2-94. The Dark Side of Curiosity: A Beating in Kenya

05/17/16 • -1 min

Daily Curio – College of Curiosity

UPDATE AT THE END

This episode contains disturbing, violent content.

The word “curiosity” is popular these days. It’s associated with joy and wonder—isn’t it fun to learn things?!

But in reality, not everything we learn is entertaining. But it’s still vitally important.

This morning, May 17 2016, I watched a bit of CNN as i tried to wake up. It was non-stop Drumpf, with a book review about Wall Street. There was no mention of the police crushing a protest in Kenya while we in the US slept.

At this point, it would be helpful for you to look at an image. It’s not pleasant, and I won’t blame you for not clicking through. But if you’re curious, this will be worth your time and disgust. The image is here.

There image will become iconic. It’s a very clear picture of a police officer in full riot gear, “curb stomping” an unconscious man. If you’re unfamiliar with “curb stomping,” I’m sorry to inform you that it’s an act where you place someone’s head on a curbstone and stomp on it, with the goal of either crushing the skull or breaking the neck.

This is horrific stuff, and the image is proof-positive that police brutality is rampant.

But… the image doesn’t show what happened.

Before I explain, please know that I’m not defending the Kenyan police. Their actions were brutal and uncalled for. Chasing down protestors who are running away and clearly no threat, and then beating them with sticks, as other images show, can not be defended.

But while I was looking at the curb stomping image, I noticed a comment from a Kenyan who said “This picture doesn’t show what happened.” It’s such a clear image, that I wondered how that could be. I searched the news and found this brutal picture in a dozen locations. There are already memes that incorporate the picture and refer to the famous Orwell quote from 1984 “If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever.” But I couldn’t find any explanation as to what actually happened in the photo.

When I did find the narrative, I was amazed. There was no stomping. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

There’s another quote, often attributed to Carl Sagan but one that’s existed for at least a century that says “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” The claim that this photo, which clearly shows a police office about to curb stomp a protestor DOESN’T actually show that is an extraordinary claim. And yes, the evidence against that claim is also extraordinary.

That evidence is a video, showing the incident from another angle. You can click here to see an animated gif, or here to see the entire video. The cop’s foot was actually going backwards, not down. And at no time during the video did he do anything more than kick the man in the buttocks and hit him with his baton. Kicking an unconscious man is unforgivable, but it’s not the same as attempted murder, which is what a curb stomp is. The cops were not trying to kill this man.

The story as best as I can piece it together from the video and reportedly eye-witness accounts is that the man stole a purse, was subdued and savagely beaten. He wasn’t protesting; he was just taking advantage of the chaos. Again, that is not a defense of the police, but it does change the story and meaning substantially.

The video shows police brutality. The image shows attempted murder. That’s the difference, and only curiosity will lead us to the place where we can cut through what people want us to see and arrive at what actually happened.

And could another video come along showing police curb stomping people? Absolutely, and if it does, I’ll consider it . But insofar as this image is concerned, we can learn that a single frame from time often tells a history that never happened. My fear is that few people will care enough to appreciate that.

UPDATE 1
And before I’ve even finished recording this, there’s an update. The Kenyan website Zipo is reporting that the man’s name was Ben Ngari, and that he succumbed from his injuries. However, the news report also says that he was a protestor and that the man was indeed curb stomped. I can’t find another news source reporting this fact. Does Zipo have evidence that I haven’t seen? Did they not see the video? I don’t know.

But I do know that a picture is worth 1,000 words, and those words may not be telling the truth. I hope the truth is that the man in the green hoodie is currently recuperating from his unjust injuries. As for CNN, more Drumpf, and no mention of this event at all.

...

UPDATE AT THE END

This episode contains disturbing, violent content.

The word “curiosity” is popular these days. It’s associated with joy and wonder—isn’t it fun to learn things?!

But in reality, not everything we learn is entertaining. But it’s still vitally important.

This is horrific stuff, and the image is proof-positive that police brutality is rampant.

But… the image doesn’t show what happened.

When I did find the narrative, I was amazed. There was no stomping. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

...

Previous Episode

2-93. Wolves of the Magic Mountain

While folks in the Western US laugh when people in New England talk about their “mountains,” there are some interesting and majestic peaks that run up the northern edge of the Appalachians. Mt. Washington, for example, while only 6,288 feet above sea level, has an over 6,000 foot rise from the valley floor below. It also pokes into the jet stream, causing it to receive some of the most extreme weather in North America.

But it’s Mount Washington’s more southern cousin that was dubbed the “magic mountain” by Bostonians.

When highways were built circling the city and eventually heading north, drivers noticed something odd about Mount Monadnock, some 65 miles to the northwest: it disappears. And it’s true—as you head North on I-93, you’ll get a clear view of the mountain’s bald top, and then you never see it again—unless you drive all the way to it’s base, some 90 minutes away. The illusion is that the mountain disappears and reappears only when you approach it, but the solution is simple: the road starts off heading northwest and quickly changes to northeast and then north again as it makes it’s way into New Hampshire. Your car never faces towards the mountain again until you’re right on it.

The Monadnock Building, once an island of height, now dwarfed by buildings over five times as tall.

Monadnock has a few other claims to fame. It stands alone. There are no other mountains adjacent, with the nearest members of the White Mountains being about 100 miles north. As such, it’s name, Monadnock, which means “mountain that stands alone” in Abenaki, has become a term for all mountains that stand alone. Not only that, when Chicago was inventing sky scrapers, one particularly tall building stood alone as it towered above the other structures downtown. This building, which still stands today, is known as the Monadnock Building.

Scientists noticed something else that was odd about this mountain. It’s bald on top, meaning that the top of the mountain has a tree line. This is a line beyond which trees don’t grow, and all tall mountains have one. But Monadnock is only 3,165′ above sea level, well below the tree line of the taller White Mountains to the north.

Why?

The answer can be found hidden in the overgrowth of what’s known as Lynn Woods, just north of Boston. With some effort and bushwhacking, you can find two narrow rock lined pits, deep enough that the park service has installed railing around them. Legend has it that these were wolf pits. They would be hidden by greenery and baited with a dead lamb or some such. When the wolves leapt the greenery, they’d fall into the pit, probably onto wooden spikes. If they didn’t die immediately, the’d be trapped and killed by farmers the next day. Others suggest that these structures might have been saw pits or the ubiquitous root cellars that dot New England, but one thing was sure: people in the early 1700s were obsessed with wolves.

They weren’t so afraid them attacking people, as that rarely happened, but wolves did find easy prey in livestock and farmers would stop at nothing to protect their investments. And this brings us back to Monadnock.

“Wolf pits” as they are today in Lynn Woods.

In the 1700s, the woods around Monadnock were burned and clearcut so that they could become pasture. Monadnock was covered with spruce, which is a tree that burns well even when green. Fire raged up the mountain and consumed it. Years later, famers and villagers believed that wolves had taken up residence in the fells, and decided to solv...

Next Episode

2-95. Mysteries of the Camel’s Hump

If a camel with one hump is a Dromedary and a camel with two humps is a Bactrian, what do you call a camel with no humps? Humphrey, of course. (badum tish).

Camels fascinate people, and the reason is obvious: they have humps. And what’s inside those humps? Inside those humps lies the core of this episode.

For many years, people thought that camels stored water in their humps. You can still find references to this on the Internet. It makes sense, right? They live in the desert where there is very little water, and when they find water, they drink massive quantities of it. It has to go somewhere, so it’s reasonable to assume that it goes into the hump.

But ask any camel butcher (and yes, camel meat is becoming more common in the US), and they’ll tell you that the hump is full of not water, but fat.

Where water is scarce, food is scarce, so this also makes sense. Rather than store their fat evenly around their body like many species, camels simply store it all in one or more humps. There is speculation that this helps the animal shed heat as all that insulating fat is in one place, but since camels also live in cold deserts, there’s probably more to it than that. It’s also interesting to note that camelids that don’t have humps, such as llamas, alpacas, vicuñas, etc. live in areas where food and water are more plentiful.

So, there you have it. The question is answered and we can move on.

And no, of course we can’t because I wouldn’t be talking about this if that’s all there was to it.

In 1981, a study by the University of Singapore proposed the idea that the fat in a camel’s hump could be turned into water through a process known as palmitate oxidation. If you break down fat with added oxygen, water is produced. And not a little. With enough oxygen, the potential amount of water in a camel’s hump could be measured in gallons.

So see? Camel’s humps do store water! Case closed. Take that grade-school science teacher!

Well, not so fast.

According to Dr. Anders Lundquist of Lund University in Sweden, it’s true that breaking down fat can produce water, but camels couldn’t use this water to quench their thirst. It would require so much oxygen to release water from fat stores that the animals would dehydrate from moisture lost during breathing in the arid environment. Most biologists agree with this conclusion.

So far as we can tell at this point, camel humps store fat which is used simply as a fuel reserve. Now go apologize to your grade-school science teacher, because they were right.

But a question does remain: how do camels store water? The same way many other animals do: throughout their body tissues. Camels do have ways of conserving moisture, though. Their noses have the ability to reabsorb water from their breath, and their digestive system is very good at removing water from food. It’s so good, that camel urine has the consistency of motor oil and their droppings are completely dry.

Camel humps provide a good example of how curiosity works: ideas are constantly questioned in light of new evidence, and no answer is ever complete or final. And because I can’t think of a way to wrap this up, here are five camel facts that you may not be aware of:

The genus for the giraffe is Camelopardalis, which translates to Leopard Camel.
Australia has the highest population of camels. None of them are native.
Annoyed camels don’t spit. They’re actually regurgitating on you.
Their red blood cells are circular rather than ovoid. This helps blood flow better when the animal is dehydrated.
Male camels have an organ in their throats called a dulla, which can be inflated to attract females. It looks very much like the camel is sticking its tongue out and blowing a raspberry.