Wildebeests at the Watering Hole

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

A new series is beginning on BBCA (BBC America) tonight, “The Hunt,” originally broadcast last December on BBC One. Narrated by David Attenborough (who also narrated the brilliant “Planet Earth” documentary series), this new series apparently does something I’ve really never seen before in a nature program: sympathize with the predator.

Having grown  up watching Mutual of Omaha’s “Wild Kingdom” and numerous National Geographic specials, I am of course familiar with “the hunt.” Almost a sub-genre of the nature documentary, the hunt is usually set on an African savanna , either on the grassy plains or at the watering hole.

On the plains we see a herd of grazing antelope or zebras, just peacefully going about their business. Until a pair of eyes appears, hidden in tall grass. A lion, or maybe cheetah, lurks, crouched and waiting for the right moment. Suddenly she attacks! A single antelope, young and vulnerable, has wandered too far away from the herd’s protection. The big cat expertly counters the panicked animal’s evasive efforts. Where is the rest of the herd? Separating itself from the unfortunate victim, bunching ever more tightly together. Not us, you can see their tiny brains surmising with relief. Not today.

At the watering hole a group of wildebeests stands at the water’s edge. Surely they know how dangerous it is to drink. And yet the great striped and maned animals lower their horned heads because they must. All is peaceful. Until suddenly, instantly the crocodile springs out of the water! Seizing one of the wildebeests in its jaws, it drags the struggling creature into the water. Do the other wildebeests come to their companion’s rescue? No, they are scrambling up the bank as quickly as possible. Not them; not today.

Whenever terrible things happen to good people, I often think about those nature documentaries. How random and violent and banal it is. Just another day on the savanna. There’s really nothing you can do to prevent a lion from taking down a gazelle. The lion is not evil; the gazelle is not innocent. There is no justice needed. No criminal act has occurred.

To hope that human existence is so very different may be folly. Can predatory behavior really be controlled? When someone commits a crime, it’s interesting how often we either dismiss analysis of motive (he’s evil) or over-analyze and excuse the motive (he was abused as a child). Or we blame the victim for not thwarting the predator’s behavior (what did she expect, wearing that miniskirt and walking home alone at that late hour?) or inflict punishment by projecting our collective fear onto an otherwise innocent scapegoat (human sacrifice at worst; looking the other way at best).

In some ways, we are all just wildebeests at the watering hole, no more and no less. We are at the mercy of a chaotic universe, despite our efforts to elevate ourselves above the animal kingdom. It’s like we think we can intellectualize our way out of the mire: we have laws and complex social rules and education and religion. Civilization regulates primitive impulses.

Maybe that’s why we’re so fascinated by predators? Maybe there’s enough distance between potential threat and immediate threat that we can be intrigued by the danger and power instead of terrified? Because how else can one explain the multitude of “Law and Order” type of television shows and the extensive selection of suspense/thriller novels in bookstores.

I have always sided with the prey in those nature documentaries, even as I must also (reluctantly) acknowledge the thrill I experience in watching a predator at work. Although I personally find wildebeests to be ungainly, unsympathetic, and unintelligent-looking animals, it’s mighty hard to imagine myself rooting for the crocodile.

That’s why I’m looking forward to the first episode of “The Hunt” on BBCA tonight. Empathy is like a muscle, and sometimes the flex is hard. Yet perspective is worthwhile, even if we can never fully identify with a being so very alien to ourselves. (The show is running at 8:00 pm Central Time, which means 9:00 pm Eastern and Mountain and 8:00 pm Pacific. FYI😄)

Would you like new posts delivered to your inbox? To subscribe, click here.

 

Posted in Life, Nature, Television | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The World of the Train (Ten-Foot Poles and a Mother and Child Reunion)

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

That’s how it feels when you board the train: like you’ve entered into a self-contained world that moves, as if inside a tube, through the outside environment.

Amtrak is the only way to go! If I can possibly manage it in terms of time and destination, I’m going by train any time I need to travel in the future. True, I did splurge on a bedroom instead of sitting in coach for 19 hours. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do. Getting a bedroom required planning, though, because there are only a few available on each run. I made my reservation back in January for my end-of-June trip. Usually I’m not quite that organized.

Once aboard, I realized that I probably could have just booked a “roomette” instead of a “bedroom.” The only real difference between them is space and a private bathroom.

The roomette is a quite-narrow, self-contained little room with two reclining armchairs facing each other and a berth above. To sleep, you can pull down the berth and recline the two chairs completely, and you have sleeping accommodations for two, one up and one down. There’s a sliding door that locks, so you can feel secure during the night. Each roomette car contains a bathroom to be shared by everyone on that car.

The bedroom, on the other hand, contains its own bathroom and a sink. If you get up in the middle of the night, there’s no need to run down the hall. There’s not only a sofa and a reclining chair that face each other, but there’s also an overhead berth. The bedroom easily sleeps two people and could possibly sleep three. You’d feel a little crowded during the day, but certainly no more crowded than in coach.

The space! It felt very unnecessary—but completely luxurious—to have that bedroom to myself. As I stretched out on my sofa, read my novel, and watched the green landscape outside my long picture window, I could not stop thinking about how comfortable I was and how miserable I’d be on a plane.

Meals in the dining car were included in the price of my ticket. Pretty good food! And a very relaxing meal. The pace is unhurried and you can enjoy both nice scenery outside the window and good conversation inside the car. The dining booths seat four people. If you’re traveling solo, as I was, or with one or two other people, you’ll most likely be seated with strangers. The conversations are inevitably mostly small talk, of course, but they can turn surprisingly personal, as well.

The small talk can be fun. At dinner Thursday night I sat with a couple from Bay View (a Milwaukee south side neighborhood) who had been on vacation in New Orleans. They had taken a carriage ride and done the cemetery tour, neither of which I’d had time to do. As they told me about the cemetery tour, I was able to glean interesting tidbits like these from their recounting.

Apparently a year and a day after someone is buried, it’s time to make the tomb available to its next occupant. The body, wrapped in a bag rather than placed inside a coffin, has completely decomposed by then and is nothing more than a bag of bones. The tomb is opened, and a ten-foot pole is used to reach inside and break up the skeleton. Then the now-more-compact “package” is pushed down a shaft, leaving the tomb itself vacant. According to my dining companions’ tour guide, these New Orleans cemetery practices are where we get expressions like giving someone “the shaft” and not wanting to touch something “with a ten-foot pole.”

At breakfast yesterday I sat with two sisters, who were probably in their seventies. One doesn’t fly, and although they had drifted apart during the years they were both raising families, they have recently begun traveling around the country by train every year to visit their children and other relatives. They told me a wonderful story about an impromptu reunion that one of them had been able to have with her son during one of their cross-country trips.

At some point after leaving Chicago on the California Zephyr, this sister had looked at the route map in her compartment and realized that the train would be making a brief stop in Ottumwa, Iowa (fictional home of the M.A.S.H 4077’s company clerk, Corporal “Radar” O’Reilly, in case that town’s name sounds familiar to you 🙂 ) .

Her son lived in Ottumwa! She managed to get a phone call through to him: “Quick, come to the station! We’ll be there in an hour!”

When they arrived in Ottumwa, there was her son waiting at the station along with his wife and children. The mom got off the train; she and her son hugged and cried. They hadn’t seen each other in a very long time. By that time, everyone on the train knew what was up, so as mother and son were having their  unanticipated reunion, all the other passengers on the train were looking out the windows and applauding.

And then it was time for the train to pull out and head to its next stop. Just like that, as abruptly as it had happened, the reunion had to break up.

Mom got back on the train. Son and family remained at the station, waving goodbye.

Posted in Life, Travel | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Ghost Sign (#2) – Seen in the French Quarter

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

I think maybe this was supposed to be a sign for Tutt’s liver pills, except there’s a window where the “T” would have gone.Ghost sign "Utt's Liver Pills" seen in the French Quarter

The photos below are from the first two hits from Google News, one from “The Florence Times,” dated June 11, 1897, and the other from “Good Housekeeping” in 1888.

Tutt's Liver Pills 1897 ad

Tutt's Pills Cure Constipation ad

Posted in History, Life, Photography, Travel | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Storm Clouds over Mulate’s

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

We’ve had some thunderstorms this week in New Orleans. Thankfully I was inside during the worst one Monday evening. Incredibly powerful thunder and lightning, and very low in the sky…seemingly right overhead!

I took this photo as I left the convention center yesterday. I was struck by how white those poles were against the dark gray of the storm clouds above the city. Note the palm tree in the lower left of the picture. I had lunch with my co-author, Cindy, at the restaurant you can just make out at the bottom of the photo, Mulate’s.

Storm clouds over Mulates In New Orleans

Mulate’s bills itself as the original Cajun restaurant; it opened in its original location in 1980. I asked our server how to pronounce the name, by the way, after hearing many different-sounding versions from semi-authoritative sources.

He told us it is “myoo LAHTS.”

So not “myoo LAYTS,” which was one of the many possibilities I’d been presented with. Nor “myoo LAH tayz,” nor “muh LAH teez,” nor “moo LAH tuz,” nor “moo LAYDZ,” which were a few of the others.

The food at Mulate’s is terrific, and there seems to be a line out the door every night. It was really hot at the noon hour and I had a long afternoon of conference sessions ahead of me, so I ordered just a cup of crawfish ĂŠtouffĂŠe and a gigantic pink lemonade to drink.

I also liked the Mulate’s building itself, with its veranda-like roof over the wide sidewalk (very handy protection from rain or the hot sun, both of which we had plenty of experience with this week);

Mulate's restaurant New Orleans

its huge, heavy shutters meant to close over its French doors;

Shutters on French doors at Mulates in New Orleans

and its lovely ornamental security bars on the doors/windows of the adjoining section of the restaurant, actually an adjacent building, that lacks shutters.

Security bars at Mulates in New OrleansCloseCloseup of security bars at Mulate's in New Orleans

Posted in architecture, History, Life, Photography, Travel | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

What movie does my hotel shower remind you of?

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

Yeah, me too😄

Psycho shower

I made sure all the doors were locked before I stepped in!

Posted in Life, Movies and film, Travel | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

The French Quarter

Posted on June 28, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

Well, a very busy day at the actual conference yesterday, so the “French Quarter” post isn’t going up till today.

My co-author Cindy and I presented our paper, and I think we have a great topic that I hope to continue exploring at this same conference next year, although most likely in a different division with a different focus. We (and Anne-Marie, our third co-author, who’s a chemistry prof) did this year’s paper through the Materials Division, and our primary focus was how study of chocolate as a “material” can help engineering students understand general concepts about molecular structure and phase transformation.

Cindy’s an engineer and Anne-Marie’s a scientist. I’m liberal arts, so my part was to talk about how using chocolate in a materials class can also provide a great opportunity to make connections with the broader contexts in which engineering decisions are made. For example, because the cost of cocoa butter is so high, a logical engineering decision for someone working in the chocolate industry might be to substitute alternate materials for some or all of the cocoa butter. Soy lecithin has been used for years as an emulsifier  to stabilize chocolate and keep the fats from separating in a product containing lower levels of cocoa butter. But legally a product cannot be called “chocolate” in most countries if that key ingredient of cocoa butter is removed completely. The Chocolate Manufacturers Association petitioned the FDA in 2007 to change the regulatory definition of chocolate by removing the requirement that cocoa butter remain a principal component, but the FDA told them no. And consumer backlash in response to the taste deterioration following the industry’s 2006 adoption of PGPR as an additional emulsifier (to help hold the chocolate together after removing even more cocoa butter) led to a pledge by Hershey in 2015 to return to simpler, more recognizable ingredients in their product.

Additionally, using chocolate as a material provides an especially dense supply of other broad-context issues. For one thing, cocoa is an agricultural product originating from farms in a pretty limited handful of locations in the world where geography and climate are favorable. “Sustainability” and “fair trade” and “ethical, socially responsible trade” are all concepts that can be explored in connection with study of chocolate as a material. Similarly, business concepts like supply-chain management can be studied. Thanks to a looming imbalance between growing demand for chocolate from India and China and increasingly precarious supply issues in key cocoa-producing countries (ineffective agricultural policies, low-yield traditional farming techniques, unethical labor practices, and other sustainability concerns), the world’s largest chocolate manufacturers have recognized the need to step up and address cocoa’s supply chain issues themselves by sharing data on farming practices and crop yields and investing their own money in programs aimed at stabilizing the entire system from cocoa farms to chocolate factories. Our paper’s focus this year was the chemistry and engineering end; next year we may try to do another paper that looks more at how chocolate can be used as a starting point from which students can branch outward into considering these other political, economic, and social concerns.

But enough shop talk. Time to get down to the serious business of my sightseeing😄

Late Saturday afternoon Cindy and I had both just arrived in town, so we connected to do some initial exploring. Cindy has actually been to New Orleans a number of times, so she knew all kinds of things we could quickly pack into our evening.

We walked north from the convention center through narrow pre-automobile streets that felt almost like a set for a Disney-style park. The only way such streets can work in today’s world is by being open to one-way traffic only. We went straight up Fulton Street (the narrow streets have more shade, something you instantly learn to seek out in New Orleans!) to the French Quarter and Jackson Square. Several people had told me I had to see  Jackson Square, that it was a must-see item on any tourist itinerary, but it truthfully didn’t seem like anything special to me.

On the other hand, I was quite intrigued by the carriages lined up on the street outside Jackson Square. Several of them were being drawn not by horses but by mules. If you enlarge this picture you can make out this one’s long ears.

New Orleans carriage drawn by a mule

I can’t tell you the last time I saw a mule!

Some of the women I met last night at the Multidisciplinary Engineering Division’s business meeting took a carriage ride Sunday, and they said the driver told them that mules withstand the heat better than horses. I just now did a quick online search and found that working mules were apparently a key part of New Orleans’ urban infrastructure and functionality for much of its history. Interesting to learn!

The only other significant French Quarter thing we did Saturday night was to go for beignets and coffee at Cafe Du Monde.

image

It was so great to be with Cindy because even though the place was packed, which probably would have caused me to turn away had I been on my own, she led the way in through the tight mass of tables until we found one that had just been vacated at the very back of the outdoor seating area (under a roof, but open all around, like a covered patio). An employee was just cleaning away the heaps of powdered sugar from the small marble-topped table with a damp towel. When we sat down, he immediately transformed from busboy to waiter and took our order. Cindy’s experience made our beignet adventure super painless and super enjoyable. And the table was right next to a railing that lined the patio, so we just soaked up the breeze coming off the river and watched the people walking by.

We were so hot that we stopped at Starbucks for cold drinks to sustain us on the walk up to the French Quarter, where we then ordered hot coffee. Hence Cindy's empty Starbucks cup on the table.

We were so hot that first we went to Starbucks for cold drinks to carry on the walk up to the French Quarter, where we then ordered hot coffee. This totally would make sense if you were there. But hence Cindy’s empty Starbucks cup on the table.

Beignets are very similar to the elephant ears, funnel cakes, and fry bread I’ve eaten over the years at county/state fairs. Funny that so many different cultures all managed to arrive at the same basic recipe for fried dough topped with sugar. Great minds think alike, I guess! Yum😄

 

Posted in Food, Life, Popular culture, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Riding to (and on) the City of New Orleans

Posted on June 26, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

The big annual conference for engineering educators (ASEE) is happening this week in New Orleans. I hate flying (who doesn’t anymore?) and so booked a bedroom on the train from Milwaukee. I’ve always wanted to do that, and with a long-haul from Chicago to the “Crescent City”/”Big Easy,” here was the perfect opportunity.

So far, so good!

I ran into several colleagues here at the convention center today who had the usual stressful occurrences on their trips down. One person’s luggage went astray. Someone else got stuck on the ground in Tampa (inside his plane) for a couple of hours due to thunderstorms. Oh, yes, and no one was able to get a direct flight. All wound up journeying from Milwaukee to New Orleans via plane transfers that seemed pretty far away and illogical to me.

Meanwhile, I had the nicest long distance travel I’ve ever experienced. Thank you, Amtrak!

I didn’t end up bringing my laptop with me because I decided at the last minute I’d better travel light. So it may be difficult to upload many pictures. But I’ll  try to put up a few every day this week. Plus since I am typing this on my phone, I’m probably better off doing shorter posts every day than one big post. Even with autocorrect, I am literally “all thumbs” using my thumbs. Easier to avoid a million typos in a short post.

So for today, let me just say again how GREAT my trip down to New Orleans was!

Enjoying the trip in an Amtrak bedroom

I took this photo to send to my husband and daughters. I had so much space in my bedroom compartment! I realized once I boarded that I probably could have just booked a sleeper, which would have been a tiny room with two chairs facing that then converted to a bed. In my bedroom I had more space (a sofa and a chair and a sink and a private bathroom). The air conditioning was working well, and in the morning I was able to get really delicious coffee in the corridor. So here. I am, feet propped up on a pillow covered with a towel (out of courtesy for the future traveler😄), sipping great coffee and reading a book by one of my fave authors, while the world speeds past.

My sleeper included meals in the dining car. Simple food, but delicious! I sat with the same dad and his 6-year-old son at both dinner Friday night and lunch Saturday. It was fun meeting them, Brent (dad) and Tyler (adorable son). Here was our view from the dining car.

View of Chicago, looking north, from the train yard near Soldier Field aboard the City of New Orleans

View of Chicago, looking north, from the train yard near Soldier Field aboard the City of New Orleans

When we got to Mississippi on Saturday morning, I kept seeing these really odd-looking fields, different than any I’ve ever seen. In person, anyway. Is there any chance this could be rice? (Yes, those are my ghostly hands taking the photo.)

image

The fields were wet in between the rows of crops, which looked a lot like some kind of grass. (On the other hand, I suppose there’s a chance this crop actually WAS grass, like the ornamental stuff grown for landscapers😄)

Well, I guess that’s about enough on my NOLA adventure for today. Tomorrow . . . the French Quarter!

Posted in Life, Travel | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments

City Hall, Twice Removed

Posted on June 23, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

Twice removed – the reflection reflected, on the south side of State Street, at an angle from north and west, viewed from north and east.

Milwaukee City Hall reflection

Once removed – the original reflection, looking north from Red Arrow Park.

Milwaukee City Hall reflection

And the real thing – viewed by pivoting 180 degrees to look due south across the park. Note the flag waving in the opposite direction,  sort of a “mirror image” in reverse 🙂

Posted in Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , | 1 Comment

No smoking. And they mean it!

Posted on June 21, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

No smoking sign behind locked fencing

Posted in Life, Milwaukee, Photography | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

How about a nice game of chess?

Posted on June 11, 2016 by Katherine Wikoff

Seen on Milwaukee’s near west side. If you were born in the last 25 years, you might not know what this sign means. The truth is, it probably doesn’t mean anything anymore. Just a relic of a bygone era.

fallout shelter sign

During the Cold War, one form of preparation for surviving nuclear weapons attacks was the designation of many buildings with basements as “fallout shelters” (Wikipedia article here). This sign looks pretty old, and the “capacity” number has been covered over. I somewhat doubt this building’s owner still considers it a civic obligation to shelter citizenry in the event of an atomic bomb explosion in Milwaukee.

Another way America prepared for nuclear holocaust was to teach the “duck and cover” maneuver to schoolchildren across the nation.

America’s preoccupation with the existential threat of “mutually assured destruction” persisted even into the 1980s.

See 1983’s “The Day After,” for example, which according to Wikipedia remains the highest-rated television film in history. This movie documented the horrific ordeal awaiting those “lucky” enough to survive a nuclear attack.

Or 1983’s War Games, starring Matthew Broderick, Ally Sheedy, Dabney Coleman, and a really scary computer named “Joshua” that learns an important lesson by film’s end about what constitutes the only “winning move” in the game of Global Thermonuclear War.

Apparently the Cold War was still quite hot as of 1983.

I came across the video below recently. If real (and I assume it is because I found it via a story on NPR), it boggles the mind that anyone would be so foolhardy as to stand “Directly Under An Exploding Nuclear Bomb,” as the NPR (National Public Radio) story’s headline reads.

Our capacity for self-delusion is pretty staggering. After letting the genie out of the bottle, we remain arrogant or stupid enough to believe we can control the consequences.

Which may be an inescapable aspect of the human condition.

 

Posted in History, Life, Milwaukee | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments