A map of non-English non-Spanish languages spoken in the USA

Somebody has done some grunt work and produced a map of the USA that shows the most commonly used language in each state other than English and Spanish. The results make for some interesting, not to say bewildering, reading, and are a testament, I suppose, to the lesser known immigration history of the United States.

For example, the cluster of Vietnamese speakers in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, the cluster of Philippino (Tagalog) speakers in California and Nevada, and the cluster of Koreans in Alabama and Georgia. Then there are two clusters of German speakers, a mid-West one comprising Ohio, Indian and Kentucky, and another in the Rockies, in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and North Dakota. The Portuguese clearly settled in the New England states of Massachussetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut, but it's news to me. Chinese states, on the other hand, seem to be spread pretty much at random across the country.

French makes sense in the New England states bordering Quebec, and in ex-French colony Louisiana, but North Carolina? Likewise, Haitian Creole perhaps belongs in Florida, but Delaware? There are a surprising number of states with a plurality of Arabic speakers (despite Donald Trump's best efforts), including West Virginia, Tennessee and Michigan, none of which I think of as particularly progressive states. And then there are the outliers: Nepalis in Nebraska, Somali in Minnesota, Hmong in Wisconsin, Gujarati (not Italian!) in New Jersey. Inexplicable!

And finally, it's interesting to see that some native languages remain strong: Navajo in New Mexico and Arizona, Dakota/Lakota/Nakita/Sioux in South Dakota, Aleut-Eskimo in Alaska, Ilocana in Hawaii.

Kobe Bryant was no angel, whatever the eulogies might suggest

The eulogies are flooding in for Kobe Bryant, dead after a helicopter crash the other day. In fact, the eulogies are flooding in from people who used to hate the guy back in his playing days. Which is just the way it goes, I understand - you're not supposed to speak ill of the dead.
But from what I can glean, and contrary to the eulogies, he was not a very pleasant guy at all. Here's a less-than-flattering article by a Lakers fan from 2010, during Bryant's heyday, and here's one of the very few eulogies-tempered-with-realism I could find.
Clearly, Bryant was a good basketball player, that much is not in dispute. But apparently he had few friends, and made plenty of enemies both within basketball and within the press corps and fan base with his snide and destructive comments about others. He was undeniably a ball- (and glory-) hog and a thoroughgoing individualist in a team sport. And then there was the whole rape allegation thing, not ultimately proven in court as the victim chose not to testify, but pretty damning from what evidence did come out.
And who takes a helicopter to a basketball game anyway? Apparently, he would take a helicopter to games and even practices, which seems just bizarre to me The fact that his helicopter was flying on a foggy day when most other helicopters (including police helicopters) chose not to is still being investigated, and more details may yet surface. The press has been widely reporting that Bryant's 13-year old daughter was also killed, but let's not forget that so were 7 others.
Anyway, I'm not here to speak ill of the dead either. It's just interesting how people's tones change after someone died. The same thing happened with Toronto ex-mayor Rob Ford, villified and widely disliked during his life, but raised almost to sainthood after his death. I guess that's just the way it goes with polarizing individuals.

Canadian craft breweries - too much, too fast

If you're having trouble keeping track of all the new microbreweries in your city, you're not alone. There was a time when a new craft brewery was a big event; nowadays, it's hard to even try out the new ones before they disappear. There are four or five craft breweries within a few kilometres of our house that have sprung up in the last couple of years alone, and we still haven't got around to visiting them. Occasionally, we will try out new names while in a bar or restsurant, but it's easy to lose track of who's who and who's good, what with all those wacky names and hyperbolic descriptions.
So, it probably doesn't come as too much of a surprise to read in the Globe and Mail that, over the last decade, the number of breweries in Canada has burgeoned from a little over 200 to nearly 1,000, the majority of that increase occurring between 2013 and 2017.
Neither does it surprise me greatly that funding for new breweries, which at one time was an easy sell, is much harder to come by these days, as investors see a market which is starting to look over-saturated. We are starting to see breweries closing down or being put up for sale (often with the Labatts and Molsons of the world snapping up some of their smaller competitors). According to Statistics Canada, only about 50% of Canadian breweries were actually profitable in 2017, with most of the others being labours of love. It can take 5 to 7 years for a craft brewery to generate cash flow, and many just don't make it that far.
It almost makes me want to go out right now and visit a couple of my local watering holes. But then I look out and see it is raining, and put it off for another day.

Homero Gómez's kidnapping just the latest of many in lawless Mexico

You would think that being a butterfly conservationist would be a relatively serene and safe vocation, would't you? Not in Mexico, apparently.
Homero Gómez, an outspoken environmental activist and manager of the world-renowned Rosario monarch butterfly sanctuary in Michoacán state in the mountains of central Mexico, has been reported as missing, almost certainly kidnapped by illegal logging interests in the area. Local loggers have been incensed at Mr. Gómez's constant activism against logging for some years. He was last heard from on January 13th but, according to the usual MO of these incidents, he is unlikely to ever surface again.
Rosario is a World Heritage Site and Biosphere Reserve, and its pine forests are critical for the survival of the monarch butterflies that we see migrating south from Canada every fall. Logging in the region is mainly clear-cutting for the establishment of cash crops like avocados - you might want to think about that the next time you buy Mexican avocados, I know I will. Much of it is run by criminal gangs and cartels, the likes of which are rife in increasingly lawless rural Mexico, and their activities range from drug and human trafficking to extortion, logging and mining. An estimated 60,000 people have disappeared in Mexico since 2006, mainly due to drug cartels and organized crime groups, but also apparently to the security forces themselves. Western Michoacán state - where we are due to visit just next week in order to see those very same monarch butterflies - is described by the BBC as "notorious for its violent criminal gangs". Could be an interesting trip.

Wild animal markets in south-east Asia must be closed down

As yet another potential global epidemic makes its way out of China and into the rest of the world, the elephant (almost literally) in the room is the issue of wild animal markets.
After the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak of 2003, China imposed a temporary ban on wildlife markets, when they were fingered as the probable source of the outbreak, and health officials and scientists both in China and elsewhere issued grave warnings about the risks involved in allowing the trade and consumption of wild meat. (Remember, ebola also came from the consumption of wild monkeys in Africa.) But the ban was temporary, for some reason, and it wasn't long before wild animal markets opened up again in China, Vietnam and other parts of south-east Asia.
And so, here we are: the latest outbreak of a coronavirus very similar to SARS has been traced back to the Huanan seafood market in Wuhan, which also has a substantial wild animal section where live and slaughtered animals were for sale. There you could buy wild wolf pups, golden cicadas, scorpions, bamboo rats, squirrels, foxes, civets, porcupines, salamanders, turtles and crocodiles. And the diseases come for free.
Wild meat is an expensive, luxury item in China. Rich businessmen take their colleagues to wildlife restaurants. Some people think it has some ill-defined health benefits, and the rarer the animal the better.
The longer China (and the rest of south-east Asia and Africa, for that matter) panders to these obscure and benighted tastes, the more it puts its own population at risk, not to mention the populations of some animals. In our rapidly shrinking, ultra-connected world, the rest of us do not want to share those risks either, thank you very much.

Rugby star Sonny Bill Williams' bizarro religious beliefs

The Toronto Wolfpack rugby league team has been super-succesful in their unlikely foray into the top British leagues, achieving-to-back promotions over the last two seasons. They now find themselves in the "big league", the Betfred Super League, along with the best of the British rugby league sides.
Instrumental in their success have been their two superstars, New Zealander Sunny Bill Williams and Australian Ricky Leutele. Sunny Bill, however, has been a bit of a prima donna since he got religion some ten years ago - or, more specifically, since he converted from Christianity to Islam. And the way he manifests his deep spirituality is to refuse to wear the team's jersey because it bears the logo of Betfred, a major British bookmaker, which just happens to be the league's main sponsor.
So, it sems that Williams is happy to play in the Betfred league, and to take Betfred's money. He just doesn't want to wear a rugby jersey saying so. The Toronto Wolfpack management, desperate to retain his services, is tying themselves in knots trying to accommodate him, talking about him maybe wearing an alternative jersey, or just covering up the offending logo in some way. Could he not have figured this out when he joined the club this last year? Why did he even agree to play in the Betfred League if he is so philosophically opposed to gambling?
Apparently, he has done this kind of thing before, when he was playing rugby union for the New Zealand All Blacks, and with the Aukland Blues. He refused to wear a jersey with the logo of the Bank of New Zealand, because banks are, well, they're evil, arent't they? I'm sure he didn't mind investing his substantial earnings in a bank, but apparently he had a "conscientious objection" clause in his contract, which he explained as follows: "My objection to wearing clothing that markets banks, alcohol and gambling companies is central to my religious beliefs".
I'm sure Mohammed would be proud of him, but everyone else finds it downright puzzling, especially the apparent double-standards he seems able to reconcile in his mind.

Wanted (desperately): a leader for the Conservative Party of Canada

Three prominent names have now dropped out of the running to replace the hapless Andrew Scheer as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada: Rona Ambrose, Jean Charest, and now Pierre Poilievre.
After the surprise announcements earlier this week by Ms. Ambrose and M. Charest, M. Poilievre was seen as the best, and perhaps only, challenger to the rather unpleasant Peter Mackay, who now looks to have a straight path the leadership. The only other challenger is Ontario MP Erin O'Toole, who is not expected to show very strongly in the vote.
But it's interesting to see just how little interest there is in being boss of the Canadian conservatives.

Israel, under pressure from the ICC, falls back on charges of anti-semitism

Benjamin Netanyahu is playing the anti-semitism card yet again.
Fatou Bensouda, the Gambian chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has declared that there is a "reasonable basis" on which to proceed with a war crimes case against Israel for various of its military actions in the Gaza Strip and the construction of Israeli settlements in the Palestinian West Bank.
Netanyahu is clearly incensed by this, especially given that he has been personally responsible for most of the said actions, and he has been looking for support from his "friends"in the international community. Donald Trump has spoken up (no surprise there). But there has been a deafening silence from most other quarters. Natanyahu's specific appeal to Justin Trudeau - based on the supposed "special relations" between Israel and Canada - has met with a notable silence, unlike the much more sympathetic hearing he was used to from Stephen Harper and the previous Conservative administration (what is it with Conservatives and Israel?)
So, of course, Netanyahu has fallen back on the tried and trusted ploy, which has worked for him so often in the past, of calling the court - which Israel does not recognize anywhere, not being a member of the organization (I wonder why?) - anti-semitic.
Ms. Bensouda has reacted with admirable phlegmatism, calling the assertion "particularly regrettable" and "without merit". But what a tired old trope that is, calling any action or comment even slightly critical of Israel anti-semitic. Netanyahu (and why is he even still there, for God's sake?) debases and degrades the whole concept every time he over-uses it.