these days, here are some more stories which have broken and are related to older news items in MM.

War Is Also Bad For Animals
  Back in the spring of 2019 in MM I called to your attention the "Factlet" that in the fall of 1939 the pet-loving Brits chose to "put down" around 400,000 of them. The grim details are found in: Factlet (2) - The Brits and Their Pets.  Such an astonishing figure will need verification and it is found in a book mentioned in that post: The Great Cat and Dog Massacre: The Real Story of World War Two’s Unknown Tragedy by Hilda Kean.

   To the library of books about awful things that have happened to animals, another can be added: Humans and Other Animals in the Deadliest Conflict of the Modern Age, John M. Kinder. It is published by the University of Chicago Press where this description is found:
   A new and heartbreaking history of World War II as told through the shocking experiences of zoos across the globe. As Europe lurched into war in 1939, zookeepers started killing their animals. On September 1, as German forces invaded Poland, Warsaw began with its reptiles. Two days later, workers at the London Zoo launched a similar spree, dispatching six alligators, seven iguanas, sixteen southern anacondas, six Indian fruit bats, a fishing cat, a binturong, a Siberian tiger, five magpies, an Alexandrine parakeet, two bullfrogs, three lion cubs, a cheetah, four wolves, and a manatee over the next few months. Zoos worldwide did the same. The reasons were many, but the pattern was clear: The war that was about to kill so many people started by killing so many animals. Why? And how did zoos, nevertheless, not just survive the war but play a key role in how people did, too?"
The author of the book was asked five questions which are also available and answered in the related U of C blog.
  For a review of the book see: "With World War II on the horizon, animal keepers in cities around the world had to face one question: What would happen to their charges?" By Sophy Roberts, Wall Street Journal, April 18, 2025.

War Is Certainly Bad For Humans

   Although the Vietnam war ended fifty years ago, even those of you born in this century will certainly have seen at least one of the two photos provided in: "Napalm Girl" and "Napalm Girl" (Again). "Napalm Girl" is still alive and is living in Ontario. The photos mentioned can be seen in the posts above and will not be shown again here. In the second post, it is noted that questions have been raised about the "authorship" of the "Napalm Girl" photo. Since it was written, the questions have been addressed and the 97 page report is linked in this article:
"The Associated Press Won’t Change ‘Napalm Girl’ Photo Credit: A documentary called “The Stringer” called into question whether Nick Ut actually took the famous photograph in Vietnam. The AP’s year-long probe couldn’t prove otherwise," Scott Nover & Jada Yuan, The Washington Post, May 6, 2025.

The End of the Crickets

Like Buddy Holly They Are No More

   De Bono, one of the last of the local reporters, has been dutiful in his reporting on the demise of Aspire, the London cricket factory. I also have been devoted to this subject and a future historian will find in this post all they need to know about the failed aspirations of this London enterprise. I will offer first, the latest and surely the last cricket story which is provided by Mr. De Bono. Then follow the MM posts which are largely based on his reporting. I did contribute a bit about Kricket Krap, a by-product the Aspire folks may have overlooked. And, if you are still not interested I should mention that the company was seen to be part of a conspiracy. 
   Mr. De Bono is a professional and his titles are clearer and first sentences better than mIne:
"Cricket Producer in Receivership: City Plant Still Going as Aspire, Reportedly $41.5M in Debt, Seeks Buyer or Financing," Norman De Bono, The London Free Press, May 14, 2025.
"By Jiminy, London's cricket dreams have run into a financial roadblock as menacing as, well, a massive can of Raid."
  Now, here is one of my titles and you will likely spot the difference:

"ENTOMOPHAGY"
  I will skip my first sentence and go to the second paragraph by the professional:
 "Norman De Bono (the reporter) revealed that, London will become home to the world’s largest indoor cricket farm with Aspire Food Group opening a 100,000-square-foot plant here that will act as a launch pad to bring bugs, as food, to the North American market....At the plant, crickets will be hatched and grown on-site and will become a tasteless, odourless protein powder that will be sold as a food additive, and will also be used to make protein bars.
That post is the one that mentions Kricket Krap which is sold by a company in Georgia so you shouldn't buy any right now.
  Here is the post which reveals that this cricket business is just part of a scheme by Davos-types who want to force us to eat insects in communist Canada.  Crickets and Conspiracies.

Trashy News
  That is a more attractive title than "News About Trash", about which I have provided many posts since there is plenty of trash. The new title about trash is all you need and I will spare you the details which are hardly needed: "On a Remote Australian Island, the Birds Are So Full of Plastic They Crunch: Seabirds Have Been Fishing Plastic From the Ocean and Feeding it to Their Chicks, Researchers Say. One Bird Was Found to Have Ingested 800 Pieces," Victoria Craw, The Washington Post, May 16, 2025.
For more proof that the plastic is piling up and that there is now something called "sea snot", see below:
Flotsam and Jetsam
More Flotsam
More Trash
Marine Mucilage in the Sea of Marmara 
Polluted RIvers

The Bonus:
  I couldn't help but notice that one of the authors in the articles cited above provides an example of an inaptronym (Kinder in the article about killing) and another an aptronym (Craw in the last article about birds ingesting plastic.) About that subject see: Aptronyms. 
Amen

   

Flotsam and Jetsam

FLOTSAM and JETSAM

First the Flotsam

     It is no consolation at all that those now cruising during the March Break may be ploughing through seas filled with garbage. If some chose to go to a beach instead, they may still be walking and wading through debris. I think that what I have suggested is true because I have remained in the snowy north reading rather than travelling. Here are some recent examples of trashiness that I will present with sadness rather than schadenfreude.

     One can escape the crowds and flocks of tourists by going to exotic and less popular places, but the garbage may still be there.

Roatan

     Roatan is an island in the far Western Caribbean and one might assume it is far enough away from the more popular ports to be safe from debris. Such is not the case.
“What was once an idyllic coastline along the shores of Roatan now is choked with tides of plastic waste. The Locals noticed that suddenly their coastline was inundated with plastic trash, from bags and bottles to plastic cutlery and packaging material.
It is thought that the plastic originated from the mouth of Guatemala's Montagua River, which recently carried a wave of trash from Guatemala out to sea.”
“Idyllic Caribbean Island Covered In A Tide Of Plastic Trash Along Coastline,” Trevor Nace, Forbes, Oct. 27, 2017.

Bali 

     That word makes you think of the South Pacific and you are likely hearing the song Bali Hai rustling through the palms. Keep those old images in mind because the current ones are not so good.
“A British diver has captured shocking images of himself swimming through a sea of plastic rubbish off the coast of the Indonesian tourist resort of Bali.
Rubbish has been inundating Bali for several months now, washing over mainly from the neighbouring island of Java during the annual rainy, or “trash” season.
Several weeks ago thousands across Bali took part in a mass clean up, in attempt to rid the island’s beaches, rivers and jungles of waste, and raise awareness about the harmful impacts of trash.”
‘Plastic, Plastic, Plastic: British Diver Films Sea of Rubbish off Bali,” Kate Lamb, The Guardian, March 6. 2018.

Henderson Island

     Even if you travel to one of the remotest islands in the world where there are no people you will find garbage. I will spare you the picture.
“Henderson Island lies in the South Pacific, halfway between New Zealand and Chile. No one lives there. It is about as far away from anywhere and anyone on Earth.”
“How an Uninhabited Island Got the World’s Highest Density of Trash
Isolation protects the island from human intrusion—but not 18 tons of plastic.” Laura Parker, May 17, 2017, National Geographic.

Beirut

     If you are one of those who used the break to go to Europe or some country in the Middle East, you probably assumed  that dunking  in the Mediterranean would be a bit dodgy and probably were not going to attempt to swim the the Hellespont. Even a stroll along the strand can be problematic these days. I also assume that most of the cedars are gone.
“A winter storm in Lebanon has resurfaced a longstanding national problem, in the form of a swirling sea of garbage. Piles of trash began washing up Monday on the beaches of Zouk Mosbeh, a town 10 miles north of Beirut, leaving the shore littered with refuse. An earlier storm surge had dragged trash from a landfill out to sea, later depositing it along the coastline and up to 100 feet inland.
“A Sea of Trash on Lebanon’s Beaches,” Nada Homsijan, New York Times, Jan. 23, 2018.

Now the Jetsam

     Apart from all the detritus spilling into the rivers and oceans and accidentally falling from huge container ships one has to consider all the debris deliberately set adrift. You probably read the recent story that went viral and spread quickly, much like the subject it considered - a bottle that was one of several hundred placed in the water over a hundred years ago.
“World's Oldest Message in a Bottle Found by Beachwalker in Australia: Gin Bottle Was Thrown Overboard from a German Ship Before Ending up on a Beach in Western Australia 132 Years Later,” Naaman Zhou, The Guardian, March 6, 2018
“Inside, she found a roll of paper printed in German and dated to 12 June 1886, which was authenticated by the Western Australian Museum.The bottle had been thrown overboard from the German sailing ship Paula in 1886 as it crossed the Indian Ocean, 950km from the Australian coast, according to Ross Anderson, the museum’s assistant curator of maritime archaeology.
     At the time, German ships were conducting a 69-year experiment that involved throwing thousands of bottles into the sea to track ocean currents.
His finding was confirmed by experts at the German Naval Observatory. The previous record for oldest message in a bottle was 108 years.
Of the thousands jettisoned, 662 other messages from the same German experiment have been found and returned before the latest discovery. The most recent was found in 1934.”

Have a Guinness on Me

     Even on the eve of Saint Patrick’s Day I will continue to offer the bonus stuff you expect. While you may have read the recent “Message in the Bottle” story, you may not be aware that around 200,000 bottles of good old Guinness were placed in the water back in the 1950s and they continue to roll in with the tides. I have to begin my celebrations early so I will leave you with the story rather than attempt to tell it. See:
The Guinness Bottle Drop. If you were walking on the beach in Nova Scotia you may have found one - Bottle from 1959 Guinness Promotion Washes Ashore in N.S.