Well, it didn’t take long for me to get to want more than 10x zoom on my digital camera. Not that I’m complaining too much; 10x is pretty good, and if you’ve been looking at the Birdwatching in Japan series, then you have a good idea of what good quality shots I’ve been able to get–especially considering that I’m using a digital camera priced just over $300.

But knowing that better lenses are out there, I decided to see what I could find. I went to Yodobashi, and found two candidates: the Canon-specific TC-DC52B 1.6x Tele-converter, and the Raynox DCR-2020PRO 2.2x Tele-converter. Both are priced higher in Japan than in the U.S.; the Japan prices were $140 and $200 respectively. I tried both out on a local target–a shop sign seen out the doorway. Below is the zoom range comparison shot:

The main image was taken with just the regular 10x optical zoom on the Canon. The two interior squares represent the images taken by the camera with the two zoom lenses at maximum optical zoom. I superimposed the 16x and 22x images and then reduced the images until they matched the original image. Each square shows the area covered by each zoomed image; imagine each area expanded to match the original shot, and you get an idea of the magnification. The images are slightly tilted because of the way I held the camera.

The lenses must be used with the camera at a higher zoom setting, or else you get a telescoping black circle around the image; below are photos taken with the Canon and Raynox, respectively, with the camera fully zoomed out:

As you can see, you have less of a field of view with the Raynox; to get rid of the black frame, you have to zoom the camera nearly to the limit. the Canon lens allows for much more flexibility. Both allow you to start zoomed out in order to find the target before zooming in, however, and that is really all that I was looking for.

I’ve got to go–final exams and all. But I’ll be back with more, including which lens I got, some shots of the lens on the camera, and a real humdinger in the “dumb ideas” department!

You may have noticed more inactivity on my part. Not through lack of effort, of course–I’ve been trying to write about a recent camera accessory purchase. But after having shut down my server for 18 hours without the slightest notification to me, my web host decided, apparently for kicks, to block out my IP address while at the same time displaying a server status page on their site that showed my server as being shut down. So I was shut out of my own site and their indicators lied to me about why. On top of that, their usually quick support people were a lot slower this time–several hours between each reply–so it took a lot longer to get fixed. It’s just now, some ten hours later, that I’m finally back on the air.

If it weren’t for the fact that every web host screws you over for days at a time at some point, I’d be looking for a new web host right now… and to be honest I’m not that far away from beginning a new search.

If you tried to come here in the past 18 hours and were not able to access the page, my apologies–my web host let me down. They changed the IP address for the server, effectively shutting down the site for most of the last day, and gave me no advance notification of the move. This, of course, would just happen to occur as I get linked to by MacSurfer and was getting hundreds of new visitors each hour. Surpass Hosting is very good when it’s working, but downtime seems to be their biggest flaw. And, to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever had a web host that reliably notifies me in advance of down time….

I always wondered about the naming of some areas of Tokyo, having noted the names of train stations in those spots. For example, Ikebukuro, a major business area of Tokyo (one of its many “downtowns”) seems to translate as “Pond Bag.” Ochanomizu is “Tea Water.” And Mejiro is “White Eye.”

Well, I actually discovered the origin of Mejiro recently when I took up birding: Mejiro is a bird, the Japanese White-Eye, and it is aptly named. A picture is worth a thousand words:

Click on the image to get a full-sized version (1100×700 pixels, 136 KB).

When I visited the park nearby my place today, there were quite a few of the little things flying around the trees. The Mejiro love the blossoming trees, and seemed to be eating the nectar from the flowers:

The blossoms also make for nice decoration around the birds in the photos. The Mejiro were also surprisingly tame; you could walk right up to a tree the buggers are in and be standing just a few meters away, and they would just as happily bounce about from branch to branch. I had my usual focusing trouble with my camera because the Mejiro were always in the midst of a host of twigs, blossoms and branches, but because they were relatively stable in location and not skittish about human company, I was able to get some nice shots of the birds.

I also spotted some Long-Tailed and Great Tits, as well as a Japanese Pygmy Woodpecker, but none stayed still long enough to get any pictures worth sharing.

I also was able to record some Nightingale song just outside my apartment building. The audio clip (332 KB, WAV format) is an amalgam of seven different calls I recorded over about ten minute’s time.

And before I go, one more Mejiro photo.

I’ve observed a new type of blog comment spam: spam apparently designed purely for reasons of harassment. The spam comes in with no functioning URLs, just links to garbage addresses that have no corresponding site. No product name, no forwarded web site, nothing. It has no profit whatsoever for the spammer that I can see, except perhaps if they get their jollies by peeing all over other people’s web sites. Not that I thought that spammers were any less scummy, to be honest. But they went pretty far in making the spam hard to delete: each one has only nonsense words which vary from spam to spam; each gives a unique (and fake) IP address; and each has different URLs.

Fortunately, I did pick up on one point: each fake, junk URL had a common text string–just a few letters–which were unique enough that I could use it in MT-Blacklist. Otherwise it would have been impossible to block, and each one of the possibly hundreds of spam comments left would have to have been deleted one by one. The common string allowed me to zap all that had been laid and block the others coming in.

Nevertheless, this is getting way out of hand.

For those of you who keep in touch with others in the United States, you should be mindful that Daylight Saving Time (DST) has come into effect. As the old saying goes, Spring Forward… so Americans have set their clocks an hour forward, making the time difference between Japan and the U.S. slightly different–one hour more different, or less, depending on how you count it. I don’t like counting back–for the West coast, 16 to 17 hours back is just too much trouble. 7 to 8 hours forward, then subtract a day, is easier, at least for me.

We have been 7 hours behind San Francisco for the winter, so San Francisco will be 8 hours ahead now. 11 pm here is 7 am (the previous day) there. If you’re ever unsure, check this page with a World Clock, and go here if you want more info on DST.

The new Mac OS is coming out very soon, named “Tiger,” or Mac OS X v. 10.4. While its feature set seems less dramatically improved than past upgrades, one of the biggest benefits appears to be speed–this reviewer reports an almost doubling of speed on her G4 Powerbook. If this is true, then it would be a very nice upgrade for me–my old G4 (which I’m keeping until a big upgrade of the Powerbook line comes from Apple) is getting a bit sluggish, though much of that is probably due to the fact that I haven’t reformatted my hard drive and reinstalled my OS and apps in two years or so–that’ll slow any computer down.

New features in Tiger include Spotlight, a new super-fast file and content search feature (integrated into the Mac Mail app as well), Dashboard (which is a copycat of Konfabulator), which allows you to use mini-apps called “Widgets” for easy access to content and controls. You might also find Safari’s RSS reader or the “Automator” script-builder to be useful as well. But the speed increase and search upgrades are the real improvements made here.

Tiger is due to come out sometime in April, maybe April 15th, and its announcement is supposed to be in the next few days. If Apple acts as it has in the past, then new Mac purchasers can get a free upgrade to Tiger if they buy their computer after the announcement to Tiger is made.

Of course, OS X is already a hell of a lot better than Windows XP, which was released in October 2001 and has had only minor upgrades (mostly patches to numerous security holes) since then. The new Windows OS, code-named “Longhorn,” is scheduled to come out in late 2006, but many doubt that it will be released on schedule. And when it does come out, it will not be a really great upgrade, either–already, just to make it possible to maybe reach the end-of-2006 deadline, Microsoft had to axe Longhorn’s most awaited feature, called “WinFS,” a new storage and file system that would theoretically speed up Window’s file browsing and search features, which still, to this day, use decades-old DOS technology. Not only did Mac OS X rework their system long ago, but the OS release of Tiger is most likely going to be even better in file handling and searching than what WinFS will deliver whenever it comes out.

In short, to get Longhorn will be to get what the Mac has had for years. And most of the other improvements in Longhorn are so technical or business-related that the common user won’t find much that excites them. Primarily the graphic user interface changes (read: eye candy) are what will make the most difference for most people–and that was kind of like what happened with the switch to XP. It was essentially just Windows NT with new colors. And one feature of Longhorn, called “Palladium,” is hyped as a “security” feature, but mostly it is designed to keep big companies secure from you. It is reported to look at what you have on your computer and severely restrict your use of any file or program which is not verified by Microsoft as being fully paid for, and possibly even make it very difficult for competing and open-source software packages to operate on your computer. What’s more, Longhorn, originally planned not to be backwards-compatible, will require users of XP to get upgrades (possibly more kludge-like) to their OS in order to use the software that Longhorn will encourage.

In short, Longhorn promises to be a slick-looking but far-behind-the-Mac OS that essentially serves businesses, not you, and may be more trouble than it’s worth.

The one down side about the Mac is that while you get a lot more great innovations and improvements on a much more regular basis (once every year or year and a half or so, as opposed to once every five years with Windows), you also have to pay $100-130 or so for each upgrade if you want all the improvements immediately. Of course, there’s no guarantee that Longhorn won’t be just as expensive–some are talking about the possibility of a new “subscription” payment method, where you pax X number of dollars every year to use the OS. And presently the Windows upgrade price is about $200. So you can wait to get better features at the same time on the mac for half the price of Windows, or you can get Mac OS X upgrades as they come out and pay maybe 50% more than you would for Windows–but you’d have much more functionality much faster.

The Nightingales are back! At least in my neighborhood. Haven’t got a photo of one yet–they seem to like hiding–but you can see what one looks like here (found through Google Image Search, by the way). A small sample of the song is here–you can see why they stand out, aurally, at least. I remember that the Nightingale call was used a lot on the Kurosawa movie Tsubaki Sanjuro (a real fun flick).

Google had a bit of fun on April 1st, “introducing” a new line of on-line beverages called “Google Gulp (BETA)™” with technology that might be available in a couple hundred years or so. Be sure to read the disclaimer at the bottom titled “Google Gulp and Your Privacy,” it’s pretty funny.

There’s also their not-so-serious sketch of how Google’s storage space will continue to grow after their fully-serious bump up to 2GB (2052 MB, actually) of mail storage space. With that much space, so long as you have a fast enough internet connection, Google is looking more and more like an extra storage location rather than an email service–including software (only for Windows now) for storing photos in an organized way within your account.

And hey, I’ve only got 50 GMail invites left, so if you want one, better act fast!!!

Why are there so few power blackouts in Japan?

In the U.S., they do not happen all the time, but they do occur with some frequency. In my personal memory, it happened maybe once or twice a year on average, though that may vary a great deal from area to area.

But in fifteen years in Japan, I have never experienced a blackout. Not one.

I was first made aware of this back in the 90’s when I was in San Francisco. After a local blackout, a Japanese friend questioned the quality of the power supply, surprising me with the idea that this was not a universal phenomenon.

Now, in my current neighborhood, power lines are underground–which seems like a wise choice, for esthetics, safety, access and protection from the most common cause of electricity failures: falling branches of trees during storms.

But most neighborhoods in Japan have above-the-street power lines. So what’s keeping blackouts away, especially during storms and typhoons? Are there simply that many fewer trees? Are there backup systems? The ability to reroute? Different technologies in play? Newer infrastructure? Stronger power lines? I’d be interested to know the reason why…

When the Bush administration was casting about for countries to join the “coalition of the willing,” it was not just asking for volunteers–there was some quid-pro-quo going on. They’ll deny it, of course, but then they denied trying to bribe Turkey (with $28 billion and other considerations) to allow U.S. troops to move through that country in the Iraq invasion, even though the money was yanked back when Turkey refused the offer.

In this case, the bribe is not cash, but status: in return for Japan being one of the most notable nations to join the coalition, the U.S. is, in turn pushing for Japan to be given a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, a very powerful and influential spot. No permanent seat has been granted to any nation since the U.N. was founded and the current five nations dominated the council. There are ten non-permanent seats, and Japan has just won one of them (likely through U.S. intervention). But now, we are to believe for no reason except that Japan simply deserves it, the Bush administration has become Japan’s biggest cheerleader in the endeavor:

When reporters voiced concerns about U.S. support for making Japan a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, Rice responded that Japan’s increasingly global role and its strong financial support for the United Nations need to be recognized. The secretary did not address either bilateral issues between South Korea and Japan or Japanese domestic affairs, but did express her confidence “that democracies like Japan and South Korea … will be more than able” to deal with issues as they arise.

“[I]f we start to think about how the 21st century is going to play out, it is going to be the power of ideas that really matters, and the power of democratic ideals that really matters,” she said.

Translation: “we needed Japan so we could say that we weren’t going in alone in the Iraq War, and this is what we promised in return.” (Oh, and note the remark about Japan’s “strong financial support for the United Nations,” as if Republicans are now impressed with people who pay their dues to the U.N.!)

Not that Japan didn’t want to go into Iraq anyway; sending Japanese troops to Iraq, no matter how non-military their duties, establishes a precedent which will help Koizumi and the other right-wingers to accomplish what they have long been pushing for: the excision of Article 9 from the Japanese constitution, the part in which Japan forever renounces war, the part which prohibits Japan from acquiring an offensive military force or sending troops to fight overseas. Japan may or may not need this in light of possible U.S. troop reductions in the region and with growing tensions between Japan and North Korea, as well as with other countries–but if that is the case, then it should be made clearly and publicly, instead of being done covertly and under the table.

The permanent U.N. Security Council seat would be a further step for Japan to assert itself militarily–which is one of several reasons that Japan’s neighbors are not exactly thrilled at the prospect. China is working to prevent Japan from getting this plum, letting expats do most of the work, getting 1.7 million signatures on a petition to stop the Japanese bid, and publishing ads in prominent publications reporting on Japan’s misdeeds in WWII and its reticence in forwarding apologies over the incidents.

Similarly, South Korea is working, even more straightforwardly, to block Japan’s entry to the council, their U.N. ambassador saying:

We do not think Japan has the qualifications to become a UN Security Council member and we will try to make sure it does not. … There are difficulties for a country that does not have the trust of its neighbouring countries because of its lack of reflection on the past to play the role of a world leader.

Of course, it does not help that Koizumi and others in his government continue to pay official visits to Yasukuni Shrine (where war dead, including class-A war criminals, are interred) despite knowing that this practice infuriates its neighbors.

Note: no foolin’.

Nine months ago this blog broke the 10,000 mark in unique visitors; this month, it broke 20,000. These numbers are not always precise–spammers have an effect, though not as large as they might, since the biggest-volume spammers usually don’t vary their IP addresses (I am still waiting for an MT-Blacklist-style referral spam deletion program; the only ones that exist so far are highly tecchie in nature). But still, the growth of the readership does jibe with expected growth in many respects. Here is a chart showing the progress over the last two years of blogging:

The first spike, in September 2003, came when I was linked to by MacSurfer, and got a highly unusual wave of visitors; the second spike, in September and October 2004, was due to election coverage, and readership waned in November. This month’s spike is largely due to coverage of the Terri Schiavo case. The general trend is an upward one, meaning that I could hit the ludicrous number of 30,000 before the end of this year. I say “ludicrous” because I already cannot accept that even a small percent of the numbers I’m seeing are coming by to visit. Mostly, I have Google to thank–8000 hits from them alone, accounting for 40% of visitors.

Just announced from Toshiba, via Mac Rumors: Toshiba has a new battery, available commercially in 2006, which will be able to attain an 80% charge after only one minute of recharging (total recharge would take “a few more minutes”). Furthermore, it will lose only 1% of its capacity in 1,000 charges.

There may be some caveats there, of course: the lossless capacity is likely tested under ideal laboratory conditions, not real-life ones, and no clear mention is made as to how much energy is stored–will it provide for a longer battery usage time? Or will each charge last only half as long as batteries of a similar size today? Are there other problems with it we don’t know about yet?

It has only just been announced and not at all tested; but if its performance can hold up to current batteries, this will turn out to be quite a revolutionary change.

Symantec, a company that produces anti-virus software for the Mac, recently caused a stir in the community by releasing a report which suggests that a wave of viruses is headed for the Mac:

Out of the public eye for some time, it is now clear that the Mac OS is increasingly becoming a target for the malicious activity that is more commonly associated with Microsoft and various Unix-based operating systems. … Apple Computer has become a target for new attacks… The appearance of a rootkit109 called Opener in October 2004 serves to illustrate the growth in vulnerability research on the OS X platform…

Many have criticized this announcement, noting that since Symantec sells anti-virus software and that a virus scare would increase their business, the warning could easily be seen as self-serving.

Indeed, Symantec’s evidence is weak: the very first attack on OS X recently appeared, six months ago, in the form of the “rootkit” called “Opener.” However, “Opener” is not a virus or a worm, and actually requires someone to allow root access via a password on the system before it can even be a threat–and even then, the threat is localized to a single user. In addition, the rootkit cannot propagate itself. It hardly even qualifies as a threat at all, and so far as I can find, only one user has reported suffering from it; subsequent worry has been about the rootkit’s potential, and in the six months following the first report, I have heard of no subsequent attacks.

So essentially, there’s no evidence that a wave of Mac viruses is headed for your computer. Not that it’s impossible, mind you–Mac OS X is very strong, but not completely impenetrable. It is assumed that at some point, a virus will break through. But it is also acknowledged that cracking OS X with any kind of substantial virus or worm is extraordinarily difficult. One Mac advocate believes this to the point that he actually offered $25,000 (reportedly doubled to $50,000) to anyone who could infect a pair of Mac G5s running without a firewall or anti-virus software. He closed down the contest after strong disapproval from the Mac community, as well as the legal issues–paying for someone to create viruses could be construed as a federal crime.

Certainly, the Mac OS is very strong. It was built from the ground up to be secure, whereas Windows is a virtual sieve of security holes. Mac browsers and email software do not have the virtually unlimited access to system resources that Microsoft’s browser and email apps have. Mac OS X requires a password to be typed in whenever the system is altered; not so in Windows. And systems that are most vulnerable are turned off by default in OS X, requiring a user who knows a little about what they’re doing to start them up–and a great majority of users will never need those services anyway. This article claims that the greatest threat to a Mac would be a Trojan-horse app could break Mac OS X–and such an app would be instantly outed, meaning the outbreak would be minimal at best.

Some say that the only reason that Mac OS X has remained virus-free is because of its small market share; a virus author wants to affect the largest number of people, so the Mac just isn’t on the radar. And while this makes some sense, it does not make complete sense. There are more than enough Mac and UNIX users out there so that someone should have had a strong interest by now. But even more convincing is the fact the reported invulnerability of OS X would be like an “attractive nuisance,” a challenge for hackers to test their skills; there would certainly be a great deal of props given in hacker circles to the first person to take down the OS. But in four years, no one has done this. Which begs the question, why not? Certainly at least one hacker should have taken the time to do this by now.

Again, this is not to say it can’t be done–but there is a huge difference between potential and reality. Windows users must face 60,000-plus menaces to their OS that are out there (I receive a steady stream of Windows viruses in junk emails), while Mac users still do not have any palpable threats to their security. And when a real Mac virus does appear, there will be so much coverage that it will be almost impossible to miss it. Still, it is a good idea to protect your system as much as possible. But the worry is far, far less.

Michael Schiavo has announced that he will order an autopsy and publicize the results to prove the extent of Terri’s brain damage to all those who perceive that she’s conscious and aware. This demonstrates his confidence that the medical evidence is extremely strong that Terri is in a persistent/permanent vegetative state, as an autopsy would reveal if she were capable of awareness or rehabilitation. If, as the RTL’ers are charging, Terri is in good shape, then an autopsy would be incredibly damning for him. It is also to fight against recent rumors that his plans for cremation are to cover up malfeasance.

Of course, at this point, the RTL’ers will jump on anything. For example, a web search brought to light a page–if authentic (there are misspellings)–which seems to show that Schiavo and his new family were involved in an insurance agency. Although it was simply a page stating that such a business existed, all the “pro-life” rumor-mongers instantly concluded that Schiavo is into massive insurance fraud, without any evidence whatsoever. This page, for instance, goes on about the conspiracy at length, but what it amounts to is that because (a) Schiavo nominally signed on to a business run by his new life partner’s family–and with no other information at all–that (b) he has secretly bought a massive insurance policy on Terri’s life and stands to rake in truckloads of money when she dies. They even take the typo on the web page (“insurnace” instead of “insurance”) to mean that he was trying to hide the nature of the company from anyone searching for it.

This is stupid on many levels. First of all, a search would bring out his name and the name of his partner’s family, so an intentional typo in the name would be idiotic. Second, what insurance company in its right mind would approve and pay out on a life insurance policy for someone in a PVS on a feeding tube when legal proceedings were underway to have the tube removed? (The agency seems to have been founded in 2001, three years after the Schiavo case went to trial.) The very idea is moronic to the extreme. This person rants on for pages about all the ways one can break insurance laws, all the many evils Schiavo was/is/will be planning (with one small disclaimer that the writer is not actually “accusing” Schiavo of anything!), peppered with biblical references and mini-rants… without even the merest shred of evidence that anything at all about the whole theory is in any way true.

It’s as if I noted that you traveled out of town a year and a half ago, and not knowing anything about where you went or what you did, I concluded that you left town to have a torrid love affair after which you went on a killing spree–not that I’m accusing you of anything, of course! That’s the cognitive leap going on here. And it puts into light all the accusations being made about Schiavo–so much fabrication and lies, based on little more than imagination. If you do a Google search for “Jerger & Centonze,” the name of the company, you’ll find more conspiracy theories, each one more vacuous than the next.

In the meantime, members of the “culture of life” continue to make death threats. So what’s new? Also, Billmon at Whiskey Bar finds out that one of the “pro-life” crowd outside Terri’s hospice is someone who not only participated in “interrogation” in Iraq, but also stated publicly that for an interrogator, “sadism is always right over the hill. You have to admit it. Don’t fool yourself – there is a part of you that will say, ‘This is fun.’ ” Ah, splendid.

And then we return to the political dimension of the affair. As Bush’s poll ratings plummet in the wake of his emergency trip to sign the law for Terri, there is movement in the party to distance Bush from the whole affair. Now excuses are being made that Bush had to be pressed and lobbied, and that he “didn’t want to get directly involved.” The claim is that this coercion which Bush apparently struggled valiantly against but in the end succumbed to took place on his flight to Washington to sign the bill. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but if Bush wasn’t convinced yet, then why had he committed untold wads of taxpayer money to take Air Force One to Washington for no other reason than to sign the bill into law? Bush’s plain eagerness to do everything in his power to not only sign the bill but to make the outrageously clear physical statement that this was his #1 priority clashes starkly with current claims that Bush was somehow reluctant but had to be bullied into it somehow.

This after an insane attempt by state police, likely ordered by Jeb Bush, to raid the hospice, grab Terri and take her to a hospital where a feeding tube would be reinserted.

What a farce this whole affair is….

Though I spent quite a long time out today, the crowds seemed to scare the birds off. As a result, I just caught sight of only a few new birds today. A lot of old ones were out–Wagtails, Tree Sparrows, Crows, Kites, Bulbuls, Thrushes, Starlings, Egrets, Cormorants, a variety of ducks, and even a Sandpiper, a few Black-faced Buntings and pair of Oriental Turtledoves. Had this been my first day I’d have been a bit overwhelmed.

However, I did see two new birds–only one of which I could identify, though. First was a Meadow Bunting (Houjiro • ホウジロ), which was flying around where there were a lot of Great Tits and Tree Sparrows, along a brush line near a bridge on the Tama River.

I only got two shots before it flew off, but by chance the focus worked for once, and I got the very nice shot above.

The second bird looked like it could be some kind of Bunting or maybe a Pipit, but I couldn’t quite tell which, despite a fairly original-looking set of markings around the eyes and ears. As usual, if any reader can identify this bird, let me know!

After that, the most interesting find of the day was a Japanese Cormorant–but this time I was able to get close. Usually I just spy them from across the river, and have to make do with long shots. This time, I saw one sitting at the edge of a field of stones at the edge of my side of the river, so I decided to see how close I could get, not expecting much to happen. But I ambled carefully over the stones, going just a few meters at a time, then stopping and waiting. Apparently, this was acceptable to the Cormorant, because it just sat there doing its thing, until I was about eight meters away–and then it almost casually slipped off into the water. But not before I got this close-up shot:

The first is reduced slightly to fit my usual frame size for photos here; the second is full-size but cropped a little closer.

For more photos from the day, click on the “Continue Reading” link!

Read more…

It seems like everyone was out there today–I’ve never seen so many people out at the parks and on the river. Tons of people. Too many, in fact, for good birding. A lot of guys fishing out there, especially. You see them out a lot of the time, but today they were everywhere.

Though my usual spot on the river didn’t have any birds because of the crowds, there was one interesting visitor near the embankment:

So I traveled around quite a bit, up and down the Tama River, and up into Sakuragaoka Park (no birds there, but some nice views). One thing this birding will do for me is give me some much-needed exercise. Though my feet are killing me.

In any case, a few nice photos from today–vertical shots, this time. Photos of the birds I found later.

If you have seen the (heavily and purposefully edited) Terri Schiavo videotapes at all (and that’s likely anyone who watches TV, as they’re all over the place), then you should read this piece on how we look for, and perceive, consciousness and awareness where there is none.

Here’s one little snippet: a woman in Tampa, FL, buys caramel machiattos from Starbucks. She notes that the quotes on the side of the cups, part of Starbucks’ new “The Way I See It” campaign, have more liberal thinkers quoted than conservatives. She says:

“There are a lot of great conservative quotes, but oh well, I’m not surprised. I’m used to being under-represented.”

So, her party controls the White House, both houses of Congress, and the Supreme Court; a vast majority of pundits and commentators in the media are conservatives, and the culture of conservatism runs deep in the media in general. And this poor woman feels that she is always “under-represented” because her coffee cups disagree with her more often than not.

This mirrors a comment by Tim recently, something discussed just a bit in the media, about the irony of a majority which feels it is persecuted. Christians, for example, enjoy an exalted status in this country, where every belief system is supposed to be equal. But in the media and in society as a whole, Christianity is dominant–even in government, where its incursions over the past few hundred years have given it special recognition that no other belief system enjoys. But like privileged white males who feel that minorities and women are stealing away their justly deserved status and position, right-wing Christians are expressing the feeling of persecution and oppression when they cannot have the dominance they feel is only natural and right.

And when you look at people crying persecution, it does, more often than not, seem to come from the mouths of conservative Christian white males–a group which at this time have a greatly disproportionate amount of influence and power in American life.

When you feel that it is your right to be of a higher status than everyone else, anything less than that may well feel like persecution. But you look pretty ridiculous to everyone else when you’re on top of the heap and are crying about persecution.

Most of the day was spent doing grading and blogging (more responding to comments, mostly on the Schiavo case–that issue has brought this blog’s readership to an average of 2000 hits per day, mostly via search engines), but by sundown I found myself free and so decided to go down to the river and see what was going on. There was the usual assortment of ducks and cormorants (though I discovered that the cormorants started fishing at about this time of day, apparently), along with Wagtails (Japanese: Sekirei • セキレイ), both White (Haku-sekirei • ハクセキレイ) and Japanese (Seguro-Sekirei • セグロセキレイ), as pictured below).

Now, that’s not the best Wagtail photo I’ve gotten, but I almost got a great shot–and then foiled myself. That’s “foiled” with an “f,” thank you. Anyway, I had just figured out how to get good shots of the Wagtails. There’s a concrete embankment sloping at maybe 30 degrees before the water; the Wagtails like to run up and down the bottom of the embankment looking for morsels. I usually walk along the top of the embankment, but the Wagtails are particularly skittish and fly away before I can get close enough for a good shot. So I struck upon the idea of spotting the location of a wagtail, then walking ten feet or more inland from the embankment so I would be hidden from the bird; then, where the Wagtail was idling, I would sneak up and hold the camera over my head so that only that would peek above the embankment, not scaring off the bird. I did this, and had a superb shot lined up… and just at that moment the batteries went dead. I had failed to bring a fresh set (again! I gotta stop doing that), though I did have a spent set, which can usually be milked for a few extra shots. So I threw them in, followed the bird again, set up another good shot–and of course, they failed again. Yargh.

I did see a few new species, though. First of all, I haven;t differentiated much between crows before, but the pair I spotted on the riverbank today did not not the huge beak that Jungle Crows (Hashibuto-garasu • ハシブトガラス) have. Sure enough, they’re Carrion Crows (Hashibon-garasu • ハシボンガラス). Not the best shot here, but I like the lighting.

But the best discovery was one I did not expect: a Sandpiper (Japanese: Inshigi • インシギ). A Common Sandpiper, to be precise. It was wading along the same embankment edge that the Wagtails were. Actually, I came up with the sneak-up-on-the-embankment technique with this bird, and I did get a few good shots.