u/Major_MKusanagi

Movie was filmed on location between October 1949 and March 1950, at Lake Tahoe, Echo Lake and Cascade Lake, California. It's also a very good movie, which is every bit as captivating today as when it was released, so watch it if you can...

Blond guy is actually holding hands with Shabba and Supercat, partying with them and having a good time, which I have a real hard time imagining him doing today...

Also, you need to watch (or rewatch) Spellbound, one of the best Film Noir movies ever for me, with a Salvador Dalì-designed dream sequence...

Die klimawandelbedingte Hitzewelle in Europa ist wirklich schwer auszuhalten, v.a. in Ländern wie Deutschland, bei denen es jahrhundertelang darauf ankam, sich gegen Kälte zu schützen, und von der Architektur der Häuser und Städte, bis hin zum Fehlen von Hitzeschutz, wie Grünanlagen, Stadtbäume, Parks, Brunnen und Flüsse, wie Klimaanlagen, Jalousien, Rolladen, Isolierung - nichts ist auf diese Hitze eingestellt, bis auf die paar Glücklichen mit eigenem Haus/Wohnung mit Wärmepumpe und/oder Klimaanlage.

Und dann vermisse ich vollkommen die Informationen zur miesen Luftqualität - die einen großen Anteil an der Morbidität und Mortalität bei der Hitze hat, sowie dass so viele Menschen schlecht schlafen, Kopfschmerzen haben, das Gefühl, kaum Luft zu kriegen u.v.a.m.

Zur Zeit ist Saharastaub in Europa (für nicht-nordafrikanische Verhältnisse) ziemlich stark, und die Ozonkonzentration ebenfalls sehr hoch seit es so heiß ist, v.a. im Westen Deutschlands (s.o., Skiron Forecast der Uni Athen ist das beste Saharastaubmodell, rechts Umweltbundesamt Copernicus, Ozonkonzentration für morgen).

Saharastaub sorgt für mehr Asthma-Exazerbationen, COPD-Schübe, Bronchitis, Pneumonie und respiratorischen Symptome (Husten, Keuchen, Atemnot, Halsschmerzen)*, was sich auch in den Not- und Krankenhausaufnahmen zeigt, langfristig beeinträchtigt er das Lungenwachstum bei Kindern, und bei Tagen mit viel Saharastaub erhöht sich das Risiko für akutes Koronarsyndrom, Herzinsuffizienz-Exazerbationen, Arrhythmien, Schlaganfall und kardiovaskuläre Mortalität.**

Ozon ist halt ein Reizgas, was immer schädlich ist, die WHO-Grenzwerte liegen bei einem 8-Stunden-Mittelwert von 100 μ g/m³ (EU-Grenzwert ist, leider, höher, bei 120 μ g/m³) - diese Werte werden laut der Messstationen des Umweltbundesamts in praktisch ganz Deutschland seit Beginn der Hitze überschritten, bis hin zu über 120-180 μ g/m³, die sogenannte "Informationsschwelle". Ozon reizt die Augen, Nase, Rachen, und schadet ebenfalls der Lungenfunktion, das bedeutet Husten, Halsschmerzen, Atemnot, Brustenge, FEV1-Abnahme, ebenfalls die Zunahme von Asthma-Exazerbationen, COPD-Schüben, Bronchitis und Notaufnahmebesuchen/Krankenhauseinweisungen. ***

Auch Ozon führt zu erhöhter Mortalität, mehr Fällen von Hypertonie, Herzinfarkt, Herzinsuffizienz, Arrhythmien, Schlaganfall und kardiovaskulärer Mortalität, wie auch Assoziationen mit Out-of-Hospital-Herzstillstand (z. B. 1 % Risikoanstieg pro 12 ppb Ozon-Erhöhung).****

Wir haben hier mehr Saharastaub, weil wir häufiger Hitze-Wetterlagen haben, die diesen mitbringen - wegen des Klimawandels.

Und Ozon bildet sich, wenn Stickoxide (NOx) und flüchtige organische Verbindungen (VOC) unter starker Sonneneinstrahlung (UV-Licht) photochemisch miteinander reagieren.

Es braucht also Hitze (Globale Erwärmung) und Stickoxide (die stammen überwiegend aus Verbrennungsprozessen in Kraftfahrzeugen und Kraftwerken, aber natürlich werden ohne Verbrennungsprozesse, also bei E-Mobilität, kein NOx freigesetzt), und flüchtige organische Verbindungen (VOC), die werden auch im Straßenverkehr, in Industrieanlagen, aber auch durch Lösungsmittel und in der Landwirtschaft (durch Tierhaltung, Gülle, Kunstdünger - beides erzeugt NOx - Pestizide - erzeugt VOC, Methan - erzeugt Ozon) freigesetzt.

Aber wir wissen doch, was wir gegen den Klimawandel machen können, gegen Ozon (NOx reduzieren, also Verbrennungprozesse reduzieren, also mehr Elektromobilität, regenerative Energie statt Verbrennung in Kraftwerken, Industrieemissionen und Lösungsmittel kontrollieren, industrielle Landwirtschaftsemissionen reduzieren), wie wir uns vor Hitze besser schützen, vom Anders-bauen der Städte, Häuser, Straßen, bis hin zu verpflichtend isolierten Dachgeschosswohnungen, den verpflichtenden Rolladen und Jalousien, den verpflichtenden Klimaanlagen (zuerest mal für die besonders vulnerablen Gruppen), von den Parks, Stadtbäumen, grünen Städten...?

Den überhitzten Kopf in den Saharasand stecken reicht halt nicht...

Da leiden Menschen, Tiere, Natur, von der Notaufnahme und dem Krankenhaus bis hin zu den gefühlt Tausenden Redditors, die nicht schlafen, essen, arbeiten, denken, leben können...

Ich will da in den Medien und der Politik Problembewußtsein und Lösungen sehen...!

P.S. Es gibt dazu natürlich einen ganzen Haufen Studien, das ist nur eine winzige Auswahl von Artikeln und Zusammenfassungen, die für Nichtmediziner relativ verständlich sind:

* How Does the Saharan Dust Storm Affect Lung Health?

**Dominguez-Rodriguez A, Baez-Ferrer N, Rodríguez S, Avanzas P, Abreu-Gonzalez P, Terradellas E, Cuevas E, Basart S, Werner E. Saharan Dust Events in the Dust Belt -Canary Islands- and the Observed Association with in-Hospital Mortality of Patients with Heart Failure. Journal of Clinical Medicine. 2020; 9(2):376.

*** EPA United States - Health Effects of Ozone Pollution

**** Acute exposure to higher ozone levels linked to higher risk of cardiac arrest

Photo Norman Parkinson (self portrait with family)

Photo by Alberto Korda

(The other two black and white-pictures are both from 1959, picturing Robert Thurman at Harvard Loeb Theatre playing Troilus, and with his first daughter Taya)

Tenzin Bob Thurman, has died on Tuesday at his home.

He was an extraordinary person. Although many might only know him as Uma Thurman's dad, he was the leading expert on Tibetan Buddhism in the West, a monk ordained and trained by (and friend to) the Dalai Lama himself, becoming the Jey Tsong Khapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies in the Department of Religion at Columbia University for 30 years.

He was a bit of a rebel, being expelled from boarding school because he left without permission (to join Fidel Castro and his guerrilla army in Cuba, he was stopped in Florida before he could do that), marrying an oil heiress who left him when he dropped out of Harvard to travel across Asia. What moved him to do that? Well, in 1961, he changed a tire, and the tire iron slipped and crushed his left eye, an accident that led him questioning his own mortality. Quoting him (from NYT magazine article in the 90s) "I was already by about that time like St. Francis, I had an empty (eye) socket, long hair and a scraggly beard. I wore black baggy Afghani pants, a T-shirt with a white shawl thrown around me and leather sandals.”

He travelled through Iran to India, there teaching English to young reincarnated Tibetan lamas. Once he learnt about their beliefs, “I was in heaven, because the minute I met the Tibetans, I knew they had what I wanted,” He learnt Tibetan in months, going to Dharamshala, India, meeting the Dalai Lama, becoming his friend, and student. In the 70s, he went back to the US, to Harvard, finishing his studies, getting a doctorate in Indic studies (an interdisciplinary degree, now Sanskrit and Indian studies), later teaching at Amherst College then transferring to Columbia, where he became the first endowed chair in Buddhist studies in the West.

In the 70s, he went to Timothy Leary's home Millbrock, not to take LSD as everyone else did, but to get him to tone down his drug use; famously, in the kitchen, he met Leary's wife, model Nena von Schlebrügge, who soon divorced Leary, marrying Thurman in 1967 (see photo above).

He said in 2020 “Buddhism is not primarily religious, it deteriorates if someone believes they will get to nirvana if they just worship the Buddha. But the Buddha was saying, ‘Worshipping me is not going to get you there; you have to do something."

He will be missed (until, which is what he believed, his next reincarnation)...

Original color photo by Paul Outerbridge.

In wildlife conservation, we want to protect wolves and large carnivores, but many farmers and shepherds fear them and the possible damage to their herds, but there' s a solution - Lifestock protection Dogs.

Lifestock Protection dogs are special breeds (mostly from Europe and Central Asia) like Anatolian Shepherds, Great Pyrenees, Maremma Sheepdogs and others, and these dogs are very much different from livestock herding dogs, like German or Australian shepherds.

They grow up with the livestock, see the sheep, cattle or other lifestock as part of their pack, and assess and neutralize threats to them completely independently from humans, when they're raised and trained right.

Lifestock Guarding Dogs need to live, from puppyhood, with the herd, thinking they're lifestock themselves, and when they're older - Lifestock Protection Dogs work as a pack and need to be more numerous than for example herding dogs - they protect the livestock, sometimes barking, sometimes attacking if all else fails. See for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7or0y2towI

It's really important to understand the difference - Herding dogs are bred to control and move livestock, directing animal movement and keeping them in desired locations.

Livestock Guardian Dogs (LGDs) are bred to protect livestock from external threats. They bond with the animals and defend them from predators. LGDs are typically independent and less responsive to direct commands compared to herding dogs. They don’t herd; they guard. LGDs live for example with a flock of sheep and will never be tasked with moving them, their sole job is keeping them safe. So they need to be introduced to livestock very early, have limited human interaction and again, have only very basic obedience, they bark to deter predators, and to them, it doesn't matter if a wolf or bear wants to snatch a sheep or horse, or if an influencer intends to take a cute lamb for a photo, they will defend it with their life, so people who may approach a herd guarded by LGDs, like tourists, for example hikers and mountain bikers, need to be aware that the LGDs protect the herd, and to keep their distance.

This is a fantastic manual from the Australian dog association https://webs.dogs.net.au/askdc/uploads/documents/Livestock_Guardian_Dog_Manual.pdf

A book I see often recommended is "Livestock Protection Dogs: Selection, Care and Training" by Orysia Dawydiak and David Sims, by Dogwise Publishing.

And here is the website of Carnivore Prevention News, the European (free) newsletter for the coexistence with large carnivores like wolves and bears https://cdpnews.net/issue_page/ with in-depth studies and reports on Lifestock Protection with LGDs, fences and other measures, in nearly every European country, and abstracts of studies in countries all over the world, in the Americas, Africa, Asia. You can read each issue online (for free), and nearly every one has an article on the experiences protecting livestock from wolves in a different country, so if this interests you, I very much urge you to browse through them.

Now, what would the motivation be for farmers and shepherds to not just shoot any predator on sight, but train these Lifestock Guardian dogs? Other than the century-old traditions in many countries to live in harmony with large predators, and respect biodiversity, or laws, as is the case in most of Europe?

Wolves, like all predators, albeit to different degrees, prefer to hunt and feed on the weakest individuals of their prey species.

Allow me to insert an old joke here, about the two guys encountering a huge lion in Africa. One puts on his running shoes. The other shouts, "Are you stupid? You can't outrun a lion!". The first one says, "I don't need to outrun the lion. I just need to outrun you!"

Any predator will almost always hunt the prey animals that are easiest to hunt, the slow ones, a calf or lamb maybe, an old animal or the one with a broken leg, and, especially, the weak and sick ones - because they are slow, and hunting them means saving energy, having more food, thus having greater chances of survival. And predators, like for example wolves, have evolved to be able to feed on sick or even deceased animals, (mostly) without risk of infection or contagion for themselves.

So they hunt on average more diseased deer and other prey - prey with zoonotic diseases that are sometimes transmitted to livestock and people, so wolves and other predators, from raptor, snake, foxes and bobcat to wolves, bears, cougars, play a vital role protecting mankind and livestock from deadly diseases.

Just because this is recent, if snakes, raptors and foxes decline, rat and mice populations explode, including the populations that spread Hantavirus. So if we want to reduce Hantavirus infections, we would need to help populations of snakes, raptors, coyote (and other rodent predators) increase, not hunt or trap them.

Also, this is something humans will never be able to do - hunters may shoot a stag, but they don't especially search for (or would know) the deer with Chronic Wasting Disease (which is very similar and can indeed evolve into Mad Cow Disease in cattle, Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease in humans, and Scrapie in sheep) - wolves kill and feed on these sick deer more often than healthy ones, thus reducing the number of sick ones, thus protecting livestock and humans from these deadly diseases.

Farmers and hunters often see wolves and coyote and all predators as rivals or deadly danger - when in reality, these predators, from the much maligned rattlesnake to foxes and wolves (and all others) are lifesavers, protecting humans and livestock from these dangerous zoonotic diseases.

We should help these predators with wildlife bridges and nature reserves, not kill them, ever, and farmers and hunters should be most eager to protect them, since they're the ones who either themselves catch these diseases most often, or lose profit because their livestock becomes infected.

It is very much possible to live in peace with large predators in areas with lifestock, if we employ these centuries-old methods.

^(References:)

^(1. Predators and scavengers reducing zoonotic disease risk:)

^(H.S. Young, R. Dirzo, K.M. Helgen, D.J. McCauley, S.A. Billeter, M.Y. Kosoy, L.M. Osikowicz, D.J. Salkeld, T.P. Young, & K. Dittmar, Declines in large wildlife increase landscape-level prevalence of rodent-borne disease in Africa, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 111, 19)

^(RS Ostfeld, RD Holt, Are predators good for your health? Evaluating evidence for top-down regulation of zoonotic disease reservoirs, Front. Eco. Environm. Volume 2, Issue 1, 13-20 2004)

^(Levi T, Kilpatrick AM, Mangel M, Wilmers CC. Deer, predators, and the emergence of Lyme disease. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012 Jul 3;109 27:10942-7. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1204536109. Epub 2012 Jun 18.)

^(O'Bryan CJ, Braczkowski AR, Magalhães RJS, McDonald-Madden E. Conservation epidemiology of predators and scavengers to reduce zoonotic risk. Lancet Planet Health. 2020 Aug;4 8:e304-e305)

^(https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2025/06/decline-apex-scavengers-human-disease-risk)

^(2. Wolves:)

^(Since nearly every articles is about experiences reducing predation on livestock by large carnivores, I urge you to go to the website) ^(https://cdpnews.net/issue_page/) ^(yourself and flick through the issues...)