Russian Sledges

hey, all. this is the giphoscope. it’s handmade in italy by a couple of incredibly nice and excellent guys. you send them your GIFs, and they’ll make you one! they just launched, and i think it’s super worth checking out.

Mandelʹshtam, Osip, 1891-1938. Primus : detskie stikhotvorenii︠a︡, 1925.

Typ 958.25.555

Houghton Library, Harvard University

Outgoing Boston mayor Thomas Menino will help launch an Institute on Cities at Boston University next year after he leaves office. The program is intended to help address urban issues and "might offer boot camps for city officials, act as a clearinghouse where municipalities could compare data, and serve as a think tank for urban problem solving."

In an interview at the university, Menino said that, "in a few years we want to be the leading university when it comes to urban America." The longtime mayor has agreed to a five-year contract beginning in February, about a month after he leaves his post as the city's top official, and does not currently plan to teach courses at the school.

Asked if he really turned down Harvard for BU, Menino first said "no comment" then added "I don't wear bow ties" #wcvb #bosmayor #mapoli

— Janet Wu (@WuWCVB) November 12, 2013

As for other details, though specifics are prevented from being divulged, Menino's compensation will likely be comparable to other professors at the university—around $150,000—and he says that he began avoiding dealings with potential employers while in office last January, shortly before he announced that he would not seek another term.

Menino is also planning to write a book about his time as a politician.

Prosecutor says pope's attempt to bring transparency to Vatican is making mobsters agitated

Pope Francis's crusade against corruption has made him a target for Italy's all-powerful mafia clans, a leading anti-mob prosecutor has warned.

Nicola Gratteri, who has battled Calabria's shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia, said on Wednesday that Francis's attempt to bring transparency to the Vatican was making the white collar mobsters who do business with corrupt prelates "nervous and agitated".

He told the Italian daily Il Fatto Quotidiano: "Pope Francis is dismantling centres of economic power in the Vatican.

"If the bosses could trip him up they wouldn't hesitate. I don't know if organised criminals are in a position to do something, but they are certainly thinking about it. They could be dangerous."

Francis, who has called for "a poor church", has backed reform at the Vatican's bank, which has been suspected for years of being a channel for the laundering of mob profits. This week police impounded a luxury hotel on Rome's Janiculum hill – formerly a monastery – which the 'Ndrangheta allegedly purchased from a religious order.

In a fiery sermon on Monday, Francis railed against corruption and quoted the bible's advice that practitioners be thrown into the sea with a millstone tied around their neck.

"The mafia that invests, that launders money, that therefore has the real power, is the mafia which has got rich for years from its connivance with the church," said Gratteri. "These are the people who are getting nervous."

Gratteri attacked priests and bishops in southern Italy who legitimise mobsters. "Priests continuously visit the houses of bosses for coffee, which gives the bosses strength and popular legitimacy," he said. A bishop in Locri in Calabria had excommunicated mobsters after they damaged fruit trees owned by the church, he said. "But before that episode, the bosses had killed thousands of people" without being sanctioned, he added.

Boosting the strong links between mob and church is the fierce religious devotion of the gangsters themselves, he said, adding that in his 26 years as a magistrate he had never raided a mafia hideout which did not contain a religious image. "There is no affiliation rite that does not evoke religion. 'Ndrangheta and the church walk hand in hand," he said.

A survey of jailed mobsters had revealed that 88% were religious, he added. "Before killing, a member of the 'Ndrangheta prays. He asks the Madonna for protection."

Gratteri said mobsters did not consider themselves wrongdoers, and used the example of a mafioso putting pressure on a business owner to pay protection money, first by shooting up his premises, then by kneecapping him. "If the person still refuses, the mobster is 'forced' to kill him. If you have no choice, you are not committing a sin."

Less than 25 percent of Israeli Arab women are formally employed. Economists are warning they could become a major economic burden if they aren't integrated into the workforce.

'To discriminate against women is to discriminate against talent,' says chief executive Stuart Gulliver

This would seem self-evident.

maxofs2d:

Thanks to my high school biology textbook I now know that turtdogs are not a thing.

Meet Broly. He's allegedly a member of the Knights Templar Cartel. Maybe make that "was." He might have been killed or captured. But one thing for sure, this guy sure snapped lots of selfies.

Read more...

rockinghearses:

New fall/winter collection from Grimoire’s Verum line.

I know I’ve shared with you my general ambivalence towards roses.  But I am softening – a little – primarily because I love rose hips.  And if a rambling flower can come along with those abundant fall fruits, well then perhaps I can get over my rose cringing.

The last few years I have been foraging in the woods for wild rose hips at this time of year but I am longing for a wider selection and greater variation than the tiny little hips of the wild roses near me.  As I am shopping for plantable varieties, I pulled together this list of rose varieties that have particularly beautiful hips and I paired it with the flower — in case you too are into that sort of thing.

Ethyl Rose (Wichurana Rambler) is quite a climber that has great scent too.  This rose is available from Peter Beals Roses .

Lyda Rose is thornless and apparently does well in shade.  Orange hips are as gorgeous as the red ones and I am fascinated by how the flower seems to give no indication to what the hip will look like later.

Available from Rogue Valley Roses.

Purple Pavement Roses have large ruffled blossoms that give way to large fat juicy hips.

Available (in Canada) from Old Heirloom roses.

Crimson Floorshow roses grow low and can be used as a groundcover.  It is surprising to me that I had no idea that there were groundcover roses…my interest is growing – plus these clusters of orange hips are playing their siren song.  (I haven’t yet found a shopping source)

Sweet Briar Roses are old (date back to the 1500s) and are generally what I think of when someone says wild rose.  I am curious to know how closely related these are to the actual wild roses that grow nearby?

Available from Annies Annuals.

Father Hugo Rose blooms in the early spring with primrose yellow single flowers.  But in the fall when the hips come into their own, they are uniquely deep purple and sometimes even black.

Available from Flowering Shrub Farm.

Want more ideas of varieties of rose with interesting hips?  Check out these.  I am trying to find a variety that has green hips to round out the collection of colors and shapes.  Any ideas?

Further Reading:

A Great list of Roses with Hips

The best producing Roses for Hips.

Images from Flowering Shrub Farm, Heirloom roses, Annies Annuals, Rose Locator, Old Heirloom roses, Peter Beals Roses , and Rogue Valley Roses. 

Would you use these crystals in your kitchen if they were called “super delicious umami crystals?” Photo via Wikipedia.

In 1908, over a bowl of seaweed soup, Japanese scientist Kikunae Ikeda asked a question that would change the food industry forever: what gave dashi, a ubiquitous Japanese soup base, its meaty flavor? In Japanese cuisine, dashi, a fermented base made from boiled seaweed and dried fish, was widely used by chefs to add extra oomph to meals–pairing well with other savory, but meatless foods like vegetables and soy. For some reason that was generally accepted but inexplicable, dashi made these meatless foods meaty–and Ikeda was determined to find out why.

Ikeda was able to isolate the main substance of dashi–the seaweed Laminaria japonica. He then took the seaweed and ran it through a series of chemical experiments, using evaporation to isolate a specific compound within the seaweed. After days of evaporating and treating the seaweed, he saw the development of a crystalline form. When he tasted the crystals, he recognized the distinct savory taste that dashi lent to other foods, a taste that he deemed umami, from the Japanese umai (delicious.) It was a breakthrough that challenged a cornerstone of culinary thinking: instead of four tastes—sweet, salty, bitter and sour—there were now five. A new frontier of taste had been discovered, and Ikeda wasted no time monopolizing on his discovery.

He determined the molecular formula of the crystals: C₅H₉NO₄, the same as glutamic acid, an amino acid designated as non-essential because the human body, as well as a large smattering of other plants and animals is able to produce it on its own. In the body, glutamic acid is often found as glutamate, a different compound that has one less hydrogen atom. Glutamate is one of the most abundant excitatory neurotransmitters in brain, playing a crucial role in memory and learning. The FDA estimates that the average adult consumes 13 grams of it a day from the protein in food. Non-meat food sources like tomatoes and Parmesan cheese have high levels of glutamic acid.

In 1909, Ikeda began mass-producing Ajinomoto (meaning “essence of taste”), an additive that came out of his creation of the first method of industrially producing glutamate by way of fermented vegetable proteins. The resulting sodium salt form of glutamic acid (the acid with just a single sodium molecule) became famous for its ability to imbue a meaty flavor into dishes, or just naturally enhance the flavor of food. It was touted as a nutritional wonder, helping bland but nutritious food become delicious. A growing number of Japanese housewives used the product, and by the 1930s, recipes included Ajinomoto use in their directions. The sodium salt of glutamic acid remains prevalent today–anyone who has eaten KFC or Doritos has ingested it; it’s just known by a different name: monosodium glutamate, or MSG.

Panda-inspired bottles of Ajinomto’s glutamtic salt. Photo via Flickr user Kinya Hanada.

Few letters have the power to stop conversation in its tracks more than MSG, one of the most infamous additives in the food industry. The three little letters carry so much negative weight that they’re often whispered sheepishly or, more often, decidedly preceded by the modifier “NO” that seems to make everyone breathe a collective sigh of relief when they go out to eat. Nobody wants MSG in their food—the protest goes—it causes headaches, stomachaches, dizziness and general malaise. It’s unhealthy and, maybe even worse, unsexy, used by lazy chefs as an excuse for flavor, not an enhancement.

On the other side of the spectrum lies umami: few foodie buzzwords pop off the lips with such entertaining ease. Enterprising young chefs like David Chang (of Momofuku fame) and Adam Fleischman, of the LA-based chain Umami Burger, have built their culinary careers on the basis of the fifth taste, revitalizing an interest in the meaty-depth of umami. It’s difficult to watch the Food Network or Travel Channel or any food-based program without hearing mention of the taste wunderkind, a host or chef cooing over the deep umami flavors of a Portobello mushroom. Where MSG is scary, umami is exciting.

What few people understand is that the hated MSG and the adored umami are chemically related: umami is tasted by the very receptors that MSG targets. At a MAD Symposium in Denmark, a TED-like conference for the food industry, Chang spoke about MSG and umami: “For me, the way that I’m looking at umami, it’s the same way I look at MSG. It’s one in the same.” But if chefs like Chang (neither inept nor lazy when it comes to flavor, as his Michelin stars would attest to) are down with MSG, why does the additive retain such a bad reputation?

After gaining a foothold in Japanese cooking columns, MSG spread throughout Asia, becoming especially popular in Chinese cooking for enhancing both stocks and vegetarian dishes. Everyone knows this connection, and probably associates MSG use in America most heavily with Chinese restaurants–thanks in large part to the absurdly racist name for MSG sensitivity “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” But MSG’s foray into American cuisine came from more than Chinese dishes; MSG became popular in the United States during World War II thanks in large part to the country’s increasing military-industrial complex. The military thought that they had found in MSG an answer to the flavorless rations allotted to soldiers, and when the war ended, the troops came home and so did the industrialization of food production. From canned vegetables to frozen dinners, industrially created food was met with wonder in the United States.

That all changed in the 1960s, when trust in industrial food began to wane. In 1962, Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a manifesto against pesticides that kicked off the environmental movement. As pesticides quickly fell from grace, faith in the industry of yesteryear–of the chemicals and additives born from the war—declined as well. In 1968, MSG’s death knell rang in the form of a letter written to the New England Journal of Medicine by Robert Ho Man Kwok, a Chinese-American doctor from Maryland. Kwok claimed that after eating at Chinese restaurants, he often came down with certain unpleasant symptoms, namely “numbness at the back of the neck, gradually radiating to both arms and the back” and “general weakness and palpitation.” After Kwok’s letter ran, the journal received a deluge of letters from other readers, all claiming to suffer from the same affliction, deemed “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome” by editors. Some readers presented the same symptoms as Kwok, but most were extremely varied, ranging from cold sweats to extreme dizziness. In response, the Journal offered up MSG as the likely culprit for their reader’s unpleasant symptoms.

Public interest spurred a number of scientific inquiries into the potential danger of MSG. According to food historian Ian Mosby’s exploration of MSG in “That Won-Ton Soup Headache” these inquiries went one of two ways: they either sought to prove the harmful short-term effects of MSG (and Chinese Restaurant Syndrome) or they looked to identify more long-term damage caused by the additive. Initially, researchers had success proving both the short-term and long-term dangers of MSG: mice injected with the additive showed signs of brain lesions, and humans fed 3 grams of MSG per 200 ml of soup presented symptoms congruent with “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” Subsequent studies, however, provided mixed results: some confirmed findings of brain lesions in animals or symptoms in humans, but other studies were unable to replicate the results. Double-blind studies often showed little correlation between MSG and adverse symptoms. Parties on both sides of the debate slung accusations at the other, with the anti-MSG researchers claiming that studies were being funded by MSG producers, and pro-MSG researchers accusing the other side of fear-mongering.

From the FDA to the United Nations to various governments (Australia, Britain and Japan) the public bodies that have investigated MSG have deemed it a safe food additive. The FDA states on their website:

FDA considers the addition of MSG to foods to be “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS). Although many people identify themselves as sensitive to MSG, in studies with such individuals given MSG or a placebo, scientists have not been able to consistently trigger reactions.

Scientific interest in its deleterious effects seems to be waning: one of the last studies to gain public attention was published in 2011. The authors of that study claimed to have found a link between MSG and obesity, though those results have been questioned. While the general scientific consensus seems to be that only in large doses and on an empty stomach can MSG temporarily affect a small subset of the population, MSG’s reputation is still maligned in the public eye.

On the other hand, MSG’s glutamic cousin umami suffers no public scorn: in 2010, umami was deemed one of the most delicious food trends to watch. When Adam Fleischman’s Umami Burger (a burger chain devoted to all things umami) opened a New York outpost, the wait for a meaty bite stretched on for three-hours. In addition to piling natural glutamates onto their burger to ensure the most umami flavor, Umami Burger enhances the burger with their “umami dust,” a blend of dried mushrooms and seaweed, and umami sauce, which includes soy and Marmite. Altogether, an original Umami Burger contains 2,185 mg of glutamate.

A highly glutamic burger from Umami Burger. Photo via Wikipedia.

“Most people don’t know the connection between umami and MSG. They know about it from the fifth taste, and the fifth taste was always called umami and not MSG,” Fleischman explains. “We didn’t feel that using MSG was creative enough. We wanted to do it ourselves. By doing it ourselves, we could create a flavor that was umami without the stigma of MSG. MSG, whether you like it or not, has been marketed so poorly, it sounds like this horrible thing.”

By harnessing natural glutamates for their burgers, Umami Burger avoids negative connotations associated with MSG. But the “natural” glutamates in an Umami Burger aren’t chemically any different from glutamtes in MSG.

“The short answer is that there is no difference: glutamate is glutamate is glutamate,” says Richard Amasino, professor of biochemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison. “It would be identical unless different things created a different rate of uptake.”

Glutamtes that occur naturally in food come intertwined with different chemicals or fiber, which the body is naturally inclined to regulate, explains Amy Cheng Vollmer, professor of biology at Swarthmore College. MSG, however, comes without the natural components of food that help the body regulate glutamic levels. It’s like taking an iron supplement versus obtaining iron from spinach or red meat: the iron supplement creates an expressway between the iron and your bloodstream that you wouldn’t find in natural iron sources.

“The bottom line here is context is everything,” Vollmer adds.

So does MSG deserve its bad rap? For the small section of the population that shows sensitivity to it, probably. But for the rest of America, maybe it’s time to reconsider exactly what we’re so afraid of when it comes to MSG.

What the hell is wrong with Richard Cohen? In the course of sorta explaining the GOP's problem with race, Cohen notes that "people with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children."

I think that was true maybe 50 years ago, in the sense that "conventional views" were considerably more retrograde, though 'gag reflex' is still pretty extreme. But these days we call those people 'racists'.

[Photo: Farm & Fable/Facebook]

Farm & Fable, a "vintage cookbook and kitchen shop," is waiting on one final inspection before opening on Shawmut Ave. in the South End, owner Abigail Ruettgers reports on Facebook. Over a year ago, Ruettgers left a career in law and began working at Flour Bakery while figuring out how to combine her loves of food and antiques into a business, according to a profile in DailyCandy. The result is a shop full of vintage cookbooks, "risqué midcentury cocktail glasses," antique decor, and more — plus a classroom downstairs for demos, classes, and cookbook book club potlucks.
· An antique kitchen store from a former lawyer [DC]

descentintotyranny:

Philippine delegate weeps at UN climate conference

Moved by the devastation wrought by Typhoon Haiyan, Naderev ‘Yeb’ Sano vows to fast until ‘meaningful’ climate outcome

Nov. 11 2013

The devastation caused by Typhoon Haiyan cast a gloom over U.N. climate talks that kicked off Monday in Poland as the envoy from the Philippines — where thousands are believed to have died when the cyclone made landfall Friday — broke down in tears and announced he would fast until a “meaningful outcome is in sight.”

Naderev “Yeb” Sano’s emotional appeal was met with a standing ovation at the start of two-week talks in Warsaw where more than 190 countries will try to lay the groundwork for a new pact to fight global warming.

Sano’s tears, which he wiped away with a red handkerchief, made other delegates at the COP19 react emotionally as well.

Officials in the Philippines estimate that as many as 10,000 people died in the hard-hit city of Tacloban alone. As the desperate survivors loot for food and supplies, Filipino authorities have begun trying to recover the bodies of those who perished in Haiyan’s devastating wake. 

Speaking of the link between extreme weather and climate change that scientists have said is wreaking havoc all over the world, Sano urged members of the summit to take action.

"We can fix this. We can stop this madness. Right now, right here," he told delegates in Warsaw.

Choking on his words, he said he was waiting in agony for news from relatives caught in the massive storm’s path, though he was relieved to hear his brother had survived.

"In the last two days he has been gathering bodies of the dead with his own two hands," Sano said.

"In solidarity with my countrymen who are struggling to find food back home … I will now commence a voluntary fasting for the climate," he added. "This means I will voluntarily refrain from eating food during this (conference) until a meaningful outcome is in sight."

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres also made reference to the “devastating impact” of the typhoon in her opening speech, and urged delegates to “go that extra mile” in their negotiations.

Still, some scientists say single weather events cannot conclusively be linked to global warming. Also, the link between man-made warming and hurricane activity is unclear, though rising sea levels are expected to make low-lying nations more vulnerable to storm surges.

Nevertheless, extreme weather such as hurricanes often prompt calls for urgency at the U.N. talks.

Last year, Hurricane Sandy’s assault on the U.S. East Coast and Typhoon Bopha’s impact on the Philippines were mentioned as examples of disasters the world could see more of unless it limits the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are warming the planet.

On the sidelines of the conference, climate activists called on developed countries to step up their emissions cuts and their pledges of financing to help poor countries adapt to rising seas and other impacts of climate change.

Tense discussions also are expected on a proposed “loss and damage” mechanism that would allow vulnerable countries to get compensation for climate impacts that it’s already too late to adapt to.

Asked whether the U.S. had any plans to increase its emissions target in the international talks, U.S. negotiator Trigg Talley said the “focus for us now” is to meet the existing target, of cutting emissions by 17 percent between 2005 and 2020.

"I think that we are on the right track to achieve it," he said, noting President Barack Obama’s plans to cut emissions from power plants, boost renewable energy and other measures.

Though no major decisions are expected at the conference in Warsaw’s National Stadium, the level of progress could be an indicator of the world’s chances of reaching a deal in 2015. That’s the new watershed year in the U.N.-led process after a 2009 summit in Copenhagen ended in discord.

Al Jazeera and The Associated Press

The Minerva Schools at KGI, an online liberal-arts-college start-up scheduled to open in the fall of 2014, is building out its administrative ranks.

The for-profit venture said on Tuesday that James D. Sterling, vice president for academic affairs at the Keck Graduate Institute—the KGI of the name—has been named director of Minerva Labs. Mr. Sterling will also serve as interim dean of the College of Natural Sciences for Minerva. Eric Bonabeau, a complex-systems expert and founder of the Icosystem Corporation, a science and technology company, has been named dean of the College of Computational Sciences.

They join Stephen M. Kosslyn, founding dean at Minerva and a former administrator at Stanford and Harvard Universities, and Daniel Levitin, Minerva’s dean of the College of Arts and Humanities and a researcher at McGill University.

Ben Nelson, a technology entrepreneur, started the Minerva Project in 2011, promising to build the equivalent of an Ivy League institution for online higher education. Armed with $25-million from Benchmark Capital, a team of 30 employees is designing the Minerva curriculum—which emphasizes critical analysis, effective communication, and innovative thinking—from scratch.

In July, Minerva signed an agreement to enroll a pilot class of about 15 students at Keck, one of seven institutions in the Claremont University Consortium, in Claremont, Calif. If approved by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges, the arrangement will mean accreditation for Minerva.

“The cooperation and support that we have gotten from KGI has been unbelievable,” Mr. Nelson said. “We are very much on track with the accreditation process. We hope to have our accreditation in the first half of next year.”

The application deadline for Minerva’s pilot class is December 31. Students will spend the first year living in San Francisco. All four years of tuition for the members of the pilot class will be waived. Annual tuition for subsequent classes will be about $10,000.

Correction (11/13/2013, 2:09 p.m.): This post originally said that Daniel Levitin, Minerva’s dean of arts and humanities, was a former researcher at McGill University. Mr. Levitin maintains that research relationship. The post has been updated to reflect that.

Let us now take a moment to give thanks that Twitter was not named "Friendstalker." Or, for that matter, "Smssy." Or, for that matter, "Throbber." (Throbber?!)

It was 2006. Odeo, the podcasting service that would evolve into Twitter, was deep in the process of pivoting. The members of the Odeo team had invented the short-form, SMS-based messaging service that would go on to make (some of) them billionaires. Twitter, at that point, existed. Except that it didn't, fully: Its creators had no idea what to call their invention. 

In his book Hatching Twitter, an exploration of the early days of the messaging service, New York Times reporter Nick Bilton tells the story of Twitter becoming "Twitter." The name was, like many decisions the Odeo team would make together, the subject of much debate. 

The small group immersed in the new project had been throwing around name ideas for a couple of days, though they couldn't agree on something that worked. Jack suggested the name Status, which others said was "too engineer sounding." Biz suggested Smssy. "Cute, but no." Ev had come up with Friendstalker, which was instantly nixed as sure to drive away anyone who wasn't 18 years old, male, and very single. 

Noah Glass, a developer and "the forgotten co-founder of Twitter," made it his mission to come up with a name that would be illustrative and engaging and not already claimed by another startup. Glass spent nearly a week consumed with the naming question, Bilton notes, "burrowed in the back of the office," skipping lunches with coworkers, "searching for a word that made sense."

And then ... he found the answer.

When he arrived at his apartment on Wednesday night, he again sat flipping through the dictionary. But his thoughts kept getting interrupted by text messages, which would trigger a loud dinging noise on his mobile phone. Frustrated by the intrusion, he reached over and flipped the switch to silent, causing his cell phone to vibrate slightly on the table. Noah stopped what he was doing and started at the phone, then picked it back up again and held it in his hand as he flipped it on and off, watching it quietly shake. Vibrate, he thought, and quickly looked up the word in the dictionary. "Shake, quiver, or throb; move back and forth rapidly." This immediately got Noah excited.

(Throb! Imagine a world with everything from friendly communications to political revolutions aided by throbs sent through the messaging service Throbber!)

Glass wasn't there yet, thankfully for us all, but he was close. He kept thinking, associating. He put his science knowledge to use. He connected technology to biology. And then: 

His vibrating phone led him to think of the brain impulses that cause a muscle to twitch. "Twitch!" No, that would never work, he thought. So he continued flipping through the two's in the dictionary. Twister. Twist tie. Twit. Twitch. Twitcher. Twitchy. Twite. And then, there it was. 

Yep: Twitter. "The light, chirping sound made by certain birds." He kept reading: "A similar sound, especially light, tremulous speech or laughter." And also: "Agitation or excitement; flutter." Glass dashed off an email to Ev Williams. "What are your thoughts on the domain name twitter?" he asked. He then suggested a tagline that would match the name: "A whole new level of connection. Or something like that."

Hatching Twitter via Gizmodo

Full (and proud) disclosure: I—like my mother before me, as a matter of fact!—am an alumna of the University of California at Berkeley. I was a Ph.D. student there during a period that sprawled over more than a decade. (Just ask my dissertation advisers.) I worked my way through grad school by teaching in whatever department had work for me, and thus managed to get my degree without accumulating any student debt, which in part accounts for how long it took to finish the damn thing. But in reality, I suspect that I lingered around Berkeley as long as I did, auditing courses and cadging mini-research grants, simply because I loved the place so much.

Okay, I’m working hard today on Teh Book, and so don’t expect hard thinking, which will make my brain hurt.  I thought I’d both start and end the day with some heartwarming animal stuff. The first comes from reader Diana who, as we all know, reverses the toilet rolls in restaurants and her friends’ homes. It’s a story from The Local (an English-language site about German news), explaining how vets gave mobility to an amputee tortoise:

First, the animal:

Schildi the bionic tortoise. Photo: DPA

Then the story of How the Tortoise Got Its Wheel:

Meet Schildi the bionic tortoise. He was found with a missing leg having probably been abandoned by his owners. Vets in Germany who patched him up and fitted him with a Lego wheel say he’s moving nicely now.

“First we fitted a double wheel but it was difficult for him to turn corners so we replaced it with a single wheel and that is much better for him,” Dr Panagiotis Azmanis told The Local.

He works at the Birdconsulting International veterinary practice of Marcellus Bürkle in Achern in Baden, and ended up raiding the toy box of the practice manager’s daughter for wheels and spacer blocks.

Initially though the focus was on saving the tortoise’s life. “He was in pretty bad shape when they brought him to us. The lower part of his front leg was missing, and the upper part was very bad, with bone showing, and maggots in necrotic flesh.” One the animal had been stabilized, the vets amputated the injured leg at the shoulder and treated him with antibiotics and fluids, as well as giving him pain killers.

Then came the question of lifting his fourth corner so he could move around.

“Tortoises need to run free in gardens, so he needed a prosthetic,” said Azmanis.

He used special veterinary surgical glue to stick a base block to the underside of Schildi. The corners of the base block were glued with normal superglue. “After that we could add blocks to achieve the correct height,” he said.

And now the single wheel has proven to be successful, Schildi has been taken back to the animal shelter.

“We will see him again once in a while for check-ups,” Azmanis said.

“If he gets a ‘flat tyre’ it will be a simple matter to replace the wheel. They move around quite a lot so I’d expect to see him for a new wheel about once a year.”

And Diana’s take:

I believe it’s a yellow-footed tortoise (they are from the rainforests of South America). I grew up with a tortoise like this as my parents had a male (named Esther because they didn’t know he was a boy until he matured sexually & BTW the Wikipedia article is dead-on accurate about the mating rituals). I think it’s extra cute that they named the tortoise “Schildi,” since tortoise in German is “Schildkrote”; I know this because I once did a presentation to my German class about my tortoise (everyone else did speeches on their trip to Germany, but I was too poor for trips).

Note: If anything shows “the better angels of our nature,” this does: people spent hours fixing this animal. 150 years ago they would have tossed it in the soup pot. Pinker is right.

The New York Times profiles Tony Maws in the context of celebrated chefs expanding away from having just one signature restaurant. A self-proclaimed "control freak," Maws is still trying to get comfortable with the fact that he can't be at both Craigie on Main and The Kirkland Tap & Trotter and do everything himself 100% of the time. [NYT]

"Germany’s recently suspended “Bishop of Bling” faces the prospect of seeing his lavish multimillion euro residence turned into a refugee centre or a soup kitchen for the homeless, Catholic church officials in his home diocese announced today.

Bishop Franz Peter Tebartz-van Elst was formally suspended last week amid accusations that he had spent over €31m (£26.5m) on renovating his official residence in Limburg. The charges, which earned the 53-year-old bishop his nickname, provoked outrage among German Catholics."