November 25, 2023

Newsletter Leaf Journal CLXII 〜 Happy Evacuation Day! 〜

Former New York City holidays, NLJ article links, 21 links from around the web, and other news and notes are all present in the 162nd edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal (happy Evacuation Day!).

Welcome to the 162nd edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal, the official newsletter of the perennially virid online writing magazine, The New Leaf Journal. This newsletter comes to you as always from the waterproof keyboard of the editor of The New Leaf Journal, Nicholas A. Ferrell.

Today's newsletter falls on New York City's Evacuation Day. What is Evacuation Day? You can learn about it in a link in our Leaves from the week that was section below. While I usually limit this humble newsletter to articles published from the previous Saturday to the Friday preceding the newsletter, I made an exception for New York City's patriotic holiday. Other than this exception, you will find your favorite (I hope) regularly scheduled newsletter sections below.

Leaves from the week that was

I published three new articles during the holiday week.

• Searching for the “Libertarian Moment”
  N.A. Ferrell. November 21, 2023.

  Argentina's new President-Elect, Sergio Milei, will be the first individual running under the banner of a self-described libertarian party to become a head of state. This event inspired me to explore the genre of "is this the libertarian moment" opinion and think pieces that pop up in major U.S. media every now and again.

• Inflatable Thanksgiving Turkey With Pilgrim Hat
  N.A. Ferrell. November 21, 2023.

  It is also emerging from an inflatable pumpkin. However, I try to keep our headline length under control.

• History of New York City's Evacuation Day
  N.A. Ferrell. November 25, 2023.

  I mark the 240th anniversary of the original Evacuation Day with a history of the occasion and New York City's former popular patriotic holiday. What is Evacuation Day? Read on to find out. (Also enjoy the 69 footnotes. Explaining how annoying footnotes in WordPress are is an article topic in and of itself.)

Leaves from around the web

Let's check in on the world wide web...

The world today

• Hezbollah's Record on War & Politics
  Wilson Center. October 25, 2023.

  A long history of the Iranian-backed Islamist terrorist group that moonlights as the most powerful political actor in Lebanon.

• South China Sea: China-Philippines Tensions Spike at Scarborough Shoal
  Mark Soo for Geopolitical Monitor. October 3, 2023.

  One side is doing more of the spiking.

Checking in on the former two largest empires in history

• Britain banned from deporting 53 foreign terrorists as it would breach their human rights
  Chris Pollard for Daily Mail. February 11, 2023.

  This was once the largest empire in history.

• Central Asia: All roads seem to lead to Mongolia
  Eurasianet. November 24, 2023.

  Back in the day, Mongolia conquered everything, including the roads, and then built new roads to travel to and from all the places it conquered. Today, all the places Mongolia conquered view it as a way station to and from China.

Paying for stuff (or not)

• Why Tip?
  Paul Wachter for The New York Times. October 9, 2008.

  A good tipping article that remains evergreen thanks to its careful exploration of the history of tipping in the United States.

• I Would Rather See My Books Get Pirated Than This (Or: Why Goodreads and Amazon Are Becoming Dumpster Fires)
  Jane Friedman. August 7, 2023.

  I understand that Amazon owns Goodreads for anti-competitive purposes but would it kill anyone there to check in on it every now and then?

Small populations become big populations

• Pablo Escobar's Multiplying 'Cocaine Hippos' Will Be Sterilized in Colombia
  Margaret Osborne for Smithsonian Magazine. November 22, 2023.

  These hippos have weathered inbreeding very well so far.

• How did the Pink Pigeon bounce back from just nine birds?
  Vikash Tatayh for Bird Life International. February 4, 2019.

  Reviewing a bird revival story (those pink pigeons are spiffy).

The magic of outsourcing

• National Park Service Outsources Website, Loses $140M
  Adam Andrzejweski for Real Clear Investigations. May 10, 2023.

  Buried lede: Booz Allen Hamilton has good lobbyists.

• Barefoot workers, bacteria found at factory that made big-brand eye drops
  Beth Mole for Atlas Obscura. November 17, 2023.

  We need to have a talk with India about outsourcing protocols.

Freemasonry

• Vatican doctrine office reaffirms that Catholics cannot be Freemasons
  Courtney Mares for Catholic News Agency. November 15, 2023.

  It appears that some people in the Philippines missed the (1738 and 1983) memoranda.

• The Masonic Murder That Inspired the First Third Party in American Politics
  Colin Dickey for Smithsonian Magazine. July 11, 2023.

  The Masons had a bit of a tumble after in the 19th century. However, I am sharing this very interesting article to advertise my article on a Masonic painting of George Washington (see below).

The small web

• Personal website conventions in the East versus the West
  Bikobatanari.

  A walk around hand-crafted small websites in Japan.

• Surfing Gemini, Gopher, and the Web on a Raspberry Pi 3B Computer
  Cheapskate's Guide. May 16, 2023.

  This is far from the first thing I would do with a Raspberry Pi, but it is an interesting little set-up.

The world of anime

• Resourcefulness Reigns Supreme – Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End Production Notes 05-10
  kViN for Sakuga Blog. November 16, 2023.

  A deep dive into the superlative animation in the defining anime of the Fall 2023 season thus far.

• Severe shortage of animators and “post-Covid changes” in the anime industry as told by the director of Studio Trigger
  Amber V for Automation West. September 27, 2023.

  I've noticed. (Frieren, discussed in the previous link, does not have this problem.)

Meteorology

• How Citizen Scientists Rescued Crucial World War II Weather Data
  Kimberly M.S. Cartier for Smithsonian. November 14, 2023.

  The U.S. Navy collected the weather while winning victory after victory in the Pacific. Not bad.

• Groundhogs Are Old News. In This Tiny Town, Caterpillars Predict the Weather
  Corey Buhay for Smithsonian Magazine. October 27, 2023.

  Can they tell you the rain chance?

A saved link I should have used a while ago is a terrible thing to delete without using

• ‘Absolutely infuriating’ Gerritsen Beach Volunteer Fire Department alleges city negligence
  Isabel Song Beer for Brooklyn Paper. May 16, 2023.

  A story from one of Brooklyn New York's quaintest and most isolated neighborhoods (hence its volunteer fire department).

• Justice Mitchell (Alabama): "The New Bar Exam Puts DEI Over Competence."
  Josh Blackman at The Volokh Conspiracy. May 20, 2023.

  Add one to the list of reasons why fully nationalizing the bar exam is not the best path to tread.

• After 30 Years, Linux Finally Hits 3% Market Share
  Bobby Borisov for Linuxiac. July 9, 2023.

  The slight uptick in desktop Linux users is no doubt helped by Linux becoming an increasingly viable operating system for video games.

The Old Leaf Journal

Let us dig into the old archives.

• The Japanese Citizenship Requirement for Sumo Stablemasters
  N.A. Ferrell. April 21, 2021.

  An interesting story in light of the dominance of Mongolian sumo wrestlers.

• On Improving the Environment For Gaming On Linux
  N.A. Ferrell. January 9, 2022.

  Pre Steam Deck reading on gaming on Linux.

• The Story of Billy Possum, President Hoover’s Pet Opossum
  N.A. Ferrell. November 30, 2021.

  The story of the successor to President Calvin Coolidge's Thanksgiving raccoon-turned White House pet.

• On Children and Internet Sharing
  N.A. Ferrell. November 27, 2020.

  An evergreen essay that also gave me the opportunity to discuss the finest episode of the 1998-99 Kare Kano anime adaptation.

• The Wit and Losses of Robert Morris
  N.A. Ferrell. December 21, 2020.

  The wealthiest man in America during the Revolutionary War had a sense of humor in the face of adversity.

• On buying Christmas trees in November
  N.A. Ferrell. November 30, 2022.

  I saw a woman carrying one home yesterday (November 24). I don't get it. What is the game-plan here?

Most-turned leaves of the newsletter week

I list our most-read articles from the previous newsletter week (Friday to Saturday) in each edition of The Newsletter Leaf Journal. These statistics come courtesy of Koko Analytics, our local, privacy friendly page-counting solution (see my review). Below, I present the 5 most-visited articles for 2023 newsletter week 47 (November 18-24). Note: All stats are for 2023 only.

1. An In-Depth Look at Norton Safe Search
   N.A. Ferrell. October 18, 2022.
   7th appearance. 3rd top placement.
2. Installing GrapheneOS on a Google Pixel 6a
   N.A. Ferrell. May 15, 2023.
   5th appearance.
3. The Pokémon Special Split in Generation 2 - Statistics and Analysis
   N.A. Ferrell. January 18, 2022.
   37th appearance. 4 top placements.
4. Installing Ubuntu Touch on a Google Nexus 7 (2013)
   N.A. Ferrell. July 7, 2021.
   19th appearance. 2 top placements.
5. The Mystery of Sōseki and Tsuki ga Kirei
   N.A. Ferrell. March 14, 2021.
   44th appearance. 14 top placements.

My Norton Safe Search review notched its third consecutive top placement in dominant fashion, posting its best-ever week, and my article about installing GrapheneOS on a Pixel 6a comfortably slotted into second place for the second consecutive week. My tsuki ga kirei article returned to the top five after an unprecedented two-week absence with a late Friday charge to push ahead of my Peekier review and hold off an even harder charging anime review. We missed what would have been an unexpected top-five appearance for my long history on Thanksgiving in the Philippines, which posted its best ever week and would have been good for a top five in many of our June-through-October weeks (alas, this week it was only good for 9th).

We have a few things to look out for as November comes to a close. November is on pace to post the most overall views of any month in 2023, narrowly eclipsing January (in one less day), and the most since November 2022. What is interesting is that we are seeing strong numbers (on par with our best months that lack a major sharing event) without having a single dominant article. For example, January 2023, which is a close analogue in total views to November, had a stronger top article and a stronger overall top five than the current month is likely to end up with. However, we are seeing increased depth in exchange for lacking the sort of performance from the top article that was common in most of late 2021 and 2022. I generally like the trend, but it highlights the need for a couple of durable showcase articles like my 2021 tsuki ga kirei post (still a solid performer, albeit diminished from its peak) as we look ahead to 2024.

News leaf journal

I finally figured out how to fix an image alignment issue I had in a couple of recent articles. That is newsworthy, I suppose. Other than that there is no site news to report. All of my New Leaf Journal time of late has been dedicated to writing articles.

Notable leaf journal

I learned this week that I very much dislike WordPress footnotes. But on the bright side, I made use of WordPress's native version history for the first time ever.

Taking leaf

Thank you as always for reading and following The Newsletter Leaf Journal. If you are interested in following the newsletter as soon as it is mailed on Saturday, you can sign up to receive emails or simply add our newsletter's RSS feed to your favorite feed reader. See your options here.

This was our final November 2023 newsletter. I look forward to mailing you again on December 2.

Until the new month,
Cura ut valeas.