Economist, Sept 28, 2013 (II)

choi

Yesterday, in the posting titled "Economist, Sept 28, 2013 (I)," under I forgot to anotate "elk."


(2) Marine ecology | Sea Wolves; Sharks, it seems, are necessary for the ecological health of coral reefs.
http://www.economist.com/news/sc ... lth-coral-reefs-sea

Note:
(a) "FOR decades, rangers in Yellowstone National Park, in the American West, had to cull the area’s red deer (known locally as elk, though they bear no resemblance to European elk, known locally as moose) because the animals’ numbers were grazing the place to death and thus threatening the livelihoods of other species."

elk
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elk
(Cervus canadensis; was long believed to be a subspecies of the [smaller] European red deer (Cervus elaphus), but evidence from a 2004 study of the mitochondrial DNA indicates that the two are distinct species; section 1 Naming and etymology)

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(4) ()  Water and agriculture in Kansas | Sip It Slowly; Farmers in Kansas are starting to adapt to declining stocks of groundwater .

Quote:

"The Ogallala Aquifer runs from South Dakota to Texas. In many places water is pumped far faster than the aquifer can recharge naturally from rivers and rainfall. The consequences of overuse are not always clear. But Kansas now has an unusually detailed portrait of groundwater use and its implications for future farm production, thanks to research by academics at Kansas State University (KSU). The researchers say that by 1960 only 3% of the aquifer had been used but by 2010 30% had gone.

"The problem is that irrigation, which is necessary in drier parts of the state, is far more productive. David Steward, the study’s lead author, says that over the past 30 years the productivity of maize (corn) farming in irrigated Kansas peaked at 12 tonnes per hectare, against four tonnes on drylands.

My comment:
(a) There is no need to read the rest of the article, which says American farmers are getting more efficient with water use.
(b)
(i) Ogallala Aquifer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer
(named in 1898 by NH Darton from its type locality near the town of Ogallala, Nebraska; rests on the Ogallala Formation)
(ii) Ogallala, Nebraska
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala,_Nebraska
(a city; name comes from the Oglala Sioux tribe)

choi

(5) Semiconductor equipment | Applied Economics; The quest for scale brings about a rare American-Japanese merger.
http://www.economist.com/news/bu ... r-applied-economics

Quote:

"on September 24th the biggest of them [makers of chip equipment], America’s Applied Materials, and the third-biggest, Tokyo Electron of Japan, said they were joining forces to create a new company worth $29 billion. Together they will have just over a quarter of the market, about twice as much as ASML of the Netherlands, the second-biggest.

"The equipment-makers face a small, ever more powerful group of customers. Just three companies—Intel, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company and Samsung—will account for more than half of this year’s purchases of kit by the chipmaking industry, says Gartner, a research firm. Tokyo Electron used to have a more robust customer base of midsized Japanese semiconductor firms, but as these have weakened it has become more dependent on the few big foreign customers. The chief goal of the deal for both firms, therefore, is to strengthen their hand against their giant clients, says Tetsuya Wadaki, an analyst at Nomura Securities.

My comment: If it does not cost you, you may read it, Otherwise, there is no need to.

choi

(6) London’s golden age | Playing Dirty; How scurrilous behaviour inspired some of the finest works of art.
http://www.economist.com/news/bo ... s-art-playing-dirty
(book review on Vic Gatrell, The First Bohemians; Life and art in London’s Golden Age. Allen Lane, 2013)

Note:
(a)
(i) Giacomo Casanova
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giacomo_Casanova
(1725-1798; from the Republic of Venice [697-1797 (surrendered to Napoleon)])

* The Italian and Catalan (in Spain) surname Casanova is from "Latin casa ‘house’ + nova ‘new.’"

(b) In this book, Vic Gatrell "has written an entertaining look at the artists and writers who lived in and around Covent Garden and Soho during the 18th century."
(i)
(A) Covent Garden
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covent_Garden
(By the 18th century Covent Garden had become a well-known red-light district)

section 1.1 Early history: "Around 1200 the first mention of an abbey garden appears in a document mentioning a walled garden owned by the Benedictine monks of the Abbey of St Peter, Westminster. * * * The use of the name "Covent"—an Anglo-French term for a religious community, equivalent to "monastery" or "convent"[12]—appears in a document in 1515."

(B) In modern days the English word "covent" does not exist. Consult
convent (n; Middle English covent, from Anglo-French, from Medieval Latin conventus, from Latin, assembly, from convenire)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/convent
(ii) Soho
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soho
(part of West End of London; section 1 History)

Contrast
SoHo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SoHo
(in Mahattan; "The name 'SoHo' refers to the area being "SOuth of HOuston (Street)", and was also a reference to the London district of Soho. It was coined by Chester Rapkin, an urban planner who was the author of the 'South Houston Industrial Area' study, also known as the [1963] 'Rapkin Report'")


(c) "This is a fitting follow-up to his 2006 book 'City of Laughter,' which looked at the satirical prints that came out of London in the earlier part of the [18th] century.

Vic Gatrell, City of Laughter; Sex and satire in eighteenth-century London. Walker & Co, 2006.
http://books.google.com/books/ab ... tml?id=op-FAAAAIAAJ
("Between 1770 and 1830, London was the world’s largest and richest city, the center of hectic social ferment and spectacular sexual liberation. These singular conditions prompted revolutionary modes of thought, novel sensibilities, and constant debate about the relations between men and women. Such an atmosphere also stimulated outrageous behavior, from James Boswell’s copulating on Westminster Bridge to the Prince Regent’s attempt to seduce a woman by pleading, sobbing, and stabbing himself with a pen-knife.  And nowhere was London’s lewdness and iconoclasm more vividly represented than its satire")


(d) vocabulary:
(i) "scurrilous behavior"

scurrilous (adj; From Latin scurrilis (“buffoon-like”), from [Latin] scurra (“a buffoon”))
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/scurrilous
(ii) dustman (n): "British :  a collector of trash or garbage"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dustman
  
(e) "Some of [William] Hogarth’s most exquisite prints depict women spitting alcohol at each other or men escaping from bedroom windows while their mistress’s husband enters the room. Hogarth preferred to paint characters such as Sarah Malcolm, a 22-year-old girl from County Durham who was executed for robbing and murdering an elderly widow and her servants in 1733, instead of the dukes and duchesses of portraits exhibited in the Royal Academy, established in 1768."
(i) William Hogarth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hogarth
(1697-1764; section 2.2.2 Marriage à-la-mode; section 2.2.4 Beer Street and Gin Lane
(ii) List of works by William Hogarth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_works_by_William_Hogarth
("Sarah Malcolm / Sarah Malcolm in Prison (1732)")
(iii) a man "escaping from bedroom windows while their mistress’s husband enters the room"

Marriage à-la-mode: 5. The Bagnio
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mar ... mode:_5._The_Bagnio
(B) à la mode (adj; French “in the style”):
"1: Fashionable; in the current style or fashion
2: (US) Served with ice cream"
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%C3%A0_la_mode
(C) pie a la mode
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pie_a_la_Mode
(iv) Jamie Doward, London Lives, an online archive, has brought 18th century Britain to life; The publication of 240,000 workhouse records, criminal registers, coroners' reports and court orders on the internet reveals how those at the bottom of London society coped from 1690 to 1800. Guardian, June 26, 2010.
http://www.theguardian.com/socie ... tory-online-archive
(v) County Durham was named after City of Durham.
Durham
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durham
(section 1 Name)

"Durham is the only English county name to be prefixed with 'County' in common usage - a practice more common in Ireland."  Wiki


(f) Thomas "Rowlandson, a lesser-known illustrator, often drew pictures of himself cheating young wealthy men at card games while their fathers slept drunkenly nearby. At around this time [Daniel] Defoe wrote his shocking novel 'Moll Flanders,' about the life of a dissolute thief."
(i) Thomas Rowlandson (1756-1827)
(ii) Daniel Defoe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe
(c 1660-1731; born Daniel Foe; now most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe (1719); section 4.4.6 Moll Flanders and Roxana)
(iii) Moll Flanders
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moll_Flanders
(1722)

(g) “'Mohocks,' aristocratic hoodlums, prowled London’s streets, breaking windows and assaulting bystanders. Theatrical performances sometimes turned into riots, while theatre boxes were more likely to be full of boisterous punters than aesthetes concentrating on the performance."
(i) Mohocks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohocks
(Taking their name from the Mohawk Indians; Historians have found little evidence of any organized gang)
(ii) punter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punter
(may refer to: A British, Australian and Hiberno (Irish) English colloquial term for a paying guest or customer)
(iii) aesthete (n; back-formation from aesthetic):
"one having or affecting sensitivity to the beautiful especially in art"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/aesthete

(h) "It was a time before art was meant to be a respectable profession, and the work was all the better for it."
(i) so much the better (ALSO all the better):
"INFORMAL  used to say that a particular action or situation would be even more successful <If you can go there this afternoon, so much the better.>"
Cambridge Dictinaries Online, undated.
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/ ... /so-much-the-better
(ii) all (adv): "so much <all the better for it>"
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/all