The Springfield (Missouri USA) News-Leader
Tuesday 3 July 2012
Opinions / Readers' Letters
Written by Jane Pitt, Springfield
I have given much thought to Richard Stoecker’s letter (“Vote for Mormon against beliefs,” June 15). I am also a Christian and differ with the Mormon religion.
But I think any Christian should spend much time in prayer before refusing to vote for a family man with high morals, business experience, who is against abortion, and shares Christian conviction concerning homosexuality just because he is a Mormon.
Any Christian who does not vote or writes in a name is casting a vote for Romney’s opponent, Barack Hussein Obama -- a man who sat in Jeremiah Wright’s church for years, did not hold a public ceremony to mark the National Day of Prayer, and is a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.
I hope all Christians give their vote prayerful consideration because voting is a sacred privilege and a serious responsibility.
Editor’s note: To clear up earlier confusion, the News-Leader has verified the letter writer is the mother of actor Brad Pitt and local businessman Doug Pitt.
05 July 2012
bad stuff about GPS / farewell to LORAN / always follow your GPS driving directions / The Rebel Picnic
Click photo, maybe something happens.
e-mail to my Army pal who lives below and slightly to the left of his right-hand thumb:
================
grrrrrr on Monday I sent you 2 e-mails, one with a Donald Evans "loop-the-loop", the other with just a YouTube url. mailer-daemon says one of them didn't make it, but I can't tell which one. Did you get the Donald Evans loop-the-loop stamp(s)?
* * *
Our tiny puny farm hilltown actually has One Big Whoop, our 4th of July celebration, which for reasons I find mildly mysterious, attracts upwards of 40,000 gawkers.
(Last year my endocrinologist was reviewing my daily blood sugars and asked me about one which had shot through the roof. I was very embarrassed -- her computer display nailed me at the Volunteer Fire Department 4th of July Pancake/Maple Syrup breakfast.)
So anyway because of The Big Whoop, all the normal roads from our house to Anywhere were blocked off or gridlocked. S.W.M.B.O. was a bit under the weather and needed This and That, so I had to creep around and get hopelessly lost on very unfamiliar back roads -- several from the Pre-Paving Era -- until I finally emerged somewhere familiar that sold stuff.
I detest S.W.M.B.O.'s GPS, but it wouldn't have helped, because GPS doesn't know it's the 4th of July and Chesterfield and environs are all blocked off.
During my last Unsupervised Bachelor Era I took this screwy backpack public-transportation trek to Labrador (alone -- it's amazing how few pretty young babes jump at the chance for a free trip on a freighter-ferry up the Labrador coast), and the jumping-off port for the Labrador freighter was St. Anthony, Newfoundland.
e-mail to my Army pal who lives below and slightly to the left of his right-hand thumb:
================
grrrrrr on Monday I sent you 2 e-mails, one with a Donald Evans "loop-the-loop", the other with just a YouTube url. mailer-daemon says one of them didn't make it, but I can't tell which one. Did you get the Donald Evans loop-the-loop stamp(s)?
* * *
Our tiny puny farm hilltown actually has One Big Whoop, our 4th of July celebration, which for reasons I find mildly mysterious, attracts upwards of 40,000 gawkers.
(Last year my endocrinologist was reviewing my daily blood sugars and asked me about one which had shot through the roof. I was very embarrassed -- her computer display nailed me at the Volunteer Fire Department 4th of July Pancake/Maple Syrup breakfast.)
So anyway because of The Big Whoop, all the normal roads from our house to Anywhere were blocked off or gridlocked. S.W.M.B.O. was a bit under the weather and needed This and That, so I had to creep around and get hopelessly lost on very unfamiliar back roads -- several from the Pre-Paving Era -- until I finally emerged somewhere familiar that sold stuff.
I detest S.W.M.B.O.'s GPS, but it wouldn't have helped, because GPS doesn't know it's the 4th of July and Chesterfield and environs are all blocked off.
During my last Unsupervised Bachelor Era I took this screwy backpack public-transportation trek to Labrador (alone -- it's amazing how few pretty young babes jump at the chance for a free trip on a freighter-ferry up the Labrador coast), and the jumping-off port for the Labrador freighter was St. Anthony, Newfoundland.
I got there early and was wandering around this quaint fishing village when I passed a small undistinguished modern office building which announced itself as the North American East Coast Headquarters of LORAN, the radio navigation system the world used before the super-spiffy new-fangled GPS.
I knocked on the front glass door and a slightly startled fellow (they don't get much walk-in business) was happy to let me in and give me a tour. For them what suffers, as I do, with Geek Sickness, it was really swell, just hectares and hectares of electronic panels and flashing lights and knobs and dials and things that go beep-beep and woo-wee-woo.
Finally I worked up the nerve to ask the nice man if GPS had doomed his entire livelihood, and he said at first they just assumed LORAN would be promptly shut down.
I knocked on the front glass door and a slightly startled fellow (they don't get much walk-in business) was happy to let me in and give me a tour. For them what suffers, as I do, with Geek Sickness, it was really swell, just hectares and hectares of electronic panels and flashing lights and knobs and dials and things that go beep-beep and woo-wee-woo.
Finally I worked up the nerve to ask the nice man if GPS had doomed his entire livelihood, and he said at first they just assumed LORAN would be promptly shut down.
But in the first few years of the amazing GPS space satellite miracle, they discovered GPS had several mysterious Wrong Zones -- places where it's just unreliable. One of the Wrong Zones is the Great Lakes. LORAN still reliably keeps The S.S. Edmund Fitzgerald on course, but if the skipper is using the new-fangled GPS, he can end up as an overplayed folk dirge.
So with a very wide grin, the nice LORAN man said LORAN got an unexpected reprieve of an extra 5 or 10 years. I don't know if they've unplugged it yet or fixed the GPS Wrong Zones.
Wikipedia: The United States Coast Guard (USCG) and Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) ceased transmitting LORAN-C (and joint CHAYKA) signals in 2010.
If you want to see a real spooky movie about the nifty talking helpful GPS in your BMW, rent "The Ghost Writer."
Happy 236th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! (The Nova Scotia phone book is filled with S.W.M.B.O.'s colonial-era cousins who picked the Losing Side and had to skeedaddle. Canadians call our Fourth "The Rebel Picnic.")
B
==============
Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Music and lyrics © 1976 by Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.
The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship's bell rang,
could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too
'twas the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.
"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"
If you want to see a real spooky movie about the nifty talking helpful GPS in your BMW, rent "The Ghost Writer."
Happy 236th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence! (The Nova Scotia phone book is filled with S.W.M.B.O.'s colonial-era cousins who picked the Losing Side and had to skeedaddle. Canadians call our Fourth "The Rebel Picnic.")
B
==============
Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Music and lyrics © 1976 by Gordon Lightfoot
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they called "Gitche Gumee."
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
when the skies of November turn gloomy.
With a load of iron ore twenty-six thousand tons more
than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty,
that good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
when the "Gales of November" came early.
The ship was the pride of the American side
coming back from some mill in Wisconsin.
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
with a crew and good captain well seasoned,
concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
when they left fully loaded for Cleveland.
And later that night when the ship's bell rang,
could it be the north wind they'd been feelin'?
The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
and a wave broke over the railing.
And ev'ry man knew, as the captain did too
'twas the witch of November come stealin'.
The dawn came late and the breakfast had to wait
when the Gales of November came slashin'.
When afternoon came it was freezin' rain
in the face of a hurricane west wind.
When suppertime came the old cook came on deck sayin'.
"Fellas, it's too rough t'feed ya."
At 7 p.m., it grew dark, it was then he said,
"Fellas, it's bin good t'know ya!"
The captain wired in he had water comin' in
and the good ship and crew was in peril.
And later that night when 'is lights went outta sight
came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Does any one know where the love of God goes
when the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they'd have made Whitefish Bay
if they'd put fifteen more miles behind 'er.
They might have split up or they might have capsized;
they may have broke deep and took water.
And all that remains is the faces and the names
of the wives and the sons and the daughters.
Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
in the rooms of her ice-water mansion.
Old Michigan steams like a young man's dreams;
the islands and bays are for sportsmen.
And farther below Lake Ontario
takes in what Lake Erie can send her,
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
with the Gales of November remembered.
In a musty old hall in Detroit they prayed,
in the "Maritime Sailors' Cathedral."
The church bell chimed 'til it rang twenty-nine times
for each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald.
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
of the big lake they call "Gitche Gumee."
"Superior," they said, "never gives up her dead
when the gales of November come early!"
03 July 2012
1st Day Issue: Moon Base IV
Click stamp to enlarge, I hope.
Vleeptron takes credit for contaminating this talented & accomplished visual artist with Mail Art or Postal Art or Faux Postage. The artist lives in the USA state the bottom part of which is shaped like a right-hand mitten, so its inhabitants can point to the palm of their right hand to show where they live.
loop-the-loop aerobatic stamps from Nadorp by Donald Evans
Click stamp to enlarge, maybe.
Commentary on this Donald Evans stamp by D. Jacob Rabinowitz:
====================
In colloquial Dutch, Nadorp means “After the Village.” It was also
the surname of a friend of Evans’s whom the artist crowned as prince of this
small Northern European country. Evans created a wide range of stamps for
Nadorp, featuring typically Dutch subjects ranging from ships to windmills to
the vegetables found in every country garden. He also created stamp series that
celebrated the principality’s luchtpost (airmail service) based on
photographs of early airplanes. Evans’s Nadorp 1924 Stunt Flying in souvenir
sheet (1976) celebrates the first kunstvlucht (literally art
flight, or stunt flight) in Nadorp. In the world of Evans’s stamps, the flight
took place at the vliegveld (airfield) of Adelshoeve in the summer of
1924.
To commemorate the occasion, Evans depicted a Blackburn Ripon biplane
performing a loop-the-loop across eight stamps of a perforated sheet. To create
the faintly visible cancellation mark in the center of the composition, Evans
carved a unique rubber stamp using an X-Acto Knife.
In a 1975 interview, Evans explained, “I’ll cancel over the stamp to
deliberately obscure things or just to be perverse, to establish a certain layer
of distance from the work.” He continued, “To my knowledge there are no artists
who make stamps the way I do. But there very well may be.”1
More than thirty years later, Evans’s
art remains astounding, not only in terms of the intricate world it imagines,
but also in terms of its distance from the 1970s New York art scene from which
it emerged. Evans’s postal oeuvre, his Catalogue of the World, manages
to be both comprehensive and singular.
1. Donald Evans, “A Portfolio of Stamps of the
World,” Paris Review 62 (1975)
24 June 2012
Whoops, Vleeptron is a little late with the Solstice, but it's Summer anyway.
Click image to enlarge.
Okay, we're a few days late -- but welcome to Northern Hemisphere Summer (and Southern Hemisphere Winter) anyway. In the Northern Hemisphere, the Solstice was the longest day (longest sunlight) of the year; in the Southern it was the shortest day of the year.
19 June 2012
eine kleine Krellmusik
Click image to enlarge.
The image on the Voyager robot space probes. (NASA after a design by Carl Sagan.)
The NASA robot probe Voyager 1 has recently flown beyond the Heliosphere -- the region of space affected by solar radiation and electromagnetic influence. Voyager 2 is not far behind.
In Small Words, a robot device designed on Earth has, for the first time, left our Solar System and is now sailing through interstellar space. Next stop (if we're lucky) will be another star.
(Our nearest non-Sol star is Barnard's Star, which Wikipedia describes as a "very low-mass red dwarf star about 6 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Ophiuchus, the Snake-holder." i,e,, it takes light or radio or other emf signals 6 years to make the one-way trip from here to Barnard's Star.)
What surprises we have for the lucky extraterrestrial intelligence which pops the hood on our real old Voyager probes!
They're powered by lumps of plutonium, so 35 years after NASA launched thrm, they're still generating sufficient electrical power (directly from radioactive heat) to perceive their surroundings and send data back. We're still getting information from the Voyagers.
But even after the plutonium fizzles out, the Voyagers contain marvelous goodies for the first
"thinkies" to find them.
Using gold CDs, because gold never rusts or degrades, first there's a wonderful visual image that explains tons of important information about Planet Earth and Homo sapiens. A man and a woman, and their secondary sexual characteristics, and a measuring stick to show our height are shown -- crude mugshots of what our sentient neighbors could expect if they visited and asked to meet the species which runs things around here.
There's chemical information which isn't hard to comprehend. It shows Earth life is mostly composed of Oxygen, Nitrogen, Carbon and Hydrogen.
There's astrogational information to show which planet we're on, and where our Solar System is in the Milky Way Galaxy.
But the really cool stuff isn't in the image. It's in the CD's audio tracks: Earth sounds, Earth noises, and our Human Music.
Kurt Waldheim says Hi and Peace on behalf of the United Nations.
But then the music starts.
To my fellow Kult Members on the yahoogroup f_minor, the No. 1 with a Bullet tracks are the deceased Canadian pianist Glenn Gould playing a section of the Well-Tempered Klavier by Johann Sebastian Bach.
This is Earth's first entry in the Milky Way Music Competition.
Which brings up another amazing space news story. After 10 years of supercomputer analysis, NASA just announced it has finally translated the first Intelligent radio message we have ever received. It says
SEND MORE CHUCK BERRY
(I love that old joke, I'm sorry, I can't stop telling it.)
Yes indeed, if the Sentients play the gold CD (instructions for playing the CD are engraved on the disk), they also get Chuck Berry banging out "Maybelline."
Maybelline
Why can't you be true
Oh Maybelline
Why can't you be true
You been goin' around doing the things you used to do
We KNOW, with absolute certainty, that every sentient civilization in the universe will, eventually, stumble on the truths of mathematics, the same ones that caused all of us so much heartache and woe (because there's a suprise quiz Tuesday morning) from arithmetic to differential equations.
But only Earthies got Chuck Berry. Only Earthies got Johann Sebastian Bach. Only Earthies had Glenn Gould to play him sublimely, and to play Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart so wrong-headedly and at such a krazy-klown tempo. (I think GG plays Mozart ethereally, but I'm in the minority.)
They will crank up the Voyager CDs and hear music they'd never imagined existed before.
Hope they enjoy it. Hope we win the Milky Way Music Prize!
What are the other music entries in the Galactic Competition?
Well, okay, I don't have a lot of Non-Earth Music to play for you.
But I have a little.
Here's some music from the ancient long-vanished Krell civilization from Planet Altair 4.
We don't know what they looked like, they left no family photos on the walls, but because of the characteristic shape of their doorways, we deduce they were Large and Triangular.
We have lots of evidence that they were Real Smart -- a hell of a lot smarter than we human knuckledraggers. Most of their underground facilities are still there to explore, and they're still powered up, and they still work. (The Krell machines automatically diagnose and repair themselves.)
We don't know why they vanished. Whatever the cause, it was sudden, essentially overnight. And they were gone forever. But they left some of their recorded music behind.
Click HERE and HERE, and you can hear it. It was first heard on Earth in 1956. If you'd like to text a vote for The Krell Songs, or just write a thoughtful review of Krell Music, Leave A Comment.
14 June 2012
Postalö Vleeptron / Rare Antique Stamp: "Geo W. Bush" (head on a pike) / Free HBO / an Idiot like this guy cometh along but once in a lifetime
Our satellite TV provider just blessed us with a free week of HBO. What we sampled, movies and original programming, failed to entice us to sign up for this fine and dependable source of digital sludge.
(Well, okay, since ABC TV network pushed Bill Maher's "Politically Incorrect" under a bus in late 2001, HBO picked him up, show has a new name, and it's still Bill Maher sticking his red-hot iron poker into the eyeballs and orafices of USA politics. That's not chopped liver. There's funnier and more incisive elsewhere on the electromagnetic spectrum, but he's pretty funny and he's pretty incisive.
But we missed this, which, apparently, we could have seen for FREE!
HBO has this very Hot & Now Thing called "Game of Thrones," which I gather is yer basic Fantasie -- the mutant baby that resulted when badly remembered medieval European history had sex with a very stale roulade of folklore and mythology.
Just guessing, but maybe the Major Characters resemble 20-something L.A. hunkolas and hotties with great musculature and (for the Caucasians) tans. Also through the crystal the eldritch mysts part briefly, and I see one role for a semi-famous award-winning Old Person, who plays the Merlin-Gandalf Wizard Guy or Grand Krigat. Don't fuck with him, he can sour your dairy cows or compel you to marry your high school algebra teacher.
I see violence. Medieval revenge perversion Elf Realm violence, violence like you (or your European ancestors) never saw, not even in Cossack and Ostrogoth places. In each episode, the creatures who inhabit this HBO Realm will do stuff to other Realm Denizens which will make you sorry you ever signed up for HBO, and for Christ's sake, who let the kids see this???
Apparently, if we'd been at the right motel with Free HBO, or we hadn't been watching "Bait Car" elsewhere on Basic Satellite, we could have seen the head of the previous President of the United States, George W. Bush, on a pike, or atop a pole a few times.
In olden days, the Winner would often put the Loser's severed head on a high pole in the public square or market for the month following his untimely demise. It was better than a mugshot or a statue or a coin or postage stamp of the Loser. It WAS the Loser (or the part of him from the neck up).
The populace was free to perceive any Official Government Message it chose to see in the Loser's Head on a Tall Pole for a Month. If the only message you got was: "Piss us off and this could be You" -- that interpretation was acceptable to the Government.
Here we have a rare antique Postalö Vleeptron stamp, one of the first stamps PV ever issued. It was part of Postalö Vleeptron's series "Vleeptronian Fantasies of Recent USA Presidents."
The other night during his monologue, David Letterman said -- with a choke of authentic sincerity in his throat -- how much he missed the former Idiot. Presidents you can tell those kind of jokes about night after night after night (because of what they just said and did day after day after day) come along rarely. Like the Transit of Venus. George W. Bush was a Once-in-a-Lifetime Idiot, and the world's comedians miss him deeply.
Postalö Vleeptron: Antique Stamp
"Geo W. Bush" (head on a pike)
Fantasies of Recent USA Presidents
issued circa 630000 D2E (Dwingeloo-2 Era)
denomination: 43 new vleepeezz
philatelic value (approximate): U$71,000
**********************
The Los Angeles Times
(daily broadsheet, California USA)
Thursday 14 June 2012
HBO apologizes for
fake George W. Bush
head on 'Game of Thrones'
by Patrick Kevin Day
LOS ANGELES -- The creators of HBO's "Game of Thrones" found themselves in a bit of hot water on Wednesday when word spun around the Internet that former President George W. Bush's likeness made a very unflattering cameo in the first season of the epic fantasy series.
More specifically: a prop severed head bearing the former president's likeness appeared mounted on a stick.
Though the head was given a wig of long hair, spattered in mud and turned mostly away from the camera, the distinctive upper lip was a giveaway. And the creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss pointed it out in the DVD commentary on the episode.
"George Bush's head appears in a couple of beheading scenes," the duo revealed in their commentary. "It's not a choice, it's not a political statement. We just had to use whatever heads we had lying around."
Though the DVD set has been on the market since early March, it wasn't until this week that the media discovered the bit of trivia buried in the commentary on the show's first season finale.
On Wednesday, HBO and Benioff and Weiss issued statements of apology.
Benioff and Weiss explained, "We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.
"In the DVD commentary, we mentioned this, though we should not have. We meant no disrespect to the former president and apologize if anything we said or did suggested otherwise."
HBO added, "We were deeply dismayed to see this and find it unacceptable, disrespectful and in very bad taste. We made this clear to the executive producers of the series who apologized immediately for this inadvertent careless mistake. We are sorry this happened and will have it removed from any future DVD production."
HBO's statement should be of particular note to super-fans, as the version of the "Game of Thrones" DVD set available looks to be a collector's item soon.
The commentary was first shared on the news site Reddit, where commenters quickly began wondering about why the production company would have a George W. Bush head lying around. As one commenter wrote, "I thought everyone just had Bush heads lying around. I keep trying to sell all of mine at garage sales."
- 30 -
09 June 2012
1st Day Issue wiggle.gif: Transit of Venus 2012 / It's not over till the substantively massive planetary embodiment of the female principle sings / 3 Happy Freezing Blue Nerds in Hawaii
If Venus is not moving across
the face of the Sun,
click RELOAD.
1st Day Issue
Right-Hand Mitten Postal System
animated wiggle.gif
Transit of Venus 15 June 12
Copyright (c) 2012 Ron Bizer
It's not over till the substantially massive
panetary embodiment of the female principle sings.
Did you forget to set the alarm or just get
beer-drunk or stoned, or just forgot, so you blew off the Transit of Venus last
week?
Sucks to be you, Jack or Jill.
Your next opportunity to witness a Transit of Venus -- when the planet Venus,
appearing as a small black circle, glides sublimely across the face of the Sun
-- will be 11 December 2117. Moiself, I shall be 170 years old when I'm wheeled
to the Big Panasonic Hologram in the Day Room to watch it. If you are still
perky and bouncy and have all your original adult teeth and almost no
accumulated cottage-cheese-like cellulite, and like to text your bff whilst
careening up the Interstate in your bitchin Camarro, you will be a mere 124
years young when you see the Transit of Venus again.
They come in pairs, so if you fuck up and
miss the 2117 show, you get another chance in 2125. Whoever gets a lucky 2nd
Chance at the Transit of Venus will almost certainly be bigtime
incontinent.
Awaiting VleeptronZ on our return home from
a quick AMTRAK adventure to see kin in Silver Spring, Maryland USA, was this
remarkable wiggle.gif commemorative of last week's Transit of Venus, issued
by Right-Hand Mitten Postal System (R-HMPS). The stamp was issued where the
right hand is attached to the wrist (see Figure 2, above). The artist is the
True Authentic Genuine & Talented Professional Visual Artist and U.S. Army
War Veteran Ron Bizer, lifelong buddy of SP5 Joe Schlobdowski. VleeptronZ takes
credit/responsibility/culpability for contaminating him with Mail Art & Faux
Postage.The artist reports:
How’s it going? Basically things are OK here.
The University Lowbrow Astronomers had a presentation Tuesday at one of the Ann Arbor branch libraries and a bunch of telescopes set up on a high point in a local park. How cool was the Transit of Venus event! Chris was worried that we would burn our eyeballs out but everything was alright.
I’m attaching my Transit of Venus animated commemorative stamp. Should work in a browser.
Ack! I had to sign up for Medicare. What’s the world coming to?
How’s it going? Basically things are OK here.
The University Lowbrow Astronomers had a presentation Tuesday at one of the Ann Arbor branch libraries and a bunch of telescopes set up on a high point in a local park. How cool was the Transit of Venus event! Chris was worried that we would burn our eyeballs out but everything was alright.
I’m attaching my Transit of Venus animated commemorative stamp. Should work in a browser.
Ack! I had to sign up for Medicare. What’s the world coming to?
Heeding wise astronomical advice not to
spend 48 minutes staring directly at the Sun, we caught a live satellite TV
broadcast from the summit of Mauna Kea extinct (everybody hopes) volcano and its supercallifragialisticexpialidocious
optical telescope as Venus glided magnificently across the disk of the Sun.
The
Mauna Kea show was narrated by three young astronomer nerds dressed in Arctic gear and
homemade knit wool caps -- Hawaii or not, it's fucking-A cold up there on the
summit -- and you never saw Happier Nerds ever. They were shivering, their skins
were turning blue, you couldn't wipe the grins off their faces with
undiluted sulfuric acid.
They were witnessing the Transit of Venus
through one of Earth's newest, most powerful, most remarkably sophisticated
optical telescopes.
And now, thanks to Right-Hand Mitten Post,
you can, too. Over and over again. And you can send cornbread recipes or porn to
your friends and relatives throughout the Five-Planet System using the nifty
wiggle.gif stamp.
So, like, who didn't watch the Transit of
Venus? Raise your hands, stand up, tell us your names, make sure your Mom and
Dad know that you slept through it.
A friend got me a poster of a group of
knuckledragging mouth-breathing trogolodytes of all sizes, ages and genders in bowling shirts, and it
said
WE DIDN'T SEE HALLEY'S COMET
AND WE DON'T CARE
and it graced my office wall for decades.
Because I DID see Halley's Comet -- and spent a gazillion US bucks to get
my butt to the desert near Alice Springs, Australia to see that sucker. (Best
seats on the Planet in a place not on the verge of a violent popular
uprising.)
So if you were sleeping off a cheap domestic beer
(for cheap, try a case of Golden Anniversary) drunk and missed the Transit of Venus ...
You blocks, you
stones, you worse than senseless things!
-- Shakespeare,
"Julius Caesar"
This amazing astonishing
supercallifragialisticexpialidocious once-in-a-lifetime crap in the Heavens is
FREE! All you have to do is set an alarm, dress appropriately, bring binoculars
or a cheap telescope, and stand outside for an hour or so. It's FREE! and
IMPORTANT!
Friend of mine went to a
ritzy private high school in Manhattan, and the algebra teacher was attempting
to cram the Quadratic Formula into 20 nincompoop brains, and he suddenly snapped
and started screaming THIS IS IMPORTANT! YOU HAVE TO KNOW THIS! and young Chris
Noth (now the deservedly famous actor) said, "Mister Kaplowitz, the only thing
we HAVE to do is die." I don't know if Noth ever mastered the Quadratic Formula,
but I don't think he got a high mark in Mr. Kaplowitz's gradebook that
day.
(I know the Quadratic
Formula, and I can Complete the Square all by myself without Googling. Mr.
Kaplowitz was right: This stuff is IMPORTANT!)
But what are all such
gaieties to me
whose thoughts are full of
indices and surds?
x² + 7x +
53
= 11/3
-- Lewis Carroll
(a math(s)
professor)
This is the only poem I know
which must be solved for x.
Recent Transits of
Venus
Date ...... Time UTC .. Something
Else
======================================
1631 Dec 07 05:19 939 "
1639 Dec 04 18:26 524 "
1639 Dec 04 18:26 524 "
1761 Jun 06 05:19 570 "
1769 Jun 03 22:25 609 "
1769 Jun 03 22:25 609 "
1874 Dec 09 04:07 830 "
1882 Dec 06 17:06 637 "
2004 Jun 08 08:20 627 "
2012 Jun 06 01:28 553 "
2117 Dec 11 02:48 724 "
2125 Dec 08 16:01 733 "
1882 Dec 06 17:06 637 "
2004 Jun 08 08:20 627 "
2012 Jun 06 01:28 553 "
2117 Dec 11 02:48 724 "
2125 Dec 08 16:01 733 "
06 June 2012
Annie Lenox sings at QE2;s Diamond Jubilee Concert /
Annie Lenox sings "Must Be Talking to an Angel" at the Diamond Jubilee Concert for HRH Queen Elizabeth II:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9ub5LbggEw
recovered rare wiggle.gif of the amazing BUNYIP supercomputer whose adorable little penguins solved previously unsolveable problems
If the penguins aren't wiggling, click RELOAD.
They finally unplugged it and carted it in
disconnected sections to Canberra's Scrap Metal & Plastic Junkyard --
Rubbish Heap, I think Australians call it -- but for 10 years,
BUNYIP was one of Earth's fastest, most powerful
(public-access) supercomputers.
It was named, of course, for the rarely (if ever) glimpsed Dreaded Monster of the Australian Outback, the Bunyipnstrus bunyipia australiensis.
This is what it looked like when it was running
and crushing previously unsolvable problems with a dismissive wave of its
superhands. It was a Linux-based machine, so a series of adorable little
penguins shuttle hither and yon from section to section to perform its
superfunctions at superspeed and superefficiency.
I had to beg two perfect strangers at the Australian
National University Supercomputer Center in Canberra (the capital of Australia)
for this spectacular wiggle.gif, I'd lost my old one, and now the ANU computer
is in lockdown because Evil Hackers have been digitally sodomizing parts of it. (We suspect Teenagers.)
Both perfect strangers -- one, a chemist
Ph.D. woman who supercomputes her investigations into modest-size molecules, had never
even heard of BUNYIP -- very kindly and promptly broke into their sealed
computer and fetched me the wonderful image of the Great Australian
Supercomputer Which Runs on Adorable Penguins.
05 June 2012
Legalize it! Don't criticize it! Stop throwing non-white teens in jail and giving them life-long criminal records!
N.Y. governor proposes decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana
updated 9:01 PM EDT, Mon June 4, 2012
Under current New York laws, possessing a small amount of marijuana in public view is a Class B misdemeanor.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A 1977 law makes private possession of 25 grams or less a non-criminal violation
- But if the marijuana is publicly visible, the same amount is a Class B misdemeanor
- Cuomo is asking that small amounts even in public view be decriminalized
- Selling and smoking or burning marijuana would still be a crime
Saying the aim was to
avoid unnecessary misdemeanor charges against thousands of New Yorkers
-- "disproportionately black and Hispanic youth," according to a
statement from the governor's office -- the legislation "brings
consistency and fairness" to New York's marijuana laws.
"There is a blatant
inconsistency. If you possess marijuana privately it is a violation, if
you show it in public it's a crime. It's incongruous. It's inconsistent
the way it has been enforced," Cuomo told reporters at a press
conference in Albany on Monday.
In 1977, New York's
legislature reduced the penalty for possessing 25 grams or less of
marijuana to a non-criminal violation carrying a fine of no more than
$100 for first-time offenders -- as long as the marijuana was in private
possession and not in public view.
If the marijuana is out
and viewable in public -- as it might be when someone is asked to empty
his or her pockets during a so-called police "stop and frisk" -- it
becomes a Class B misdemeanor.
Selling and smoking or burning marijuana is still a crime, and Cuomo is not suggesting changing that.
"The statute as currently
written unnecessarily subjects tens of thousands of people to criminal
arrest and prosecution for very small quantities of marijuana," said New
York State Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries.
"The overwhelming
majority of people who have been arrested as a result of the way that
the statute is currently written come from the black and Latino
community," Jeffries said, adding that statistics and studies show that
marijuana possession and use "is far more racially diverse."
According to data
released by the governor's office, 2,000 arrests for small amounts of
marijuana were made in 1990. In 2011, over 50,000 arrests were made.
Fifty percent of those arrested were under 25 years old, and 82% were
black or Latino. Less than 10% were ever convicted of a crime.
"The human costs to each
defendant charged with a misdemeanor are serious," said Manhattan
District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr., supporting Cuomo's proposal. "The
simple and fair change proposed by Gov. Cuomo will help us redirect
significant resources to the most violent criminals and serious crime
problems, and, frankly, it is the right thing to do."
According to the
governor's office, 94% of arrests for small amounts of marijuana in the
state are in New York City, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York
Police Department and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly have come under fire
in recent years for the department's much-criticized "stop and frisk"
policy.
"Overly punitive charges
have a harmful effect on our justice system. They can ruin lives, waste
taxpayer money on unneeded trials, and breed distrust between
communities and law enforcement," said Gabriel Sayegh, New York state
director for the Drug Policy Alliance.
Last year Kelly issued a
policy order directing officers to issue violations, rather than
misdemeanors, for small amounts of marijuana discovered during street
searches, and Monday, Bloomberg issued a statement in support of Cuomo's
comments.
"The governor's proposal
today is consistent with the commissioner's directive, and strikes the
right balance by ensuring that the NYPD will continue to have the tools
it needs to maintain public safety -- including making arrests for
selling or smoking marijuana," he said.
"Thanks to the NYPD, our city
has come a long way from the days when marijuana was routinely sold and
smoked on our streets without repercussions."
At the press conference
Monday, Kelly said, "I was asked to respond to criticism by some members
of the (City) Council that the Police Department was making, quote,
'too many' arrests for small amounts of marijuana. And my response to
them, was, 'Well, your option is to go to Albany and get the law
changed' -- better that than having New York City police officers turn a
blind eye to the law as it was written, and as it is still written."
- 30 -
PizzaQ -- what the heck is this?
Click image, maybe it gets bigger.
I hope it wiggles for you.
6 slices anchovies and pepperoni.
04 June 2012
HEY! TRANSIT OF VENUS! DON'T MISS IT! BUY THE T-SHIRT!
Click map to enlarge.
If you sleep through it, your next chance to see the Transit of Venus will be in 2117.
Depending on where you are, the Transit
begins: 22:09 UTC Tuesday 5 June 2012
ends: 04:49 UTC Wednesday 6 June 2012
Fudge Factor: +/- 7 minutes
Don't stare directly at the Sun or you'll go blind.
Click HERE for Transit of Venus 2012 souvenirs, coffee mugs, t-shirts, etc.
03 June 2012
02 June 2012
Mitt Romney sneakily gutted Massachusetts civil rights government policies
We knew he was a violent homophobe and was cruel to the family dog, and he told us he doesn't care about poor people, and he was a draft-evader during the Vietnam War, and enjoys firing people ...
But Mitt's a sneaky racist who hates civil rights, too.
The Republicans have really picked a great candidate this time around.
==============
The Associated Press
(USA newswire)
Saturday 2 June 2012
Romney Scuttled, Revived
The Republicans have really picked a great candidate this time around.
==============
The Associated Press
(USA newswire)
Saturday 2 June 2012
Romney Scuttled, Revived
Massachusetts
Affirmative Action
by Andrew Miga
With a few strokes of his pen on a sleepy holiday six months after he became governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney quietly scuttled the state government's long-standing affirmative action policies.
There were no news conferences, no press releases trumpeting Romney's executive order on Bunker Hill Day, June 17, 2003, in the deserted Statehouse. But when civil rights leaders, black lawmakers and other minority groups finally learned of Romney's move two months later, it sparked a public furor.
Romney drew criticism for cutting the enforcement teeth out of the law and rolling back more than two decades of affirmative action advances.
Civil rights leaders said his order stripped minorities, women, disabled people and veterans of equal access protections for state government jobs and replaced them with broad guidelines. They complained Romney hadn't consulted them before making such drastic changes, snubbing the very kind of inclusion he professed to support.
"It was done under the radar and there was a big backlash," said Michael Curry, president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It was clear Romney really did not have an appreciation for the affirmative action policies long in place."
Romney responded by creating an advisory panel to recommend changes. But he eventually retreated completely, leaving the state's old policies in place.
The likely Republican presidential nominee's handling of affirmative action may offer insights into how he would deal with civil rights issues if he defeats Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, in the fall election. Romney hasn't talked much about affirmative action on the campaign trail.
Romney's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
"This is the canary in the coal mine on how he feels about civil rights issues," said Julie Patino, who was deputy director of the state's affirmative action office from 1995 to 1999. "It was a cloaked and unilateral move that eradicated years and years of civil rights advances and history. It was an astonishing act."
Patino said the state's long, tortured history of race relations, including the violence over school busing that tore apart Boston in the 1970s, made Massachusetts' affirmative action laws especially critical.
Massachusetts government for decades has been a patronage haven for well-connected family members and friends of state lawmakers. The informal system of doling out state job spoils was dubbed "Irish affirmative action" in a nod to the powerful sway Irish-American pols in particular have long enjoyed on Beacon Hill.
Romney has said he supports workplace diversity but opposes quotas in hiring, government contracting, school admissions and the like.
"I believe our nation is at its best when people are evaluated as individuals," he said in a 2008 Washington Post issues survey. "I do support encouraging inclusiveness and diversity, and I encourage the disclosure of the numbers of women and minorities in top positions of companies and government -- not to impose a quota but to shine light on the situation."
Responding to the uproar in 2003, Romney insisted he wasn't trying to undercut the state's affirmative action policies. He stressed his commitment to workforce diversity, saying he had simply wanted to broaden, streamline and update the old policies.
"I'm actually very proud of the progress that we're making in the area of affirmative action," he said in August 2003. "We're making a very aggressive effort to change our culture to be more inclusive."
Romney's executive order eliminated the state's Office of Affirmative Action, which required executive agencies to have civil rights officers in charge of monitoring the hiring of minorities, women and people with disabilities. A new state diversity office was created, along with broad goals and guidelines.
Black leaders and civil rights groups said Romney's order lacked enforcement mechanisms and removed penalties for agencies not complying with the state's diversity efforts.
The Boston Globe scolded him in an editorial, saying "Governor Romney sent exactly the wrong message in signing an executive order to revamp the state's affirmative action program, consigning to the trash heap 33 years of guarantees that minorities and women would have equal access to state jobs."
To quell such criticism, Romney appointed a special advisory panel that included minority and civil rights leaders to recommend changes.
"The changes the panel wanted became too hot for the administration to deal with," said Leonard Alkins, who was head of the NAACP's Boston branch during the controversy and was a member of Romney's advisory panel. Alkins said many of the panel's recommendations were aimed at bolstering the policies Romney had abolished.
Romney essentially walked away from the fight, ignoring his own advisory panel. Instead, he had state officials effectively follow the old affirmative action policies he had formally revoked with his executive order.
It wasn't until Deval Patrick, a Democrat who was the state's first black governor, took office in 2007 that the old policies were formally reinstated.
Alkins said Romney never seemed to grasp that the aim of the state's affirmative action policies was to protect people who were wrongfully denied equal rights in the workplace.
"I felt that the governor was out of touch," said Alkins. "He was very uncomfortable with the issue of race and how you would address issues such as affirmative action."
The policies Romney erased with his executive order had been started three decades earlier by Republican former Gov. Frank Sargent and were substantially expanded by Democratic former Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1983. Three Republican governors who directly preceded Romney had left the policies in place.
- 30 -
by Andrew Miga
With a few strokes of his pen on a sleepy holiday six months after he became governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney quietly scuttled the state government's long-standing affirmative action policies.
There were no news conferences, no press releases trumpeting Romney's executive order on Bunker Hill Day, June 17, 2003, in the deserted Statehouse. But when civil rights leaders, black lawmakers and other minority groups finally learned of Romney's move two months later, it sparked a public furor.
Romney drew criticism for cutting the enforcement teeth out of the law and rolling back more than two decades of affirmative action advances.
Civil rights leaders said his order stripped minorities, women, disabled people and veterans of equal access protections for state government jobs and replaced them with broad guidelines. They complained Romney hadn't consulted them before making such drastic changes, snubbing the very kind of inclusion he professed to support.
"It was done under the radar and there was a big backlash," said Michael Curry, president of the Boston branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "It was clear Romney really did not have an appreciation for the affirmative action policies long in place."
Romney responded by creating an advisory panel to recommend changes. But he eventually retreated completely, leaving the state's old policies in place.
The likely Republican presidential nominee's handling of affirmative action may offer insights into how he would deal with civil rights issues if he defeats Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, in the fall election. Romney hasn't talked much about affirmative action on the campaign trail.
Romney's campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
"This is the canary in the coal mine on how he feels about civil rights issues," said Julie Patino, who was deputy director of the state's affirmative action office from 1995 to 1999. "It was a cloaked and unilateral move that eradicated years and years of civil rights advances and history. It was an astonishing act."
Patino said the state's long, tortured history of race relations, including the violence over school busing that tore apart Boston in the 1970s, made Massachusetts' affirmative action laws especially critical.
Massachusetts government for decades has been a patronage haven for well-connected family members and friends of state lawmakers. The informal system of doling out state job spoils was dubbed "Irish affirmative action" in a nod to the powerful sway Irish-American pols in particular have long enjoyed on Beacon Hill.
Romney has said he supports workplace diversity but opposes quotas in hiring, government contracting, school admissions and the like.
"I believe our nation is at its best when people are evaluated as individuals," he said in a 2008 Washington Post issues survey. "I do support encouraging inclusiveness and diversity, and I encourage the disclosure of the numbers of women and minorities in top positions of companies and government -- not to impose a quota but to shine light on the situation."
Responding to the uproar in 2003, Romney insisted he wasn't trying to undercut the state's affirmative action policies. He stressed his commitment to workforce diversity, saying he had simply wanted to broaden, streamline and update the old policies.
"I'm actually very proud of the progress that we're making in the area of affirmative action," he said in August 2003. "We're making a very aggressive effort to change our culture to be more inclusive."
Romney's executive order eliminated the state's Office of Affirmative Action, which required executive agencies to have civil rights officers in charge of monitoring the hiring of minorities, women and people with disabilities. A new state diversity office was created, along with broad goals and guidelines.
Black leaders and civil rights groups said Romney's order lacked enforcement mechanisms and removed penalties for agencies not complying with the state's diversity efforts.
The Boston Globe scolded him in an editorial, saying "Governor Romney sent exactly the wrong message in signing an executive order to revamp the state's affirmative action program, consigning to the trash heap 33 years of guarantees that minorities and women would have equal access to state jobs."
To quell such criticism, Romney appointed a special advisory panel that included minority and civil rights leaders to recommend changes.
"The changes the panel wanted became too hot for the administration to deal with," said Leonard Alkins, who was head of the NAACP's Boston branch during the controversy and was a member of Romney's advisory panel. Alkins said many of the panel's recommendations were aimed at bolstering the policies Romney had abolished.
Romney essentially walked away from the fight, ignoring his own advisory panel. Instead, he had state officials effectively follow the old affirmative action policies he had formally revoked with his executive order.
It wasn't until Deval Patrick, a Democrat who was the state's first black governor, took office in 2007 that the old policies were formally reinstated.
Alkins said Romney never seemed to grasp that the aim of the state's affirmative action policies was to protect people who were wrongfully denied equal rights in the workplace.
"I felt that the governor was out of touch," said Alkins. "He was very uncomfortable with the issue of race and how you would address issues such as affirmative action."
The policies Romney erased with his executive order had been started three decades earlier by Republican former Gov. Frank Sargent and were substantially expanded by Democratic former Gov. Michael Dukakis in 1983. Three Republican governors who directly preceded Romney had left the policies in place.
- 30 -
31 May 2012
Tierra de los Sueños / TdS·Posta / 1st Day Issue: Luna Moth (Actias luna)
Tierra de los Sueños / TdS·Posta
1st Day Issue: Luna Moth
========================
Actias luna
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Luna Moth)
This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (February 2010)
Luna Moth
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Saturniidae
Genus: Actias
Species: A. luna
Binomial name
Actias luna (Linnaeus, 1758)
Actias luna, commonly known as the Luna Moth, is a lime-green, Nearctic Saturniid moth in the family Saturniidae, subfamily Saturniinae.[1] It has a wingspan of up to 4.5 inches (114mm),[2] making it one of the largest moths in North America.
Distribution
This moth is found in North America from east of the Great Plains in the United States to northern Mexico and from Manitoba eastward through central Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada.[3]
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Lepidoptera
Family: Saturniidae
Genus: Actias
Species: A. luna
Binomial name
Actias luna (Linnaeus, 1758)
Actias luna, commonly known as the Luna Moth, is a lime-green, Nearctic Saturniid moth in the family Saturniidae, subfamily Saturniinae.[1] It has a wingspan of up to 4.5 inches (114mm),[2] making it one of the largest moths in North America.
Distribution
This moth is found in North America from east of the Great Plains in the United States to northern Mexico and from Manitoba eastward through central Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada.[3]
Life cycle
Based on the climate in which they live, the Luna Moths produce differing numbers of generations. In Canada and northern regions, they can live up to 7 days and will produce only one generation per year. These reach adulthood from early June to early July. In the northeastern United States around New Jersey or New York, the moths produce two generations each year. The first of these appear in April and May, and the second group can be seen approximately nine to eleven weeks later. In the southern United States, there can be as many as three generations. These are spaced every eight to ten weeks beginning in March.
Egg
Female Luna Moths lay 100–300 eggs, 4–7 eggs at a time, on the underside of leaves, and they incubate for eight to thirteen days. The moths will lay more eggs in a favorable climate.
Larva
Each instar generally takes about five days to a week to complete. After hatching, the caterpillars tend to wander around before finally settling on eating the particular plant they are on. These caterpillars tend to be gregarious for the first two to three instars, but separate and live independently after that. As with all Saturniids, these caterpillars go through five instars before cocooning. At the end of each instar, a small amount of silk is placed on the major vein of a leaf and the larva then undergoes apolysis. The caterpillar then undergoes ecdysis, or molts from that position leaving the old exoskeleton behind. Sometimes the shed exoskeleton is eaten. Each instar is green, though the first two instars do have some variation in which some caterpillars will have black underlying splotches on their dorsal side. Variation after the second instar is still noticeable, but slight. The dots that run along the dorsal side of the caterpillars vary from a light yellow to a dark magenta. The final instar grows to approximately nine centimeters in length.
Pupa
Scales of Luna Moth eye spot
Eclosion of A. luna. Time elapse: ±45 sec.
The Luna Moth pupates after spinning a cocoon. The cocoon is thin and single layered. Shortly before pupation, the final, fifth instar caterpillar will engage in a "gut dump" where any excess water, food, feces, and fluids are expelled. The caterpillar will also have an underlying golden reddish‐brown color and become less active. As a pupa, this species is particularly active. When disturbed, if it feels threatened the moth will wiggle within its pupal case, producing a noise. Pupation takes approximately two weeks unless the individual is diapausing. The mechanisms for diapause are generally a mixture of genetic triggers, duration of sunlight or direct light during the day, and temperature.
Adult
Adults eclose, or emerge from their cocoons in the morning. Their wings are very small when they first emerge and they must enlarge them by pumping bodily fluids through them. During this time, their wings will be soft and they must climb somewhere safe to wait for their wings to harden before they can fly away. This process takes about 2 hours to complete. The Luna Moth typically has a wingspan of 8–11.5 cm (3.1–4.5 in)[4], rarely exceeding 17.78 cm (7.00 in)[5] with long, tapering hindwings, which have eyespots on them in order to confuse potential predators. Although rarely seen due to their very brief (1 week) adult lives, Luna Moths are considered common. As with all Saturniidae, the adults do not eat or have mouths.[4] They emerge as adults solely to mate, and as such, only live approximately one week. They are more commonly seen at night.
Host plants
The caterpillars feed on the following host plants:
Betula (Birch)
Alnus (Alder)
Diospyros (Persimmon)
Liquidambar (Sweetgum)
Carya and Annamocarya (Hickory)
Juglans (Walnut)
Rhus (Sumac)
Popular culture
The pharmaceutical company Sepracor markets its sleep medication Lunesta using a logo that incorporates the Luna moth.
British electronic musician Jon Hopkins released a 2004 album called "Contact Note" whose front cover features a cropped image of a Luna Moth. The album's final track is entitled "Luna Moth".
Michael Stipe, the lead singer and lyricist from American alternative rock band R.E.M. has referenced luna moths in song lyrics on two separate occasions. First on "You", the closing track on 1994’s Monster, Stipe sang, “Did I dream you were a tourist in the Arizona sun? I can see you there with luna moths and watermelon gum”. Secondly, on "Boy in the Well" from 2004’s Around the Sun Stipe sang, “The track mall gang went off on the Tennessee goth – a luna moth, you chrysalis and flail”.
Luna Moth appear in the fifth installment of the The Elder Scrolls series: Skyrim. In-game Luna Moth appear only during the nighttime and can be caught by the player either in air or when they land, their wings can be used to create various potions using Alchemy.
In the middle grade novel Stranger Moon by Heather Zydek, a 12-year-old girl spends her summer hunting for Luna moths.[6]
In the children's book The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle, the Luna moth appears near the end of the narrative, where the eponymous cricket "enjoyed the silence" of the moth's passing.
A Luna moth is displayed of the front cover of Changeling: The Lost, a roleplaying source book by White Wolf.
In the Pathfinder tabletop role-playing game, luna moths are a symbol of the goddess Desna.
In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, the Luna moth serves as partial inspiration for Joe Kavalier to create the Mistress of the Night character
The lunamoth's name was used to create the name Luminoth a species of advanced, humanoid moth in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
References
^ A Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America, Special Publication 12, Virginia Museum of Natural History, 2005.
^ "Luna Moth". Fcps.edu. Retrieved 2011-10-18.
^ "luna moth - Actias luna (Linnaeus)". Entnemdept.ufl.edu. 2010-08-19. Retrieved 2011-10-18.
^ a b "Species Detail: Luna moth – Actias luna (Linnaeus, 1758)".
^ "Species Detail: Largest and smallest butterfly and moth".
^ Stranger Moon
Media related to Actias luna at Wikimedia Commons
Luna moth info
Step by step development of Luna life cycle (Caution: high bandwidth usage, many pictures)
luna moth on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
Luna Moth page from checklist form on UGA / John Pickering's Discover Life Web Site
Butterflies and Moths.org, formerly on USGS site http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/notfound/bflymoth.htm / Butterflies and Moths.org
Based on the climate in which they live, the Luna Moths produce differing numbers of generations. In Canada and northern regions, they can live up to 7 days and will produce only one generation per year. These reach adulthood from early June to early July. In the northeastern United States around New Jersey or New York, the moths produce two generations each year. The first of these appear in April and May, and the second group can be seen approximately nine to eleven weeks later. In the southern United States, there can be as many as three generations. These are spaced every eight to ten weeks beginning in March.
Egg
Female Luna Moths lay 100–300 eggs, 4–7 eggs at a time, on the underside of leaves, and they incubate for eight to thirteen days. The moths will lay more eggs in a favorable climate.
Larva
Each instar generally takes about five days to a week to complete. After hatching, the caterpillars tend to wander around before finally settling on eating the particular plant they are on. These caterpillars tend to be gregarious for the first two to three instars, but separate and live independently after that. As with all Saturniids, these caterpillars go through five instars before cocooning. At the end of each instar, a small amount of silk is placed on the major vein of a leaf and the larva then undergoes apolysis. The caterpillar then undergoes ecdysis, or molts from that position leaving the old exoskeleton behind. Sometimes the shed exoskeleton is eaten. Each instar is green, though the first two instars do have some variation in which some caterpillars will have black underlying splotches on their dorsal side. Variation after the second instar is still noticeable, but slight. The dots that run along the dorsal side of the caterpillars vary from a light yellow to a dark magenta. The final instar grows to approximately nine centimeters in length.
Pupa
Scales of Luna Moth eye spot
Eclosion of A. luna. Time elapse: ±45 sec.
The Luna Moth pupates after spinning a cocoon. The cocoon is thin and single layered. Shortly before pupation, the final, fifth instar caterpillar will engage in a "gut dump" where any excess water, food, feces, and fluids are expelled. The caterpillar will also have an underlying golden reddish‐brown color and become less active. As a pupa, this species is particularly active. When disturbed, if it feels threatened the moth will wiggle within its pupal case, producing a noise. Pupation takes approximately two weeks unless the individual is diapausing. The mechanisms for diapause are generally a mixture of genetic triggers, duration of sunlight or direct light during the day, and temperature.
Adult
Adults eclose, or emerge from their cocoons in the morning. Their wings are very small when they first emerge and they must enlarge them by pumping bodily fluids through them. During this time, their wings will be soft and they must climb somewhere safe to wait for their wings to harden before they can fly away. This process takes about 2 hours to complete. The Luna Moth typically has a wingspan of 8–11.5 cm (3.1–4.5 in)[4], rarely exceeding 17.78 cm (7.00 in)[5] with long, tapering hindwings, which have eyespots on them in order to confuse potential predators. Although rarely seen due to their very brief (1 week) adult lives, Luna Moths are considered common. As with all Saturniidae, the adults do not eat or have mouths.[4] They emerge as adults solely to mate, and as such, only live approximately one week. They are more commonly seen at night.
Host plants
The caterpillars feed on the following host plants:
Betula (Birch)
Alnus (Alder)
Diospyros (Persimmon)
Liquidambar (Sweetgum)
Carya and Annamocarya (Hickory)
Juglans (Walnut)
Rhus (Sumac)
Popular culture
The pharmaceutical company Sepracor markets its sleep medication Lunesta using a logo that incorporates the Luna moth.
British electronic musician Jon Hopkins released a 2004 album called "Contact Note" whose front cover features a cropped image of a Luna Moth. The album's final track is entitled "Luna Moth".
Michael Stipe, the lead singer and lyricist from American alternative rock band R.E.M. has referenced luna moths in song lyrics on two separate occasions. First on "You", the closing track on 1994’s Monster, Stipe sang, “Did I dream you were a tourist in the Arizona sun? I can see you there with luna moths and watermelon gum”. Secondly, on "Boy in the Well" from 2004’s Around the Sun Stipe sang, “The track mall gang went off on the Tennessee goth – a luna moth, you chrysalis and flail”.
Luna Moth appear in the fifth installment of the The Elder Scrolls series: Skyrim. In-game Luna Moth appear only during the nighttime and can be caught by the player either in air or when they land, their wings can be used to create various potions using Alchemy.
In the middle grade novel Stranger Moon by Heather Zydek, a 12-year-old girl spends her summer hunting for Luna moths.[6]
In the children's book The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle, the Luna moth appears near the end of the narrative, where the eponymous cricket "enjoyed the silence" of the moth's passing.
A Luna moth is displayed of the front cover of Changeling: The Lost, a roleplaying source book by White Wolf.
In the Pathfinder tabletop role-playing game, luna moths are a symbol of the goddess Desna.
In The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, the Luna moth serves as partial inspiration for Joe Kavalier to create the Mistress of the Night character
The lunamoth's name was used to create the name Luminoth a species of advanced, humanoid moth in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
References
^ A Field Guide to Moths of Eastern North America, Special Publication 12, Virginia Museum of Natural History, 2005.
^ "Luna Moth". Fcps.edu. Retrieved 2011-10-18.
^ "luna moth - Actias luna (Linnaeus)". Entnemdept.ufl.edu. 2010-08-19. Retrieved 2011-10-18.
^ a b "Species Detail: Luna moth – Actias luna (Linnaeus, 1758)".
^ "Species Detail: Largest and smallest butterfly and moth".
^ Stranger Moon
Media related to Actias luna at Wikimedia Commons
Luna moth info
Step by step development of Luna life cycle (Caution: high bandwidth usage, many pictures)
luna moth on the UF / IFAS Featured Creatures Web site
Luna Moth page from checklist form on UGA / John Pickering's Discover Life Web Site
Butterflies and Moths.org, formerly on USGS site http://www.npwrc.usgs.gov/notfound/bflymoth.htm / Butterflies and Moths.org
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