Weekly Meanderings, 28 July 2018

Last updated on: July 28, 2018 at 12:07 am by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 28 July 2018 2018-07-27T07:16:35-05:00 Scot McKnight

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We had a marvelous trip to Denmark and we are back! More on that to come.

Curious Koala:

An inquisitive koala that animal rescuers in Australia said they’ve encountered multiple times before had to be saved yet again – this time from a fence at a power station this week, local media reported.

“It wasn’t a great start to the day for this curious who got his head stuck in a fence at our Happy Valley substation,” electricity distributor SA Power Networks wrote on social media, sharing a photo of the stuck marsupial.

After the animal was found, Fauna Rescue SA, a local animal rescue operation, worked to free the fury creature.

“(It) looks like he’s crawled under the fence to go somewhere, as they do, and then sat up as he was under the fence and got his head caught,” Fauna Rescue SA volunteer Sally Selwood told The Advertiser, an Adelaide, Australia, newspaper.

Selwood told The Advertiser the koala seemed “very confused” about how he came to be trapped. “But he didn’t have the brains to bob back down again to get out,” she added. “He looked like he’s thinking, ‘Who put this fence on my head?’ “

Mourning Orca

An endangered orca whale died shortly after its birth on Tuesday, and the calf’s mother has been tending to the body for three days.

The calf was born near near Victoria, British Columbia, located about 75 miles northwest of Seattle. Researchers working to track Southern Resident killer whales responded to the scene, the Center for Whale Research said in a release.

The organization observed the baby’s corpse sinking and the mother repeatedly bringing it back to the surface on Tuesday. The mother supported her offspring’s body on her forehead as she pushed it toward an island, the organization said.

On Thursday, the mother – labeled J35 – entered her third day of mourning with her calf, Ken Balcomb, founder and principal investigator of the Center for Whale Research, told USA TODAY.

“It’s still happening,” he said Thursday evening. He said that he has observed the behavior before, but not for this length of time.

The organization says killer whales and dolphins show strong mother-offspring bonds and sometimes transport dead calves for up to a week.

Southern Resident killer whales are a clan of 76 orcas in imminent danger of extinction, the organization says.

Deborah Giles, science and research director for the nonprofit Wild Orca, told the Seattle Times that she’s observed similar behavior from orca whales for lesser amounts of time.

What would a leader do?, Warren Throckmorton asks. From the original claim of 700 to…

A significant erosion has happened. The GLS started the year with 700 locations and now the organizers claim “over 500 locations nationwide.”

However, there is a problem. If you click the “show list” link and count the number of venues, only 494 are currently listed. I suspect, Willow Creek Association knows this but hasn’t changed the website again because less than 500 doesn’t sound as spectacular as “600+” as the front page of their website currently boasts.

What would a leader do?

Women and speaking out:

Starting next month, Sarah Hirshland will officially take over as CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. One of the big issues she will have to deal with is ongoing sexual abuse scandals.

In recent months, athletes have come forward in sports like swimming, gymnastics, diving and taekwondo with allegations of sexual abuse or assault. Many athletes don’t go public until years after the alleged assaults take place. They stay silent in part because of the taboo around sexual abuse. In some cases, young people can’t identify what has happened to them as a crime.

But a major reason athletes stay silent is fear that publicly criticizing sport governing organizations could derail their athletic career.

Keith Sanderson, a three-time Olympian in shooting, made that point in an interview with KOAA television in Colorado Springs last February. The interview came just a few weeks after more than 100 girls and women testified in a Michigan courtroom about how the former USA Gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar, had abused them.

Beth Allison Barr on coverture.

Bird story:

A photo showing a female duck followed by upwards of 50 ducklings has sparked national and international attention, awe and a little confusion.

“Mom of the year” some have mused of the photo taken by wildlife photographer Brent Cizek on June 27 in on Lake Bemidji in Minnesota.

But the scene is better understood as an extreme example of duckling daycare, an expert says. And the mom leading the way? She might more accurately be described as a grandmother. Maybe a great-grandmother.

The ducks pictured in the photo — common merganser — are among a number of bird species that can care for their young in a “day care system” called a crèche, the New York Times reports. In a crèche, multiple females leave their offspring in the care of an experienced female.

Teens and Seniors on exercise:

You might think that the younger we are, the more active we are. But a new study turns that belief on its head: The results show that physical activity is lower in children than previously thought. And, on average, teens are about as sedentary as a 60-year-old adult.

The study, conducted by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, shows that by the end of adolescence, activity levels were alarmingly low. The only age group with an increase in activity is young adults in their 20s. After that, activity levels begin to decline starting at age 35, and continue to fall through midlife and older adulthood, the study shows.

The researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2003-2006, in which nearly 13,000 participants wore tracking devices for seven straight days, removing them only for bathing and at bedtime. The devices measured how much time participants were sedentary or engaged in light or moderate-to-vigorous physical activity.

The researchers broke down findings into five age groups: children (ages six to 11); adolescents (ages 12 to 19); young adults (ages 20 to 29); adults at midlife (ages 31 to 59); and older adults (age 60 through age 84). Forty-nine percent were male.

Great story from Wade Burleson, and here’s opening clip:

I’m reading the autobiography of missionary Chris Clayman. The book is called Superplan.

It’s excellent.

Many of us spent a few of our early years as a Christian fearing that God might call us to the mission field. “From here to Timbuktu” was the phrase we’d use to illustrate how far we feared God might send us.

Chris Clayman actually moved to Timbuktu, Africa to share Christ with the Bandogo people.

How does a 23-year-old caucasian from Georgetown, Texas wind up in Timbuktu?

In the book, Chris describes how he grew up in a “strong Christian family, a supportive community, and a modest but well-provided lifestyle.” He attended a Christian university (Abilene Christian).

Chris assumed the safe and secure Christian experience of American evangelicalism.

In college, however, Chris came to understand what it means for Christ to be King.

It happened like this.

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