Dear Kitty. Some blog

While I, at least during this week, am blogging mainly about wildlife, other things are continuing.

This is a video from Robert Greenwald in the USA, about Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and his views on economics before and after the current economic crisis.

Arianna Huffington on McCain and Reaganomics: here.

No bailout for banks - seize their profits! See here.

This is a video of a harbour porpoise near a boat on Grevelingen lake in the Netherlands.

This afternoon, all the way to the easternmost point of Schiermonnikoog.

This happened on the Eilander Balgexpres: a tractor with a bus behind it.

At first, the road from the village to the north, to the beach. A group of pheasants.

Then, the tractor plus bus went along the beach, sometimes crossing low tide “rivers”.

Shelducks. Many lesser black-backed gulls. Herring gulls. Some black-headed gulls. Many sanderlings. Some oystercatchers.

At the end of our journey is the Eilanderbalg, the easternmost spot. About 20 common seals laying on a sandbank. Two seals are swimming and come quite close.

Sadly, a juvenile harbour porpoise laying dead on the beach. This is the smallest cetacean species of the North Sea. This youngster is only about 80 centimeter. Though it beached probably not very long ago, feeding gulls have already damaged it.

Caspian seal population declines 90% - Now endangered: here.

This video is about a wheatear (Oenanthe oenanthe).

Today, to the Waddensee dike south of the village.

Many mallards. Pied wagtails.

Many dunlin and oystercatchers. Quite some turnstones.

On the rocks of the dike, a wheatear. Later, two more wheatears on the bicycle track.

As we walk back, adult little ringed plovers on the bicycle track.

Over a hundred shelducks, and a few brent geese.

In the hide today: less birds than usually, because of the rain and strong wind. Mainly mallards, great cormorants, and great crested grebes. Finally, a male Eurasian wigeon lands on the water.

Not far away, about thirty little egrets sit in the same trees as yesterday. They are sitting on lower branches today; maybe because of the wind.

This is a video about Schiermonnikoog,

Today is my second day on Schiermonnikoog island.

Barn swallows flying over a meadow; two grey herons.

Just before the birding hide, thirty little egrets sitting in trees. I had never seen so many individuals of this species together, except on Elephantine island in Egypt, in a mixed little egret-cattle egret heronry.

Outside the hide, male and female pheasants. True forget-me-not flowers.

From the hide again many ducks: shovelers, Eurasian wigeons, mallards. Also a tufted duck; and great crested grebes.

Beyond the dunes, many sea asters. Some flowering, some seed.

Close to the sea, European searocket flowering, both white and purple flowers.

In the afternoon, three buzzards flying over the dunes.

Later, at least one kestrel hovering in the air.

From the hide: shovelers, Eurasian wigeons, pintails, gadwalls, great cormorants, great crested grebes, barn swallows. After six pm, the first little egret of tonight arrives. Later, four others join him. As we leave, two more little egrets flying from the Waddenzee to the lake.

This video from the USA is called La Jolla Harbor Seals - Short Documentary.

Today, on my way to the railway station, shaggy mane fungus.

From the train to Groningen, buzzards.

From the bus to Lauwersoog, a buzzard sitting on a lamppost; and northern lapwings on a field.

As we boarded the ship to Schiermonnikoog island, in the harbour of Lauwersoog, a harbour seal.

Two shelducks flying over the Waddenzee.

During a walk to the west, from the only village on the island, female and male pheasants.

From the birding hide, many ducks on the lake, including mallards, shovelers, pintails, and Eurasian wigeon.

Also scores of great cormorants. And two little egrets.

Later, a common curlew and many starlings along the Waddenzee dike.

This video from the USA is called Wanda Sykes on Jay Leno, Bailout and Palin.

By Peter Boyle in Australia:

Wall Street crisis: Poor to bail out the rich again

27 September 2008

“Rich people got it good in this country”, said African-American comedian Wanda Sykes on the September 24 Tonight Show with Jay Leno. “We refuse to let them not be rich. Think about it. Broke people are about to bailout rich people. This is what is going on.”

“And they want no oversight. US$700 billion and no oversight! No oversight? Why should we? I want receipts dammit! What do you mean no oversight? Because, oh, you’re so good with the other money?

“This is the biggest piece of garbage ever. You know what? It’s welfare for the rich …

“It’s going to cost every taxpayer US$7000. You got the guy there busting his gut working two jobs and barely making US$12,000 a year, and he’s got to cough up something so some Wall Street guy can keep his swimming pool. Man, that’s garbage!”

‘Historic swindle’

Sykes pre-empted US President George W. Bush’s television address to the nation later that night where he demanded that Congress pass the US$700 billion bailout or else face “a long and painful recession”.

Takeover plan for Bradford & Bingley [in Britain] as world waits for US bail-out decision: here. See also here.

British Conservatives and the financial crisis: here.

The Credit Crunch, by Graham Turner: here.

This video is called WordPress.com - Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Blog.

There will be less, or maybe even no, blogging here at Dear Kitty for a week.

Starting about 3-4 October, normal frequency will resume.

See you all then (or, maybe, earlier)!

This video from the USA is about Paul Newman.

From British daily The Guardian:

Screen legend Paul Newman has died at the age of 83 after losing his battle against cancer.

A spokesman for the actor, Marni Tomljanovic, said Newman died on Friday.

Newman initially tried to play down concerns about his health after reports that he was undergoing cancer treatment in New York. …

Newman is best known for his leading roles in The Hustler, Cool Hand Luke and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which he played opposite longtime friend Robert Redford.

See also here.

From Connecting the Dots blog in the USA:

In 1968, my path crossed Newman’s as we both stepped out of our working lives to oppose the war in Vietnam. When I invited him to lunch with a dozen magazine editors, he told me the prospect of talking about himself was so unnerving he had stayed too long in a steam bath to calm down. Sitting next to him, I had to titrate the balance of beer and ice water to keep him relaxed and hydrated as he eloquently described his feelings about the war.

This video from the USA says about itself:

Paula addresses questions concerning corporal punishment in U S Public Schools

Part 2 is here.

The report A Violent Education: Corporal Punishment of Children in U.S. Public Schools, is here.

This music video is The Undertones-Teenage Kicks.

From the BBC:

30 years of ‘Teenage Kicks’

Thirty years after the release of Teenage Kicks, Undertones bassist Mickey Bradley recalls the birth of the iconic single.

“The idea of The Undertones making a record for [record shop owner and music producer] Terri Hooley began with something close to jealousy.

We had been playing in Derry every weekend since January 1977 - listening to John Peel every night, reading NME every week, and sending off for mail order punk singles every time we had money.

Then in the spring of 1978 we discovered that someone in Belfast was getting punk bands in to make records!

And John Peel was playing them!

What about us?

We didn’t know Terri and we barely knew Belfast. We certainly never thought of playing there.

But through a circuitous process, which involved the brother of someone who worked in Radio Rentals with lead singer Feargal Sharkey, a cassette of a demo tape made its way to Terri.

The offer was relayed back, through the same channel, that we too could join the Good Vibrations stable of recording artists.

As usual, we were in the middle of a personnel crisis - Feargal wanted to leave.

This happened regularly with all of us. (I remember wanting to leave after our first LP, for no particular reason other than it was something to do.)

He may have thought the band was going nowhere, or maybe he thought TV aerial installation was the career he wanted, but I was delegated by the rest of the band to talk to him.

I phoned him, from John and Damian O’Neill’s house, which was the centre of operations for the band.

‘OK, you’re leaving , but why not wait till we make the record?’

It was never spoken of again. By Feargal, anyway. I, on the other hand, repeat it early and often.

The night before we made the record, we played at the Battle Of The Bands in McMordie Hall at Queen’s.

We were second last on, and if I say so myself, we were the best band on that night.

We stayed in my sister’s boyfriend’s student house in Tate’s Avenue that night, and next morning we were taken in a white van to Wizard Studios somewhere in Belfast.

To this day I still don’t know where Wizard actually was.

As I said, Belfast was unknown territory to us.

Our only previous experience of a recording studio was making a demo at Magee University in Derry, in a room which was only used for recording language tapes.

It had cardboard egg cartons on the wall for sound insulation.

Wizard was a proper studio. It was Abbey Road, as far as we knew.

We recorded four songs. We thought this was the only record we’d ever make, so we thought we may as well do an EP.

The Good Vibrations record label didn’t have a sleeve-making department.

In fact, it didn’t have any departments, it was just Terri in his shop.

So when he rang us a few weeks later to say the records had arrived, he really meant we had to go up to his shop and help with the sleeves.

That process involved folding a printed A4 sheet around the record.

I still have memories of us on our knees in the back of Terri’s shop, with a pile of singles and a pile of unfolded sleeves.

We then had to run up Great Victoria Street to Shaftesbury Square Post Office and post a copy to Radio One’s John Peel.

“I hope he plays it,” said Terri as we went out the door…”

‘Teenage Kicks’ is re-released this week to mark the single’s 30th anniversary.

This reminds me of my own fanzine interview with The Undertones.