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We Uncovered the Hidden Patterns in Clinton and Trump's Most Common Phrases

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Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump making speeches. (Photo: left, lorie shaull/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0; right, Gage Skidmore/cropped/CC BY-SA 3.0)

The Republican National Convention is entering its final night, but people can’t stop talking about the words in Melania Trump's Monday evening speech—because she borrowed a significant amount of them from a 2008 speech by Michelle Obama.

After journalist Jarret Hill noticed the lifted material and the story spread, the Trump campaign claimed that Melania Trump had simply been using "common words," and "phrases [Americans] have heard before."

There has been plenty of analysis of the two candidates' buzzwords, slogans, and rhetorical stratagems. But this latest scandal made us think—what can we learn from the more ordinary phrases and hidden verbal tics that each of them can't get away from, the ones they use over and over again, perhaps without even realizing it?

A lot, as it turns out. A quick analysis of Clinton and Trump’s speeches showed that each has certain common phrases they rely on. The differences are telling: Linguists told us that while Clinton's preferred words tend to be nouns that carry meaning, Trump’s speeches have been filled with grammatically necessary “words that don’t carry any information.”

To unearth the common phrases Clinton and Trump rely on, Atlas Obscura put together two sets of speeches, one for each candidate, all given over the last year. Then we ran the sets through an online text analyzer, which pulled out each candidate's most commonly used words and phrases, along with the number of times each was said. (In the process, it surfaced the occasional full sentence, like "He wants to ban all Muslims from entering," or "We're going to take care of our vets.")

We ended up with two lists, full of intriguing snippets:

When we talked to linguists about this list, they told us that compiling the most common phrases for each candidate was not the best analytic technique. To compare them more rigorously, we’d need to consider not just which phrases came up most frequently but the number of words in each set of speeches. When looking for differences between Clinton and Trump’s use of language, we needed not ask not just if it’s more common for one of them to use a particular phrase, but if it’s so much more common that it’s distinctive to one or the other of them.

To help us better understand the difference between Trump and Clinton’s use of words, Dr. Viviana Cortes, an associate professor of applied linguistics at Georgia State University, ran a few tests on text from Trump and Clinton’s speeches, examining about 100,000 words from each set.

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Trump's speech at the RNC will be even more scrutinized after his wife's situation. (Photo: Michael Vadon, CC BY-SA 4.0)

First, she did a simple test, a “type-token ratio,” which looked at how many different words were actually used in each set. Trump had about 4,500 different words; Clinton had about 6,400.

Even this simple test can tell us something about how the two use language. “Clinton’s is much more varied. She uses a wider variety of language than Trump,” says Cortes. “When you have a low type-token ratio, like in the case of Trump, it shows, often, a narrow range of subjects that are spoken about.” That’s not a hard and fast rule, but it can “suggest that the language being used is relatively simplistic,” as Dr. Paul Baker, who Cortes references as the source of this claim, puts it.

Next, Cortes looked at how often Trump and Clinton were using individual words, but she stripped out very common words, like prepositions and articles. Still, at the beginning of those lists, the words that showed up for both candidates were similar—they were words like people, know, want, get, thank. But while both Trump and Clinton had the word country among their most frequently used, only Clinton had America.

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Soon, it will be Clinton's turn at the convention podium. (Photo: Qqqqqq, CC BY-SA 3.0)

More revealing was an analysis of “keyness”—a test of which words, statistically, had a greater likelihood of belonging to one of the two sets of speeches. Here, there was a dramatic difference. Clinton had all words that carried information: families, work, economy, together, American, women, workers, future, create, children. Trump had almost no words that carry information. Instead, the words that he was statistically more likely to use than Clinton were: going, are, they, I, you, it, they.

Last, Cortes looked at longer expressions, mostly of 3, 4, or 5 words, that the candidates used frequently. Among those phrases, Clinton had more expressions with the words we, think and want. Trump’s expressions relied on going to: they are going to, we are going to, we are going to have, going to be.

Looking at these phrases, Cortes was also surprised to find a couple of longer expressions come up frequently in the text of Clinton’s speech: to break down all the barriers and works for everyone not just those at the top. People don’t usually repeat phrases that long and heavy when they’re speaking; it’s more common in writing. (And perhaps this reflects Clinton’s skill at delivering written speeches vs. Trump’s skill at speaking extemporaneously.) The longest frequent expressions that Cortes surfaced from Trump was we are going to take care of and we are going to build a wall.

Political analysts also saw marked differences in the sets. "I think there are a couple of key distinctions that you can see, even when you look at brief three or four-word snippets," says Dr. Stephen J. Farnsworth, director of the Center for Leadership and Media Studies at the University of Mary Washington. To his eye, Clinton's most common phrases tended to be "more inclusive"—speaking about America as a whole, with "we"s more prominent than "I"s.

For Farnsworth, Trump's most striking hallmarks were somewhat conflicting—his tendency to look backwards, with phrases like "in the history of" and "make America great again," and then his many "going to"s, which suggest the opposite. Farnsworth sees this second trend as a function of Trump's outsider status: "You have to talk about the future if you're Donald Trump, because you can't talk about your campaign as the continuation of what Republicans have said and done in the past," he says.

"So Trump is a weird contradiction here," says Farnsworth. "He encourages Americans to look to the past, but at the same time, he really wants to make a pretty clean break from Republican policies of the past."

When Dr. Peter Lawler, the Dana Professor of Government at Berry College, looks at these phrases, he doesn't see much to compare. "It's a sea of similarities," he says. In statements like "we're going to win," and "make America great again," he sees Trump emphasizing the country's civic identity, while phrases like "break down all the barriers" and "no matter what zip code they live in" show Clinton underscoring diversity. If there's a difference there, he says, "it's kind of a branding difference."

To him, these repeated phrases, as well as Melania's plagiarism, say more about the electorate than the candidates. "There is a certain sense in which all political rhetoric, and all rhetoric generally, is above words now," he says. "If we had minimal civic literacy, politicians, like great jazz artists, would sample things said by presidents and major works of literature and people would know it." Instead, he says, "everything has been reduced to focus-group approved phrases."

Farnsworth ended up with a similar, if more generous, diagnosis: "A lot of these comments are like punctuation," he says. "Politicians, no matter their party, are going to have good things to say about the U.S., and they will offer up plans for the future."


Tampons Could Soon Be Free For All Women in Sydney

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(Photo: Simon Law/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Sydney's city council is set to vote on a measure that would offer free tampons to women in a variety of places throughout the city, including at libraries, sports venues, homeless shelters, and in the city's public housing. 

The measure is being pushed by Councillor Edward Mandia, who is cautiously optimistic that it will pass. The majority of Sydney's city council are women, as well as their mayor and deputy mayor. The measure is set to be voted on on Monday.

"City of Sydney is flush with cash," Mandia told the Huffington Postaccording to Yahoo7 News. “There's money for everyone and lots of talk about equality. But there's little in practical leadership solutions."

Mandia said the proposed policy is about something simple: equality, since women make less money than men and are more likely to be homeless. Yet, tampons cost about $5 to $6 Australian dollars at a drug store. 

And while Sydney might be the first Australian city to hand out free tampons, they are far from the first in the world. Earlier this month, New York City enacted legislation putting free tampons in schools, jails, and homeless shelters.

Nationally, American Congressional representatives are trying to do something similar. Legislation was introduced just this week that would require employers in the U.S. to provide tampons to their employees.

Haunted Milk Bar, Pyramids of Zone and the 8 Best Places From This Week

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Pyramids of Zone with Lake Iseo in the background. (Photo: Falk Lademann/CC BY 2.0)

Every day our community of travelers and writers unearths fascinating places from the hidden corners of the world and adds them to the Atlas, helping to build our collaborative database of over 9,000 hidden wonders. And while each and every place is worth a wander off the beaten path, some stand above the fray as particularly extraordinary. These eight unusual locales are some of the most curious and enticing places we came across this week.

Haunted Milk Bar

STANMORE, AUSTRALIA

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Olympia Milk Bar interior. (Photo: Newtown Graffiti/CC BY 2.0)

This odd 1930s shop remains stranded in time and shrouded in mystery. Known as "The Haunted Milk Bar," the shopfront retains much of its original 1939 interior and signage. It's a Sydney area landmark, and the subject of much speculation.

Pyramids of Zone

CISLANO, ITALY

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Pyramids rising up out of the foliage. (Photo: Max Cortesi/Used with Permission)

Zone, a quaint Lombard village near Lake Iseo, would be all but forgotten if it weren’t for the Pyramids. The Pyramids of Zone are a product of years of erosion, resulting in a surreal landscape marked by boulders perched on top of spindly towers of clay, some reaching as high as 30 meters.

Sky Gate

HONOLULU, HAWAII

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Skygate from afar. (Photo: Newtown Graffiti/CC BY-SA 2.0)

For 363 days of the year this bendy sculpture will make a curvy, twisted shadow. But when the sun is directly above it—a solar phenomenon called “Lahaina Noon” in Hawaiian—the height-changing ring casts a perfect circle on the ground. 

The Leaning Tower of Texas

GROOM, TEXAS

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(Photo: Steve Hardy/CC BY-ND 2.0)

Despite its location in the middle of nowhere, the town of Groom, Texas, has nearly as many unique attributes as it does people. These include a small stretch of the original Route 66, the site of the plot of Cross Canadian Ragweed’s song “42 miles,” the seventh-largest freestanding cross in the world (at 190 feet), and a strange leaning water tower slanted at an uncomfortable angle.

Abandoned Frontier Town

SCHROON LAKE, NEW YORK

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The old Western store. (Photo: Mchampeau/Atlas Obscura)

This theme park in upstate New York boomed in the heyday of John Wayne Westerns, but then went bust like an old ghost town. Since then it has sat dormant, overgrown and rotting under the burden of almost 20 years of decline and neglect.  

The Center of the Universe

WALLACE, IDAHO

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Center of the Universe manhole. (Photo: Wallace Chamber/Used with Permission)

On the corner of Bank Street and Sixth Street in the quaint mining town of Wallace, Idaho, you will find a manhole. Initially, it may seem like an unremarkable sewer cover, but step a bit closer and you’ll realize it is much, much more: It is the Center of the Universe. 

The Longest Glass Suspension Bridge in the World

YUEYANG SHI, CHINA

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Brave Men's bridge is 300m long. (Photo: Shiniuzhai National Park)

The Haohan Qiao bridge in China's Shiniuzhai National Park already had a fearsome reputation. You crossed the slender wooden structure that locals called "Brave Men's bridge" at your peril. And then the park manager decided to take things up a notch. Engineers replaced Brave Men's wooden slats with glass, allowing visitors to stare directly down at the 590-foot drop.

An Ice Mine That Melts in Winter and Freezes in Summer

COUDERSPORT, PENNSYLVANIA 

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Coudersport Ice Mine. (Photo: Mannelang/Atlas Obscura)

The Coudersport Ice Mine is an intriguing and puzzling geological anomaly. Contrary to what one might expect, ice forms inside this small cavern during the summer and melts during the winter. The dynamics that drive this counterintuitive process are not yet fully understood. Geologists are currently studying the mine to learn more about the natural phenomena at work.

Found: A Giant Viking Axe

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A very large axe. (Photo: Silkeborg Museum)

Around the year 950 A.D., in a place near the center of what is now Denmark, a pair of important people were buried in an impressive tomb. There was a man and a woman, and they were buried with objects that showed their status: the woman was buried in filagreed clothing, in a wagon and with two keys, both signs of high rank.

The man was buried with what LiveScience calls“one of the largest Viking axes ever found.”

After more than 1,000 years, only the head of the axe remains, but it would have had a long handle, according to the archaeologist who discovered it. It would have been a fearful weapon, and since it’s not adorned in any way, it looks to be a weapon meant for use, rather than show.

In the tomb, archaeologists found another man, too, likely buried after the original two inhabitants of the grave. That man was buried with an axe as well, but, they told LiveScience, that second axe is not quite as big.

Every day, we highlight one newly found object, curiosity or wonder. Discover something amazing? Tell us about it! Send your finds to sarah.laskow@atlasobscura.com. 

What It's Like to Be an Underwater Crime Scene Investigator

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Underwater investigations need to follow the same strict procedures on-land ones. (Photo: Tony Webster/CC BY-SA 4.0)

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For Mike Berry, a challenging workday might involve groping through the silt at the bottom of a lake in the pitch dark, hoping to stumble upon a gun while avoiding getting his hand chomped off by a snapping turtle.

Based in Virginia, Berry is an underwater criminal investigator. For the last 35 years, he has been diving to the bottom of lakes, rivers, and oceans in search of evidence that could send a murderer to prison or put a cold case to rest.

As with crime scenes on land, underwater investigations need to be conducted with the utmost consideration for protocol and evidence preservation. “The whole point of underwater criminal investigation is, just because the murder weapon was thrown off a bridge and went into the water, it still needs to be handled the same way, with the same rules, with the same requirements," says Berry.

In addition to his job as the commander of Virginia State Police's search and rescue team, Berry trains public safety officers on how to approach aquatic crime scenes with the level of meticulousness required to ensure the evidence found can be admissible in court. His organization, Underwater Criminal Investigators, prepares police and fire department divers for all aspects of the job, from marking evidence to making courtroom testimonies.

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Things can get mighty murky underwater. (Photo: Public Domain)

Underwater criminal investigators are called upon for three main types of recovery operations: bodies, vehicles, and evidence. “Body recovery could be a person that drowned, it could be a murder, it could be a cold case where the person was murdered 10 years ago and tied up and thrown off a bridge," says Berry.

In cold cases like these, "you’re not searching for a body anymore, you’re searching for bones and clothing and jewelry, and maybe cinder blocks and rope that they used to tie them up.”

The vehicles dredged up from waterways might be stolen, or part of an insurance fraud scheme. They may also have ended up in the water following an accident in which the driver loses control and spins off a road.

The "evidence" category is broad—guns and knives are common items on the search list, but divers also go looking for personal effects that relate to a crime, such as purses and suitcases.

The search process is methodical, physically demanding, and mentally taxing. It can also get pretty disgusting. “Most of the places we’re diving, unfortunately, are gross—they’re black, and the bottom is all mucky," says Berry. "The only way to find that gun is to get down into the muck.”

Scuba divers scour the bottom of a body of water by hand, moving back and forth in straight lines—like mowing a lawn. Working in pairs, they hold onto a rope while sifting through a foot of silt, mud, trash, and foliage. As soon as the lead diver completes a section, the backup diver re-searches that area. It's a thorough approach, and one that requires a lot of patience and concentration. It can take days or weeks to find that crucial object that can provide the missing piece in a puzzling crime.

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A typical back-and-forth search pattern. (Image: Pbsouthwood/CC BY-SA 3.0)

For a body or a car, side-scan sonar, which creates an image of the lakebed or ocean floor, is often used to find the target object before sending divers down to retrieve it.

Regardless of the methods employed, the search is high-stakes. "You have police departments that are depending on you," says Berry. "The case many times hinges on these divers and their ability to not only scuba dive, but to search in these very harsh conditions and find it.”

The taxing conditions don't just involve muck and pitch blackness. “The water that we dive in, a lot of it is contaminated," Berry says, "so just ingesting some of that water could kill you.” Divers can step on broken glass or injure their hands on nails. And then there are the creatures of the deep, some of whom make their presence known at highly inconvenient moments. Depending on the location of the investigation, divers may have to contend with turtles, poisonous snakes, alligators, or inquisitive fish.

“The worst I’ve been bit was from a snapping turtle," says Berry. "You know, you can’t see them, so as your hand is moving along the bottom, feeling, you hope you get the rear end of the turtle instead of the front end. I got the front end one day ... it went right through my hand, from one side to the other.” The pain, he says, was "like a lightning strike.”

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An alligator snapping turtle—one of the creatures to watch out for when searching waterways in the South. (Photo: Florida Fish and Wildlife/CC BY-ND 2.0)

Fish, while seemingly harmless, can also impede an investigation. “I’ve had fish take a chunk out of my lips before,” says Berry. A diver may also encounter what they think is a body, then discover it is a man-sized catfish. “You put your hand on something on the bottom and you’re thinking, ‘What’s this?’" says Berry. "And all of a sudden it swims.”

In the event that a diver does find a real human body, or part thereof, the usual approach is to place it in a body bag while underwater, then bring it to the surface. This helps preserve any physical or trace evidence on it, while preventing news media and family members of the deceased from seeing the body emerge from the water. In toxic or otherwise dangerous waters, investigators opt for what's called the "grab-and-go" approach, foregoing the body bag until they reach the surface.

Though underwater criminal investigations can be hard, dangerous work, for Berry, nothing beats the thrill of finding that missing gun that can bring resolution to a case and justice to the bereaved.

“I’ve had a number of murderers that have told me, ‘You’ll never find it,’" he says. "And that just gets you excited, when they tell you that. It’s like, ‘Okay. We’ll see.’”

I Would Walk 500 Miles, and I Would Walk 500 More, Just to Be the Man Who Walked 1,000 Miles Out on the Ocean Floor

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The Hudson trench, perhaps a short cut to the deep sea. (Photo: GeoMapApp/Vicki Ferrini)

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Imagine this scenario. Far into the future, all of Earth’s water has dried up. (Climate change turned out to be way, way worse than we thought it would be.) The relatively little water on Mars was humanity’s only hope of long-term survival, and we moved there, joining the well-established and surprisingly successful colonies on the red planet. But, now, you’ve been sent back on a mission to bone-dry Earth.

In the Great Exodus, not everything was saved—in fact, you’re back on this planet to collect vital scientific records. But right now, the best maps you have to guide you are the ones created in the first decades of the 21st century. You’ve landed on North America, near the crumbling remains of New York City; your mission requires you to travel across what was once the Atlantic Ocean to Europe. So you take out your maps and start to plan your route.

Man, are you screwed.

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The Lamont seamounts, a much-studied set of mountains. (Photo: GeoMapApp/Vicki Ferrini)

For starters, our current picture of the seafloor is so lacking in detail that it’s often said that we have better maps of Mars. Scientists who are working to map the bottom of the world’s oceans estimate that only 10 to 15 percent has been visualized acceptably (at 100 m resolution or better), using sonar reflected off the sea bottom. To get a sense of what that means, consider that 100 m is about length of a football field and longer than a New York City block. An entire airplane could fit inside one of these squares, and you’d have no idea.

There are also spots where you’re basically traveling blind. “There are whole parts of the ocean that we have no measurements at all,” says Vicki Ferrini, who works on seafloor mapping at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

It used to be worse. In the past 20 years or so, ocean mappers and hydrographers have been able to use satellites to get a rough sense of ocean topography: the surface of the ocean will move up or down, in tiny increments, in response to features on the ocean floor, like a big mountain or trench, that change the gravitational traction. This, says Larry Mayer, the director of the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping, was a huge step forward, but even so, those maps only have a resolution of one point every 2 kilometers (about one and a quarter miles) at best.

Based on the best maps of today, Mayer says, a person planning a journey across the ocean floor could see the big ridges, some of the big seamounts, and some of the big trenches. But there could be a 1,500 meter mountain that doesn’t show up at all. Or a really big hole.

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The Monterey Canyon (Photo: GeoMapApp/Vicki Ferrini)

One strategy for crossing the ocean floor would be to follow one of the large, formerly underwater cables left behind when humanity fled earth. The companies that run these ocean-crossing cables are always looking for the easiest route, which would require the cables to climb the fewest mountains. “They often miss,” says Mayer. “But we could look at where the cables go as a guide.”

Or, you might want to stick to a route where you have at least some idea what to expect. The 100 m resolution maps often come from data gathered by ships crossing the ocean; pull that data together, and you get a scribble of ship routes. But if you followed one of those lines, at least you would have some idea of what to expect.

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Those lines represent relatively well-mapped areas. (Image: Marine Geoscience Data System)

As you start out from North America, you’d be in pretty good shape for awhile. The East Coast of the United States has been mapped in great detail. From New York, you might choose to take a route through the Hudson Canyon, a giant valley that extends from the end of the Hudson River down into the ocean. It would be a shortcut, of sorts, into the deep sea.

Or you might walk out on the flat shelf that extends from what was once the coast line. After about 60 miles, you’d reach the continental slope, where the land would start to travel more sharply downwards, at about 2 to 3 degrees. There are canyons here, but your maps are still good enough to avoid them. At the bottom of the slope, the land flattens out again, into the abyssal plains. This is the deep sea. If the water hadn’t all dried up, you’d be under thousands of meters of water.

Traveling across the abyssal plains is where you could into trouble with the rogue mountain or valley. We know there are some big mountains off the coast of New England, which would be good to avoid. Off of Iceland, you’d hit deep sea channels, and you’d probably have to cross at least one.

Eventually, you’d reach the mid-Atlantic ridge, the place where two tectonic plates meets. On the one hand, this is a relief: there are much better maps of the ridge than anywhere else in the middle of this ocean. As of last year, an estimated 75-85 percent of the mid-ocean ridges and subduction zones have been mapped. On the other hand, you have to cross a massive mountain range, and it’s prone to earthquakes and volcanic activity, as it’s shifting at about the rate that your fingernails grow.

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The Vema transform fault. (Photo: GeoMapApp/Vicki Ferrini)

Ferrini has visited the range in a submarine before the most analogous experience she’s had on land is visiting the Big Island of Hawai’i. “There’s this rolling landscape of lava that’s solidified,” she says, interrupted by spots of hot water and riotous life. The best way to cross it would be to aim for a transform fault, where the earth shifts to create a passage, of sorts, across the range. “If you look at the map, in the North Atlantic, the gradients a little more gentler there,” says Ferrini. That might be where you’d want to aim.

Once you made it across the ridge, the broad outlines of your journey would be about the same as you trudged back up towards what was once the coastline of Europe. Along the way, you’d have to circumvent more unknown mountains and valleys—if you could—or else find some way to cross them. And you’d count yourself lucky: the maps of this part of the ocean are relatively good. In the southern and Indian Oceans, the maps are even less detailed.

As you make this arduous journey across this unknown territory, though, you might be struck by this landscape. The ridge crests, seamounts and trenches that you travel over and around are dramatic—beautiful, even—and few humans have ever seen them. Some of them we didn’t even know were there.

Photographing a Superpod of Sperm Whales

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Members of an enormous social gathering of hundreds of sperm whales, which spread across many square kilometers. (All photos: Tony Wu)

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A version of this story originally appeared on bioGraphic.com.

“Hundreds of sperm whales swam to and fro, their huge bodies elegantly twirling and twisting through the water as they socialized. I felt like a gatecrasher at a wedding, so obvious was their delight in each other’s company.”

So began photographer Tony Wu’s experience of being underwater with a superpod of sperm whales. It was a rare opportunity to observe an elusive animal: Sperm whales dive to depths of up to 3,000 feet to feed, and they spend a large proportion of their time in the deep ocean, away from the surface.

The photographs that Wu captured show the distinctive social activities of a family group of sperm whales. Amid the sounds of whale communication, Wu noticed particular behaviors. The whales jostled close together to rub dead skin from their bodies. In addition to the en masse exfoliation, the superpod also defecated, which is believed to aid the nutrients in the water.

Currently, there is no accurate estimate for how many of them exist. After centuries of commercial whaling, which was only banned in the 1980s, they are still classified as vulnerable by the IUCN Red List. Ocean pollutants, and dangers of swallowing plastic, are continued threats.

Here is a selection of Wu’s remarkable photographs of this underwater gathering.

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An adult sperm whale just below the ocean surface, with two other members of her family group visible in the background. 

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An adult female sperm whale—the dominant member of this group—carrying a large piece of a giant squid brought up from the deep trench below. Says Wu, "Members of the family played with leftover bits of squid, shredding their meal, perhaps part of the process of weaning the calf pictured swimming alongside the female."

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An inquisitive sperm whale calf approaches photographer Tony Wu, buzzing him with biosonar. 

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The prominent white stripes on the surface of the adult in the foreground made it relatively easy for photographer Tony Wu to distinguish this family unit from the many dozens of others gathered in the area.

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During the gathering, the sperm whales defecate clouding the water. 

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 A large cluster of sperm whales, part of an enormous “superpod” gathering of hundreds, if not thousands, of individuals.

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In this photo, the whales' sloughed-off skin is visible. Shedding skin is thought to be a mechanism by which whales rid themselves of parasites.

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The sperm whales engaged in social activities like physical contact and biosonar communication.

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The sperm whale gathering lasted for two days.

The World's Oldest Known Manatee Turns 68 This Weekend

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When Snooty the manatee was born, Truman was in office, the Cold War was raging, and the Red Scare was in full effect. But Snooty probably doesn't know any of this, because he is a manatee.

Yesterday, Snooty turned 68—a record for captive manatee. He's spent almost all of his years at the South Florida Museum in Bradenton, which took him in when he was 11 months old (the Miami Aquarium had captured his mother without knowing she was pregnant, and only had room for one). These days, he is somewhat of a local celebrity, wowing locals with his gentle wisdom and kale-eating prowess.

To celebrate, the museum is throwing him a party this weekend, complete with a birthday card contest, free cookies (for the people) and an array of potential fruit and veggie cakes (for Snooty).

Last year, 4000 people showed up in a rainstorm. But no pressure if you can't make it—you can always hang out with him virtually on the Snooty Cam.

Every day, we track down a fleeting wonder—something amazing that's only happening right now. Have a tip for us? Tell us about it! Send your temporary miracles to cara@atlasobscura.com.


An Abandoned, Saddled Horse Was Found in a British Forest

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Hello, horse. (Photo: photophilde/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Like something out of a gothic ghost story, a lone horse, dressed up in full riding gear was mysteriously found Thursday with no rider in a forest near the Stourhead Estate in the United Kingdom. According to a (since deleted) post on the Wiltshire police’s Facebook page, the horse was simply alone, with no owner in sight.

Police said the horse, a skewbald cob, was 15 hands, or around five feet tall and was, the police said, “well looked after." Had the rider been thrown somewhere in the forest? Had the horse simply escaped from its stable? It was all a bit baffling.

But dozens of commenters, including many members of the local equestrian community, chimed in to help, with many recommending searching for a chip implant or a dog tag attached to the saddle.

And just around a half hour after the original post, the mystery was solved. The rider had been found, the police said, and taken to a hospital for treatment for unnamed injuries. 

"Your assistance has been invaluable," the police said. 

The Retro-Futuristic Undersea Habitats of Jacques Rougerie

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The original Aquascope. (Unless otherwise noted, all images are property of the Jacques Rougerie Foundation/Used With Permission)

If spy movies and comic books are to be believed, the world's oceans are packed to the gills with underwater vehicles and secret science bases that sprawl across the sea bed like some futuristic metropolis. Unfortunately, creating underwater living spaces is extraordinarily difficult, and there is currently only one permanent undersea habitat in the world, Aquarius, located in the Florida Keys. 

Luckily we still have dreamers like architect Jacques Rougerie, who, since the 1970s, has been designing and creating habitats and craft that not only allow people to hang out under the waves, but also to do it in sci-fi style.

Rougerie was originally inspired by the undersea research platforms of Jacques Cousteau, and after becoming an architect, spent much of his design output on creations that would allow humans to experience life underwater. Whether they are buildings on land or oceanic constructions, Rougerie's designs rely heavily on a style called "bionic architecture," which tries to incorporate elements of the natural world into the form of architectural structures. Many of his designs truly look like they based on some kind of bio-mechanical alien creature, mixing the function of underwater survival with flowing natural forms.

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The SeaOrbiter

In recent years, Rougerie has made a splash with the designs for his next project, the bizarre and ambitious SeaOrbiter. A vertical ship with multiple stories both above and below the surface, the SeaOrbiter would act as a non-stop research station capable of traveling the seas on extended expeditions. The finished ship would be capable of supporting up to 22 crew members at a time, with laboratories and science centers for use in everything from studying sea life to training sea life. It would also look like something from outer space.

For the time being, the SeaOrbiter is more dream than reality (although the vessel's "eye" has been fabricated!), so while we wait for his latest revolution in undersea living, lets take a look back at some of Rougerie's most incredible creations that have actually hit the waves. 

Galathée (1977)

Rougerie's very first undersea habitat was this bulbous vessel. Thanks to inflatable sacs installed on the sides of the submersible, this undersea shelter could settle itself at variable positions under the water, allowing for viewing and research at a number of different sections of the ocean. It also started the trend of prominent, eye-like viewing windows that continue throughout many of Rougerie's creations.

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The Galathée is pulled up from the waters. 

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Rougerie and others sit comfortably inside of the Galathée. 

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Notice the inflated side bags. 

Aquascopes (1979)

These space-age trimarans were designed and built not as scientific vessels but to allow casual passengers to observe life under the waves. The viewing portals sit on the sides of the central fin that extends under the water while two wide arms sweep off either side, keeping the vessel from tipping. Rougerie actually produced 25 of these ships, some which are still on the waters today as tour vessels.  

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An Aquascope cresting like a manta ray. 

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The underwater view of the craft must be even more spectacular from the inside.

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An Aquascope still in use as a tour vessel. (Photo: Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Aquabulles (1978-1998)

One of his more simple designs, the Aquabulle is a simple viewing station that is little more than a submersible bubble that holds enough usable air for those inside to survive for hours at a time. The main advantage here being that the whole thing is essentially a big window. Rougerie first designed the shelter in 1978, but a number of scientific endeavors have employed aquabulles in the years since their creation.    

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An aquabulle can also sit at variable levels under the surface.

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Divers enter from beneath the viewing bubble.

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Rougerie and a diver seem pretty proud of their aquabulle. 

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Divers putting an aquabulle in place.

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Rougerie stands over his creation.

Hippocampe (1981)

This viewing bubble gave a widescreen viewing window to researchers who could stay in it for up to two weeks. Giant eyes on either side of the structure gave researchers a chance to take in a large view of the underwater landscape as opposed to through some tiny porthole. 

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The Hippocampe had windows looking up and down beneath the waves. 

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Divers setting up the Hippocampe.

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A view of the workstation inside the habitat. 

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The habitat is lowered into the water. 

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The Hippocampe being built, with a pair of Aquascopes in the background. 

Aquaspace (1982)

Another trimaran-type ship, the Aquaspace looks a bit more like something designed for the military of the future. More traditionally boat-like than many of Rougerie's designs, this vessel has a long viewing deck running along its underside, and is one of his only designs to run off of sail power.

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The Aquaspace in shallow water. 

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Rougerie admiring the Aquaspace. 

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The ship waiting for the tide to come in. 

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The view from inside the Aquaspace.

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The ship passes France's Mont Saint-Michel.

The Perplexing Problem of Manitoba's Nameless Lakes

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Manitoba's Dorothy Lake, one of the 10% of the province's lakes that do have an official name. (Photo: Robert Nunnally/CC BY 2.0)

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Canada has a heck of a lot of lakes. Back in the last Ice Age, the country's landscape was repeatedly dragged by glaciers. This pocked it with holes, many of which have since filled up with groundwater and rain. Some estimates have put the country's terrain at about 8% fresh water.

This means a lot of things—swimming, fishing, sunning on the shore. It also means that the person in charge of assigning names to geographic markers, Des Kappel, has a whole lot of work to do. Particularly when it comes to lakes: "It's safe to say that Manitoba has more than 100,000 lakes," says Kappel over the phone from his office in Winnipeg.

As the province's official toponymist, Kappel has the Adam-esque task of pinning names on its many anonymous features. Although the Manitoba database currently contains about 8,000 lake names, they're just a drop in the bucket. Go through some simple subtraction, and the scale of anonymity becomes clear: "About 90,000 of our lakes currently do not have an official name," Kappel notes.  

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Manitoba's Swampy Lake, likely named to help fur traders like these figure out where they were going. (Image: Library and Archives of Canada/CC BY 2.0)

The numbers for Canada as a whole are harder to come by, but geographical maps show this trend continues throughout the country. Even the most comprehensive ones, like the Canadian Geographical Names Data Base, feature plenty of nameless blue blobs.

A Lake With No Name may seem romantic, but there are plenty of reasons it's better to know what to call things, says Kappel. Some of these are resource-related: loggers, builders, and mining crews need landmarks, and surveyors can't keep writing "half a mile past that anonymous shoreline." If two parties are arguing over fishing rights in a particular lake, they have to be able to pinpoint the fish they're fighting about.

These needs are longstanding: the Geographical Names Board of Canada, the inter-provincial group that puts names to landmarks, was established way back in 1897, when the Yukon gold rush was raging and people were pouring in from Europe and the United States. "As the country was being explored and developed, it was important to have standardization, and not to have a hodgepodge of miscellaneous things occurring in the landscape," says Kappel. The Board has existed in some form ever since, and currently has 31 members, including Kappel. 

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The name of Manitoba's Lake Athapapuskow, officially registered in 1948, is derived from the Cree word for "rock on both sides lake." (Photo: Lake Athapap/CC BY-SA 3.0)

Many lakes, especially those within or close to communities, actually do go by something—their monikers just haven't become official. If a resident thinks they know a lake's true name, they'll take it to Kappel, who will investigate, asking around and sniffing out historical evidence, like newspaper articles or birth certificates. "Names in longstanding local use take precedence," says Kappel. Often, the most longstanding locals are indigenous people, and recent initiatives have focused on surfacing Cree and Assiniboine names. "There's a fear that we'll lose some of that information, because elders will pass on, or it will be forgotten," says Kappel.

Even after these background checks, there are still plenty of lakes that need names. Luckily, there are also plenty of names that need lakes. In the mid-20th century, the country set out to name a piece of land or water after every Canadian casualty of World War II. Manitoba liked the idea so much, they expanded their program, and maps of the province are now dotted with the names of soldiers killed in the War in Afghanistan, the Korean War, and World War I.

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Mackie Lake in Manitoba, named for World War II Flying Officer Alexander Morton Mackie. (Image: Geographical Names Board of Canada

Thanks to this initiative, Kappel says, "I will not be running out of names anytime soon." Once he's done, he will have christened about 10,000 new features after the Manitoban dead. Although he cherishes the stories that come up with each, he refuses to matchmake, instead randomly scattering the names throughout the province. "We don't want there to be an appearance of favoritism—naming a big feature after a Major, or something closer to a popular area after a decorated person," says Kappel.

Still, the province runs into the occasional lake name controversy. Back in 2010, a previously unnamed lake about two miles square was named for Chicago Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews, a Manitoba native. Some military families were less than pleased: the father of one fallen soldier from Afghanistan who also has a lake told the Toronto Sun that the decision "detracts and takes away from the significance of naming a geographic feature after war dead."

According to Kappel, this was a special case: "Toews's exploits and his representation of Manitoba are fairly exceptional," he says. 

article-imageManitoba on Google, full of nameless blue specks. (Map data © 2016 Google)

Despite all of these efforts, there's one popular place you won't find very many of these names at all: Google Maps. Pan over Manitoba's northern reaches, and it looks like you're floating over a series of nameless blobs. This may seem innocuous, but Kappel, who is chairing a working group to address this issue, sees a certain amount of danger in it. A few years ago, he recalls, an ambulance with an outdated GPS ended up speeding to the wrong lake. "Nothing bad happened, fortunately," he says. "But that's an example of how, without there being a standardized database, someone could have potentially lost their life."

In Kappel's experience, people tend to take this aspect of their surroundings for granted. "People see names on a map, but they don't really think about it," he says. That is, until there aren't any. 

Inside the Creation of Europe's First Underwater Museum

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article-image"The Raft of Lampedusa," currently installed at the Museo Atlántico. (All sculptures and photos: Courtesy of Jason deCaires Taylor.)

Off the coast of the Spanish island of Lanzarote, the easternmost of the Canary Islands, lies the completely submerged Museo Atlántico, an oceanic exhibition of the sculptures of British artist Jason deCaires Taylor.

The exhibit is a striking reminder of humans’ ever-changing—and often destructive—role in the modern world. A raft carries a dozen or so migrant refugees into an uncertain abyss. A mass of people walks dreamily into another world, some hiding behind the lenses of their cameras, some with eyes closed, some posing for a selfie.

But what's visible now is only a small fraction of what this unique, underwater museum will become.

article-image"Rubicon," one of the installations in el Museo.

It’s been in the works for months—the museum has been open since February of this year—but it’s nowhere near completed. According to Taylor, 70 sculptures are already in place, but by the completion of the ten phases of installations, anticipated to take place in December, that number will bubble up to around 300.

Still to make their appearance, he says, are a giant gateway measuring 30 meters long and 4 meters high, a piece featuring 200 people swimming in a circle, and more botanical elements like trees and a garden. “This particular one has taken us two years to gain the permits, to install the sculptures. So there’s a lot of environmental impact analysis, lots of surveys,” he said.

“We apply for the permits, then there’s obviously the fundraising part that goes into it, the design work in the different sites, how they’ll be installed, how they’ll be fixed to the sea floor. So, yeah, there’s a lot of stages of building it.”

article-imageTaylor and his team before installing one of his sculptures that will be featured at el Museo Atlántico.

Taylor earned renown for making first underwater sculpture park off the coast of Grenada in 2006. In 2009, the Museo Subacuático de Arte off the coast of Cancún, Mexico opened with more than 500 of his sculptures. This project, the Museo Atlántico, is his first on the other side of the Atlantic.

Before creating these destinations, Taylor spent more than ten years as diving instructor, underwater naturalist, and underwater photographer. One of his primary messages is the importance of conservation, exploring how to create positive and ecologically responsible interactions between humans and ocean life. To that end, he's created artificial reefs. Marine microorganisms attach to the hard surfaces of Taylor's work and attract coral growth, giving natural reefs some relief. 

article-imageCalcareous worms begin to take over one of Taylor's sculptures.

 

article-imageTaylor hopes to address how humans observe and interact with the natural world.

 

article-imageA person walks engrossed in a tablet in Taylor's "Rubicon."

Made of nontoxic and pH-neutral concrete, the sculptures hat are being installed off of Lanzarote have revitalized what was once an ecologically empty zone.

“[The sculptures’ site] was completely barren in January when we first started deploying them. There was absolutely nothing living there. It was just completely bare,” he says.

“And I went back there the other day, and there’s, you know—there must be a hundred octopus living there, there’s a thousand sardines, there’s angelfish, there’s these angel sharks. They’re very rare. There are five of them living there. And it’s sort of just like this complete evolving ecosystem.”

 

The Mystery of the 'Beast of Dartmoor' Has (Apparently) Been Solved

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(Photo: Greg Hume/CC BY-SA 3.0)

For years, blurry photographs and reported sightings of a big cat in Dartmoor, a massive southwestern English park, have emerged. There were also the dead animals that would pop up from time to time, gored by some type of beast. 

And while it was usually thought to be a big cat of some kind, no one could ever quite figure out what. Big cats are not native to the area, and none were known to exist in the park before sightings of a mysterious animal emerged in the 1980s, later to be christened the Beast of Dartmoor.

But on Thursday, the Telegraphsaid they'd cracked the case. The Beast of Dartmoor, the newspaper reports, was probably several beasts of Dartmoor, and originated in 1978, after a circus owner named Mary Chipperfield released them into the wild. 

Why? The zoo Chipperfield ran in nearby Plymouth was shutting down, and Chipperfield, then a well-known animal trainer, opted to release her favorite pumas—two males and a female—into the wild rather than force them to adapt to a new home. Two other pumas were transferred to a zoo inside Dartmoor. (Years later, the story behind that zoo's revival would inspire the 2011 movie We Bought a Zoo.)

Chipperfield also apparently broke no crimes in the process—releasing exotic animals into the wild was not a crime in England until 1981, according to the Telegraph. So her plan, such as it was, apparently worked, and all this time the Beast of Dartmoor was nothing more than a few pumas, who, like the rest of us, were just trying to get by. 

Take a Soothing Swim in a Lake Swarming With Golden Jellyfish

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There is something magical about floating alongside thousands of translucent, soft-bodied jellyfish. If you adventure to Jellyfish Lake, a marine lake secluded in a pocket of Eil Malk Island in Palau, you can do just that.

The lake, which was once connected to the ocean, provides the perfect environment for the golden jellyfish, Mastigias, and moon jellyfish, Aurelia. By living in this special isolated environment, the species of jellyfish have developed very different behaviors, morphologies, and characteristics from those found in other marine lakes and lagoons. Videographer Zachery Steen took a dip in the famous Jellyfish Lake, and filmed the cauliflower-shaped peachy cnidarians as they bobbed and drifted.    

But this serene paradise is at risk.

Scientists studying the lake report a drastic decline in the number of these gentle jellies. The lake is usually brimming with an average of eight million jellyfish, but the Coral Reef Research Foundation estimated about 600,000 as of March 2016. The reason behind the decrease in jellyfish in the lake is uncertain. Some scientists hope that the jellyfish population at Palau will make a comeback, while others fear that climate change may be permanently affecting the unique ecosystem of the saltwater lake, National Geographic reports.

“It’s difficult to tease out what is happening in the lake,” marine biologist David Gruber tells National Geographic. “Is it natural fluctuation or climate change? This highlights why we need long-term monitoring of places, so we can understand these systems more.”

Every day we track down a Video Wonder: an audiovisual offering that delights, inspires, and entertains. Have you encountered a video we should feature? Email ella@atlasobscura.com.

Raccoons Are Eating Pets and Terrorizing a Harlem Block

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(Photo: Darkone/CC BY-SA 2.5)

Raccoons, at their best, are harmless and even cute, but they can also be menacing, attacking other small animals and the odd human

They can be even scarier in packs, as a block in Harlem is experiencing.

Numerous residents told DNAinfo that several raccoons were running rampant in their backyards and homes, eating food out of kitchens, getting into garbage cans, generally terrifying small children, and even, in one instance, eating alive a former New York City mayoral candidate's turtle. 

An abandoned home on West 121st Street is said to provide a headquarters for hordes of raccoons, and residents complain that city officials have done nothing to stop them, instead recommending private solutions. 

No human has been attacked yet, but the animals have managed to break through a screen door to score peanuts and cat food from one resident's kitchen, leaving tiny foot prints behind. 

“And we worry about people coming into our house,” that resident, Debora Clark Fairfax, told DNAinfo

Another raccoon—or was it the same?—was said to have eaten a turtle that lived in the backyard of Bill Thompson, the former Democratic candidate for mayor. In the brutal land of raccoon combat, it didn't last long. 

“It ate the turtle and left the shell,” Nia Bediako, another resident, told the site.

But until a human is hurt or a rabid raccoon is found, the city says it's the residents' problem.

"Property owners are responsible for removing a nuisance raccoon and should hire a nuisance trapper licensed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC),” a spokesperson told DNAinfo


An Exclusive Look at the Leaked PR Agenda of the 1936 Republican National Convention

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Bruce Barton's letter to himself ahead of the last time Cleveland held the RNC, 1936. (Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Bruce Barton Papers)

“Wire each state chairman to bring the prettiest young Republican to the Convention; have them seated on the platform,” a man named Bruce Barton wrote in a note to himself in 1936. Barton's ideas were destined for Henry Fletcher, the Chairman of the Republican Party.  

That year's Republican National Convention, to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, was just a month away, and an army of ad men were busily plotting the best ways to reach the electorate. Similarly to today, emphasis was placed on entertainment, appeals to a cross-section of voters, and a show of party unity. Then as now, sometimes-cynical PR tactics were used to achieve these goals.

Barton was a founding partner of the high-profile Manhattan advertising firm BBDO, and during the 1936 campaign season, he lent his public relations skills to the Republican Party. A look at his papers, now part of a collection held by the Wisconsin Historical Societygive insight into the spectacle that is presidential politics today. 

The three documents each show something different about the plans made ahead of the convention. Not every item listed during the planning stage came to fruition, nonetheless they indicate how men like Barton thought about political strategy. For instance, even 80 years ago, the Republican Party was making explicit—and not always successful—overtures to minority groups. 

African-Americans had traditionally voted for the GOP, but a shift to voting for the Democrats began in the 1930s. In the 1936 election, the Republicans feared the loss of some one million African-American voters. But the ad men had a plan: The New York Times reported prior to the convention that Barton planned to use “racial choirs” to target voting blocs. This included African-American, German, Italian and Scandinavian choirs. The "negro" songs would remind "negro" voters listening on the radio at home that they should vote Republican, reported The Times

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The Republican Party plan the National Convention in Cleveland, 1936. (Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Bruce Barton Papers)

Some of the speakers the party officials wanted at the convention represented the demographics of voters the Republican party needed to attract. They were far removed from what people today call the core support base. At the time, the Republican party was largely the party of the affluent. But the convention plan included a woman speaker, a "dirt farmer", a "young Republican" and a "Constitutional Democrat."  

The papers show how Barton and his peers planned to make the convention memorable for attendees and the people listening in on the radio. In the first letter, dated May 7, Barton considered tactics to please the crowd. He wanted to find the oldest Republican in the U.S. and bring him (it was presumed to be a him) to the convention in Cleveland. Barton also put out a call for any Republicans turning 21 on the day of the convention. He also proposed hiring "48 good looking girls," one for each state in the U.S. at that time. 

With a background outside of politics, ad men like Barton were valued for their ability to finesse the potential reach of the first form of mass communication: radio. This is because the 1936 election was the first one where parties started to specifically plan their events around a radio audience, and not just the audience in the event hall. 

At the time, almost three quarters of American homes had at least one radio. “By 1936 there is a much greater recognition that the audience is really broader than those in the convention hall,” says Adam Sheingate, political scientist at John Hopkins University and author of Building a Business of Politics. 

Barton and radio professionals were there to help the party understand how to use the medium in a more sophisticated way. For the first time, speeches at the convention were condensed to be more radio-friendly.

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A list of songs for the RNC. (Photo: Wisconsin Historical Society Archives, Bruce Barton Papers)

A calm and skillful presentation over the airwaves certainly made a difference to the audience listening in their living rooms. This was all part of the sale, says Sheingate. And the quality of the entertainment was important too, so the convention needed music.

According to the Barton papers, the GOP wanted to hire Lawrence Tibbetts, a famous singer of the day, or the Cleveland Glee club. At the convention, the Creoleans' Quartette, a so-called "negro" band, played "Working on the Railroad"—one of the songs listed on a BBDO memo of a recommended list of songs. Fletcher, chairman of the GOP, reportedly endorsed the tune as the party's official song.

Unfortunately for Barton and the GOP, their carefully made entertainment plans couldn't sway radio listeners to vote for his party. Franklin Roosevelt went on to win a huge landslide in November for the Democrats—with an unprecedented 71 percent of the black vote. 

The CIA's Declassified Guide to What Women Want

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(Photo: Public domain)

A version of this story originally appeared on Muckrock.com.

After coming across what appeared to be an actual in-house CIA poster depicting lady agents as hard-boiled, gun-toting, detective novel dames, MuckRock user Runa Sandvik requested the agency’s recruitment material aimed at women.

A year later, they delivered.

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While the posters are pretty amazing - especially when they start devolving into office-speak buzzword-salad …

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the real gem in the release is the brief regarding the campaign, unironically entitled “Target Women”.

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So, who are these women, and what do they want?

Well, first thing’s first - women are on the internet.

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But women also go to movies and read books, which is where their fanciful notions about the Agency come from.

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Seriously, where else would they get the idea that CIA’s just a bunch of aloof white dudes?

Women like to get paid lots of money, but they also like autonomy. Women have layers.

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Women enjoy women’s sporting events, as well as women’s periodicals by women. When talking to women, it helps to be a woman, otherwise they could be intimidated.

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Women are mothers, but they are also not mothers. Layers.

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Women prefer regular women to irregular women.

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Women have been burned before and are wary of false promises. Do not lie to women - they will know.

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Finally, women want different things at different stages of their life-cycles, making it next to impossible to satisfy them all at once.

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Containing multitudes: a drain on the HR budget.

Also included is a more gender-neutral overview of the perceived pros and cons of working at the CIA. Worth noting is the “deterrents” section …

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Which seems to have a fairly glaring omission or two.

Read the full release here.

Finally, Russia Lifts the Ban on a WWII Donald Duck Cartoon

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Donald Duck goose-steps into the munitions factory. (Screenshot: The Internet Archive)

This week marked an unusual legal victory for Donald Duck and The Walt Disney Company, as the highest court in the Russian region of Kamchatka overruled a 2010 decision that placed a 1942 Donald Duck short on the country’s list of extremist material.

The 2010 case accused a local resident of “inciting hatred and enmity” for uploading “extremist” material—including the Disney short—to the internet; the resident received a six-month suspended sentence, and the short was added to the Russian Ministry of Justice’s Federal List of Extremist Materials, effectively making it illegal to produce, store, or distribute in Russia. The list, which was established in 2002 and contains over 3,700 items, frequently targets religious material, anything critical of the Russian government, and Nazi propaganda. Apparently, the 2010 court ruling placed Donald Duck the latter category.

The short film, titled “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” depicts Donald Duck trapped within the Nazi war machine, forced to work in a munitions factory assembling artillery shells (don’t worry—the short’s ending reveals Donald’s time in Nazi Germany was just a nightmare). The film is a relic of Disney’s time as an enthusiastic member of the American propaganda effort during World War II—an effort supported by some of the greatest creative minds of the era, including classic directors Frank Capra, John Ford, and John Huston.

"Der Fuehrer's Face," 1943, Walt Disney. nb: The film depicts Japanese general Hideki Tojo in a racist caricature style common at the time. (Video: The Internet Archive)

Despite winning the 1943 Academy Award for best animated short, director Jack Kinney expressed ambivalence towards the film in a 1973 interview, saying, “I never thought it was a good picture. It won the Academy [Award], but it was just another picture. Except the tune; I think the tune was great.”

The tune Kinney’s referring to is the short’s title track, recorded by Spike Jones and his City Slickers. The song, which was released as a standalone single, was a major radio hit according to Time magazine. In “Dispatch for Disney,” a WWII pamphlet produced by the studio for employees serving in the military, composer Oliver Wendell explained how the song came to be:

The time was 3:00 P.M., and I was feeling low. I had been a naughty boy the night before.

That had to be the moment when Walt encountered me in the hall and gave me a rush order: "Ollie, I want a serious song, but it's got to be funny."

The further information that it was to be for a picture telling Donald Duck's adventures in Nazi land didn't help very much.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Suppose the Germans are singing it," Walt offered. "To them, it's serious. To us, it's funny."

This satirical approach seems to be what confounded the Russian court. But after discovering the short had been added to the extremist materials list, RT explains, the case’s prosecutors “filed a cassation [sic] with the regional court explaining that the video is a classic Walt Disney cartoon made within the framework of an anti-Nazi propaganda campaign.” The prosecutors further explained that rather than being a call to Nazism, the film was using satire to mock the ideology.

The court agreed with this interpretation, and ruled that “Der Fuehrer’s Face” should be removed from the list. A victory for fans of Donald Duck (and satire) everywhere.

Arizona City Buys Man's House for $4 Million, Lets Him Live Rent-Free for the Rest of His Life

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The McDowell Sonoran Nature Preserve, Scottsdale, Arizona. (Photo: cloud2013 / CC BY-2.0)

An Arizona homeowner made the best deal of his life this week. The Arizona Republic is reporting that Shawn Murphy has sold his 17-year-old, 2,600-square-foot home to the city of Scottsdale for $4 million, and he doesn’t even have to move out.

Murphy’s home is surrounded by the McDowell Sonoran Preserve, a desert nature preserve that was first established in the early 1990s, when the town dedicated 3,000 acres of land to desert preservation. Today, the preserve includes over 30,000 acres of land—but this is the first time the city has purchased a home for inclusion in the preserve.

The terms of the purchase included a couple of notable concessions to Murphy; the city appraised the home at $2.69 million, but an appraiser hired by Murphy valued the house at $6.59 million, so the $4 million purchase price represents a compromise between the two valuations. Additionally, the terms of the purchase allow Murphy to remain in the home until his death, rent-free—although he remains responsible for maintenance and repairs.

Preserve Director Kory Ekbaw explained to the Republic that the agreement is a positive for the preserve, as Murphy has been a good neighbor to the preserve, but there were no guarantees future owners would be the same. “This puts to bed the issue of any future change. We're not faced with an unknown,” Ekbaw said.

The sale provides an example of two distinct issues facing public land in the United States—the longstanding issue of private inholdings within public lands, and the recent trend of luxury home development near nature preserves. As Joseph Sax explained in his 1980 paper Buying Scenery: Land Acquisitions for the National Park Service, national parks established prior to 1959 take a position of “eventual acquisition” towards inholdings, making arrangements to gain control of the land sooner or later (parks established after 1959 tend towards “prompt acquisition” and try to acquire inholdings as quickly as possible).

While politicians and activists sometimes raise the specter of an aggressively encroaching government wielding eminent domain to force sales of private property, governments generally tend to use eminent domain and seizure through condemnation as a last resort, much preferring to buy land from willing sellers at market rates. In Scottsdale, these purchases are financed through a city sales tax earmarked for desert preservation; the federal government uses the Land and Water Conservation Fund, established by Congress in 1964.

In fact, government efforts to purchase inholdings like Murphy’s home are on the upswing, according to the Wall Street Journal, as inholdings are increasingly being eyed by luxury developers looking to sell homes to wealthy nature-lovers, which many feel detracts from the natural beauty of public lands.

“People come up here to get away from it all, not feel like they are back in the city,” Zion National Park guide Bill Dunn told the Wall Street Journal, referring to a “big and unsightly” private home recently built on an inholding in the park, overtaking an “iconic canyon view.”

Once the city takes possession of Murphy’s house, they may opt to tear it down, according to Ekbaw. But for now, Murphy’s guaranteed himself a home with fantastic scenery, no neighbors, and a considerable monetary windfall.

The California Town That Produced 10 Million Eggs a Year

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Egg gatherers at Armstrong’s Spring Hill Poultry Farm, 1897. (Photo: © Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)

Is Petaluma, California, the world’s most divided city?

On the one hand it is renowned as a hub of fragility and fluffiness, on the other it is revered for solidity and screams. The reason for this split personality is that Petaluma holds the distinction of being not only the Egg Capital of the World but also the Arm Wrestling Capital of the World.

The city’s divided self can be traced back to the mid-19th century when California proved a mecca to those seeking gold, adventure or, in the case of Lyman Byce, good health. Byce was a part-time inventor who had fled the inhospitable wastes of his homeland Canada in search of warmer climes. He had already invented a spring lancet, an acoustic telephone and a potato digger by the time he wound up in Petaluma in 1878. However it took the sweet California airs to inspire him with his greatest invention, the one that would transform his fortunes as well as those of untold billions of chickens. 

Inventing the perfect chicken egg incubator was an innovation race in the late 19th century—think of how companies are racing to perfect the driverless car now. Hundreds of inventors were working on ways to make an efficient machine to grow and hatch eggs without the mother hen being present, thus freeing her to lay even more.

There was one problem, though. Incubators had a nasty habit of bursting into flames, destroying buildings and chickens alike.

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A Petaluma egg farm, c. 1913. (Photo: Internet Archive/Public Domain)

This was not a new pursuit: the ancient Egyptians constructed large mud brick buildings in which to incubate their eggs. Heated by burning straw and camel manure, egg turners lived inside the malodorous structure, constantly assessing their delicate charges’ temperature by balancing the eggs on their eyelids. Later attempts used fermentation, hot water and steam to provide a constant heat to the eggs. However the inability to regulate the temperature accurately doomed them all to the inventor’s scrap pile.

It was a thorny problem and such backyard tinkering wasn’t always taken kindly. In 1881 the Petaluma Argus-Courier was aghast at a Petaluma chicken raiser using the heat from a hot spring to power his incubator. “If he succeeds,” worried the paper, “the devil will monopolize the chicken business. There are many things in this world that had better be done in the old way and hatching chickens is one of them.” 

It took the tremendously mustachioed Byce to create a respectable incubator. His invention looked like a Victorian sideboard but was capable of maintaining a temperature of 103 degrees for a period of three weeks, so that the embryos inside the eggs could develop and hatch. Byce’s design won a medal for “Best Incubator” at the California State Fair and the Petaluma Incubator Company was born.

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The Petaluma Egg Day Parade, August 20, 1921. (Photo: © Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)

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A photo from 1925 showing a giant egg basket, celebrating Petaluma as the “World’s Egg Basket”. (Photo: © Petaluma Historical Library & Museum)

By 1883, Byce had sold 200 incubators, mainly to small, family owned farms in the Petaluma area. Ten years later over 15,000 units had been purchased. When the highly productive Single Comb White Leghorn chicken was introduced to Petaluma’s chicken farmers — capable of popping out 200 eggs a year —there was no looking back. A park was named after the breed, as well as a baseball team and a statue of a chicken was erected in the town with the inscription: “The Kingdom of 10,000,000 White Leghorns — Petaluma.” Chickens were everywhere. A chicken pharmacy was even constructed downtown, a place to take your hens if they were feeling poultry.

By 1915 the town was producing an estimated 10 million eggs a year (at $.30 a dozen). With Petaluma being located next to a river and a railroad, the fragile eggs could be easily and safely shipped across the country. By 1918 the town was proclaimed “Egg Basket of the World” and a National Egg Day was held, with a parade led by the Egg Queen and attendant chicks. For nearly two decades there was more money on deposit in Petaluma banks, per capita, than any other town on Earth.

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Buttons promoting eggs in the Petaluma Downtown Craft Mart. (Photo: Nicole/CC BY 2.0)

But a crack formed in the business. Improvements in caging and artificial lighting meant the clement California weather was no longer a necessity in raising hens, added to which advances in truck suspension meant eggs no longer needed to be carried by slow-moving railways or boat. Anyone, anywhere could start their own chicken farm. But out of the broken dreams of Petaluma’s shattered egg empire came a new birth. Whether it was due to the excessive amounts of protein in the local diet, or the frustrations at the city’s decline, the city was about to undergo a transformation into something less foul. 

It began in 1955 with an overheard conversation in “Diamond” Mike Gilardi’s bar. Bill Soberanes was a local newspaper reporter struggling for stories in the depressed town when he heard a visitor boasting that he had never lost an arm-wrestling match—or wrist-wrestling as it was then known. With the inspiration of a journalist faced with a deadline he immediately saw a way to inject a little excitement back into Petaluma. The boastful visitor was Jack Homel, a trainer for the Detroit Tigers Baseball team, but Soberanes thought he knew just the guy to make him eat his words—Oliver Kulberg, a local rancher who was supposedly the strongest man in Sonoma County.

The match was set for February 16, 1955, a crowd gathered to watch the two men heave and strain. The contest went on for three painful minutes when, with a final shudder, the table collapsed. A draw was declared but from that day on an annual tradition was born.

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An arm-wrestling statue in Petaluma. (Photo: Tony Fischer/CC BY 2.0)

Of course arm wrestling was nothing new either. While the ancient Egyptians were incubating eggs in dung mounds, hieroglyphs show that they were also arm-wrestling with each other. Indeed the sport had been popular across the world for millennia since all that was needed of a competitor was one arm and a flat surface. What Petaluma did was transform this traditional sport into an organized competition.

By 1962 Petaluma’s annual bar event had ballooned into the World Wristwrestling Championship with the slogan, “Pure Strength and Raw Courage.” Fifty competitors with names like Earl “The Mighty Atom” Hagerman, and Duane “Tiny” Benedix wrestled it out in front of hundreds of cheering onlookers. The town was given an unexpected boost by Charles Schultz, the author of Peanuts, the most popular comic strip in the America at the time. Schultz lived near Petaluma and inserted the arm-wrestling competition into his strip. In the storyline Snoopy travels to the town to compete but is eventually disqualified for having no thumbs. Petaluma was soon proclaimed “Wristwrestling Capital of the World” and was a regular feature on ABC’s much-watched Wide World of Sports.

Behemoths such as Popeye-armed Jeff Dabe, and 385-pound Cleve “Arm Breaker” Dean, not to mention perennial champion John “The Perfect Storm” Brzenk, almost became household names. The success of Petaluma’s competition even saw Hollywood want to get in on the action with the creation of the classic 1980s movie Over The Top, starring Sylvester Stallone, although, ominously, its climactic match took place not in Petaluma but in Las Vegas.

For despite reaching its zenith in the 1980s, the sport of arm-wrestling was soon to abandon its spiritual home. The Annual World Wristwrestling Championship was held in Petaluma for the last time in 2002 before moving to Las Vegas. However a bronze statue still stands in downtown Petaluma, as the giant chicken statue did before it, depicting two men in a competitive grapple, grimacing, the veins on their arms bulging like giant caterpillars.

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