Sea turtles

Yet another endangered species. Did you know that

[t]he leatherback, the largest and oldest of the sea turtles, has been around 100 million years or so -- surviving the asteroid that 65 million years ago struck the Yucatan Peninsula, which scientists believe contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Leatherbacks, though contemporaries of the dinosaurs, are reptiles and feed predominantly on another ancient creature: jellyfish.

The turtle gets its name from a leathery shell that has the texture of smooth, hard rubber. Its shell also has hydrodynamic dorsal ridges, which, combined with front flippers that can span 10 to 15 feet, enable these reptiles to soar like giant birds through the ocean.

Leatherbacks dive deeper than hard-shelled turtles -- nearly a mile -- because their supple shells can compress under the intense pressure. They also venture into colder waters because of an ability to regulate their body temperature.

Males spend their entire lives at sea, making them particularly difficult to study. The biggest male on record was 9 1/2 feet long and tipped the scales at nearly a ton. Females are smaller. Once they reach maturity, they venture ashore every three years, on average, to lay their eggs. That nesting routine provides researchers their only real opportunity to study these ancient animals.

But over-fishing, which traps the turtles in nets and on hooks, and poaching have led to a drop in the number of Pacific leatherback sea turtles, according to an article, "Sea Turtle Is Losing the Race" by Kenneth R. Weiss, in today's LA Times.

Los Angeles

From tomorrow's paper, a column by Mary McNamara: "Personal space in cruising cocoons."

For all its purported body worship and collective gym memberships, Los Angeles is not a physical city. People visiting here are struck by the lack of direct contact required by daily life -- unlike in New York or Paris or Tokyo or Rome, you can go about your business for days in Los Angeles without touching another soul or even bumping shoulders....

Los Angeles is all about being in a city but not of it.

Oxen

There's another wonderful article in the current issue of The Atlantic Monthly about the wisdom of the old ways of farming: "Carbonaro and Primavera" by Susan Orlean. It features a farmer in Cuba who never gave up using oxen to plough his fields even during the era of abundant Soviet aid in the form of tractors.

Once or twice Humberto rented a tractor, but he didn't like it. "It presses too hard," he explained. "The land ends up flattened, like a Cuban sandwich." Even when everyone else was using tractors, using chemicals, growing only sugar, Humberto ploughed with oxen; fertilized naturally, the way his father had taught him; cultivated tomatoes and corn and lettuce and beans—and sweet potatoes. Humberto never actually owned the oxen. He borrowed them from his neighbor, whose father had fought beside Humberto's father in the War of Independence.

When the Soviet money ran out, the battalions of tractors, now out of gas, rattled to a standstill, and oxen—quaint, anachronistic oxen—were once again worth their weight in gold. It was a lucky farmer who had never given them up, who still had a working team, who could still plough and plant even in the worst moments after the Soviet collapse. Luckier still was a farmer who had stuck with such crops as corn and tomatoes rather than being seduced by the money that had seemed as if it would flow forever from sugar. In such a moment a man like Humberto no longer seemed a throwback. Now in his eighties, slightly lame, wizened, Humberto is everything the new Cuban farmer needs to be: small-scale, efficient, diversified, organic—and, most important, invulnerable to the ups and downs of Cuba's gasoline economy, which once depended entirely on Soviet good will and has since come to rest precariously on Venezuelan.

Easter Day evening

I'm sitting here relaxed and tired but refreshed after a short nap. The long season of Lent culminating in Easter is over. Easter now will linger until Pentecost. But my music duties go back to normal, after six weeks of extra services, including two memorial services. Today I played both piano and organ. A trumpet player played the prelude, postlude, and accompanied some of the hymns. Two altos sang Vivaldi's "Laudamus Te," accompanied by a jazz acoustic bass player. The trumpet player stayed for the beginning of the Spanish service, too.

Yesterday, of course, was spent dreading what might happen today as I wasn't able to practice with the singers or trumpet player until 45 minutes before the service. Then one of the organ pipes needed tuning (a 16' F#, crucial for all the hymns in D major). The person who knows how to do it didn't show up until about ten minutes before the service. But everything turned out fine and was very festive.

This afternoon, to recover, I went for a leisurely stroll at the Huntington gardens. It seems such a civilized thing to do on a Sunday afternoon. In the desert garden the ice plants are in shockingly bright full bloom. I walked around to the Japanese garden to admire the bonsai, rub the California jade river rock "sculptures," and sit quietly and contemplate the Zen rock garden.

Then I went to the William Blake exhibit. I didn't realize he was an artist as well as a poet. Many of his etchings and illustrations are of biblical themes and thus fit with my frame of mind today. I was intrigued by his etchings (and interpretation) of the book of Job.

More on Assyrian antiquities

The looting of antiquities in Iraq and efforts to recover them continue to receive extensive news coverage. Others already have pointed out that oil production facilities were carefully guarded but not the museums, even though there was ample advance warning, based on experience from the 1991 war, that looting would be a danger. I also wonder if troops on the ground might have been more aware of the importance of the museums if ancient history was taught more thoroughly in schools.

A few years ago I heard a fascinating lecture, illustrated with slides, about the history of Assyrian archaeology and its impact on society, as well as biblical studies, in Victorian England. The lecture, by Steven W. Holloway, is now published on the web by the Journal of Religion and Society, complete with wonderful illustrations: "Biblical Assyria and Other Anxieties in the British Empire."

Here's the introductory paragraph:

British imperialism in Western Asia exercised a staggering impact on biblical studies through, among other exploits, the excavation of Assyrian palaces and the unveiling of the results before the insular public via exhibits in the British Museum and published illustrations of the antiquities themselves. In terms of heritage, the Assyrian monuments attested to the veracity of the biblical tradition that was being challenged on several fronts. In terms of prestige, the ingathering of antiquities from the palaces of the very Assyrian kings railed against by the biblical prophets into the British Museum constituted a victory over the French, who had failed to procure these artifacts for their own glorification, and the despised Ottoman Empire, whose myopic disdain for its pre-Islamic past prompted it to discard its own cultural heritage. This study seeks to illuminate a fascinating moment in early Victorian social history through the exploration of British rapport with the world of ancient Assyria. As the Assyrian kings of the Old Testament appeared in the cuneiform records like scheduled stops along the railway line, they were hailed as epical testimonies to the integrity of the received biblical history. When one biblical king failed to board the train, however, both scholarly panic and denial were given free rein until the absentee monarch was recovered and rehabilitated. This is a story about the British race to conquer the biblical world by annexing both the physical remains of the Assyrian imperial past and its hermeneutical keys, the impact that appropriation had on English society, and the avid quest for missing King Pul that illustrates the essential fragility of the entire enterprise.

Paragraphs 7-9 describe the display (and marketing!) of the antiquities at the British Museum and their re-creation at the Crystal Palace.

For those who collect mac and cheese recipes

This recipe by Marian Burros is from a CSMonitor article, "Comfort food still on front burner," written by Seth Stern.

Macaroni and Cheese

1 cup diced onion
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 cups low-fat milk
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
10 ounces extra-sharp aged white Cheddar, grated, plus 2 ounces, grated
Salt and freshly ground white pepper to taste
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
8 ounces corkscrew-shaped pasta (Burros suggests cavatappi)
2 tablespoons grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

In a large saucepan, cook the onion in the butter over low heat until it is soft but not browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the flour. Remove from the heat and whisk in the milk until thoroughly blended. Return to medium heat and cook, stirring, until the mixture begins to thicken. Remove from the heat and stir in the mustard, the 10 ounces of Cheddar, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and hot pepper sauce.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to package directions until just al dente. Drain but do not rinse. Stir immediately into the prepared cheese sauce until well blended. Adjust the seasonings. Spoon the mixture into a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Top with the remaining 2 ounces of Cheddar and the Parmigiano-Reggiano. Place the rack in the bottom third of an oven that has been preheated to 400 degrees F. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the mixture is hot, bubbling throughout, and golden.

Makes 3 to 4 servings as a main dish or 6 servings as a side dish.

Local news

Maybe I should start getting the local paper. I just heard this story about "Residents evacuated due to toxic mold" in a building a few blocks away from where I live. I'd seen trucks parked outside but didn't know what was going on. The Ecumenical Council of Pasadena Area Churches is helping the families try to cope with finding temporary housing.