Found on Tumblr
Stuff found on Tumblr. Nice sentifment from a winking jack-o-lantern.
Trick: Animated #govote jack-o-lantern to keep away the ghosts of low voter turnout.
Treat: Tell your friends to visit rockthevote.com to find their polling station!
animated gif by Bruce Willen
At the GoVoteNov6 Tumblr site:
Click here to find your polling station and if you’re eligible for early voting.
For more #govote images and to submit your own go to:govote.org
Leave a Comment » | 
2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Art, Voting | Tagged: animation, Art, Elections, gifs, GoVote, voting | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Years between 1900 and 1970-something, when computers, television and digital media started to bite into artists’ work, make up a golden age of magazine illustration.
Much of that art is essentially lost now. It appeared in magazines no longer published, and therefore having no champion for digitizing the art and prose; and it appeared in magazines that libraries, now cramped for space, are tossing away after getting access to digitized text, or through microfiche — or not at all.
Many of the images are compelling, like this one from Dick Sargent (1911-1978):
Cub Scouts crammed in a phonebooth, Dick Sargent image preserved by American Gallery
The image is archaic, technically antique, in so many ways.
I’m guessing this was an illustration for a magazine. For various reasons I think it was not a Boy Scout publication, like Boys’ Life or Scouting. Sargent’s work appeared in publications like Saturday Evening Post. It would be fascinating to know the publication, and whether there was an occasion for the painting. Scouting and this form of realistic painting from the 20th century really go hand in hand. One of America’s favorite painters, Norman Rockwell, got his first job at 19 as art director for Boy Scouts of America, including Boys’ Life. He went on to a long and very productive career, including hundreds of magazine covers for many publications, including Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell was followed by Joseph Csatari.
American Gallery specializes in rescuing collections of work from American painters and other visual artists. Teachers and students looking for period art from the 20th century might do well to check out that site, and do a few searches. History, education and the internet could use a few more sites like that.
More:
3 Comments | Art, Boy Scouts of America, Hiking, History | Tagged: Art, Boy Scouts of America, Cub Scout, Hiking, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Have you seen this? Brought to you by Mitt Romney, the GOP 2012 Convention, and Sandy:
Res ipsa loquitur, a Latin term, used in law. Means “the thing speaks for itself.”
Global Warming, Hurricane Sandy, Hubris,
More:
31 Comments | Climate change, climate_change, Environment, Global warming, History, Politics | Tagged: environment, Global warming, GOP Convention, GOP Platform, History, Hurricane Sandy, Mitt Romney, Politics, Res ipsa loquitur | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Sportswriter Red Barber at his typewriter – State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/10011
The great Red Barber, when his hair was still red, working at his typewriter, with a volume of Roget’s Thesaurus close by.
Many of us knew Red chiefly through his weekly chats with Bob Edwards at NPR’s Morning Edition. The biographies say Red died in 1992. That was 19 years ago — it seems more recent than that. (Edwards left Morning Edition in 2004.)
It may be ironic to show Barber at his typewriter. He would be more accurately portrayed, perhaps, behind a microphone at a baseball park.
From 1939 through 1953 Barber served as the voice of the Brooklyn Dodgers. He was working for the New York Yankees when he retired in 1966. Barber had the distinction of broadcasting baseball’s first night game on May 24, 1935 in Cincinnati and the sport’s first televised contest on August 26, 1939 in Brooklyn.
During his 33-year career Barber became the recognized master of baseball play-by-play, impressing listeners as a down-to-earth man who not only informed but also entertained with folksy colloquialisms such as “in the catbird seat,” “pea patch,” and “rhubarb” which gave his broadcasts a distinctive flavor. (Radio Hall of Fame)
More:
Leave a Comment » | Baseball, History, Radio, Technology, Typewriters | Tagged: Baseball, Bob Edwards, Broadcasting, Brookly Dodgers, Florida Memory, History, Radio, Red Barber, State Archives of Florida, Technology, Typewriters | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Another great episode of “Mr. Deity.” (Yeah, I’m several episodes behind. Don’t even get me started on catching up on “The Wire.”)
Every parent will empathize with the problem here, letting the kids do things on their own so they can grow up, and then seeing again just what it is they actually want to do . . .
Watch all the way through. The best stuff is in the fund raising plea at the end.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Pharyngula at FTB, for reminding me of this wonderful series. Do you ever wonder what the producers of this thing could do if they turned their attention to on-line videos on history, or economics, or molecular biology?
More:
Leave a Comment » | 2012 Campaigns, 2012 Elections, Humor, Religion | Tagged: 2012 Elections, Campaigns, Humor, Mr. Deity, New Testament, Religion | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
I do love me some well done flash mob.
This one may have been better coordinated than some the video is actually an advertisement for a bank.
Try to watch it and not smile. Just try not to smile.
It’s the “European National Anthem,” that section from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony commonly known as “Ode to Joy,” in an arrangement that accommodates any nearby wandering minstrel’s joining in — not to mention a choir of at least a hundred.
I found it at the blog for Krista Tippet’s radio program, “On Being,” in a writeup by Trent Gillis:
Let’s make no mistake here; this is a commercial for Banco Sabadell. And, yes, it’s a majestic, highly orchestrated flashmob organized by one of Spain’s largest banking groups. But, when I get an evening email from our founder and host confessing to shedding “happy tears” when watching it, I figure I better check it out.
Flashmob organizado por Banco Sabadell
And, if you read the comments on YouTube, you’ll see much more of the same sentiment being expressed.
On May 19th [2012] at six in the evening, what appeared to be a single, tuxedoed street performer playing a bass for people strolling around Plaça de Sant Roc in Sabadell, Spain (just north of Barcelona) turned into a mass ensemble performing a movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony — including more than 100 musicians and singers from the Orchestra Simfònica del Vallès, Amics de l’Òpera de Sabadell, Coral Belles Arts, and Cor Lieder Camera.
The production is lovely and highly produced, but it’s the fascination and pure joy of the passersby that makes the moment quite magical. Non?
This is a metaphor for community life. Communities work best when many people contribute, when people can do what they do well, for the community, as part of the community. Here is a plaza where people gather — it’s not unusual for musicians to set up and play, probably for their own amusement as well as for money. Busking is big stuff in England, and in New York City — and in Greece, though it’s outlawed in many places there. People will violate laws to make money, and to participate in the community.
It might be pleasant enough if one tall guy, in a tuxedo or jeans — or naked for all that it matters — plays a tune on a bass. It’s a grand tune, one that most people recognize immediately, and one that has memories stuck to it like feathers on a wood duck. Beethoven is familiar, and pleasant, and singable.
Add a cello, it’s fun. Add more strings, the performance becomes grand. Add the horns, and percussion — loved the guy wheeling his typani out to the plaza — it’s a delight. Add a hundred voices in six parts, it’s glorious.
Professionals in the community? Sure, why not. In this case, I imagine, they were paid by Banco Sabadell. Even fun things in communities require some professionals, from time to time. The cops control traffic before and after the football games, the firemen stand by on the Fourth of July.
Communities build across time, as well as families. Beethoven wrote that symphony in 1824; Schiller wrote the poem in the lyric in 1785, before George Washington conspired with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton to make the United States of America, edited by Schiller in 1803, the same year Napoleon sold off Louisiana to Thomas Jefferson’s presidency. There are no solo acts, especially in music, where even the opera diva in solo recital has an agent to hire the hall and sell the tickets, an accompanist on piano, and the music of geniuses from other places, and even other times.
In times of crisis, we get reminders that our finest tool for meeting crises is to look out for each other.
This flash mob video reminded me of that.
2 Comments | History | Tagged: Art, Banco Sabadell, Beethoven, Community, Flash Mob, Ludwig van Beethoven, Music, Ode to Joy | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Woody’s recording of the song, with some good photos of the DD 245 U.S.S. Reuben James, the German U-boat that sank her, and two later ships that carried the same name:
From the YouTube description:
Woody Guthrie‘s song written shortly after the sinking of the USS Reuben James DD-245; Slideshow of DD 245, DE 153, FFG 57 and U 552 with a few other notable photos included.
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English: PACIFIC OCEAN (July 8, 2010) The Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided-missile frigate USS Reuben James (FFG 57) conducts training exercises supporting Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC) 2010 exercises. RIMPAC is a biennial, multinational exercise designed to strengthen regional partnerships and improve interoperability. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Jeremy M. Starr/Released) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
3 Comments | Battle of the Atlantic, Music, World War II | Tagged: Battle of the Atlantic, History, Music, Reuben James, USS Reuben James (FFG-57), Woody Guthrie, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
October 31 hosts several famous anniversaries. It is the anniversary of Nevada’s statehood (an October surprise by Lincoln for the 1864 campaign?). It is the anniversary of the cleaving of western, catholic Christianity, as the anniversary of Martin Luther’s tacking his 95 theses to the door of the church in Wittenburg, Germany in 1517, the formal start of the Reformation. Maybe the original Christian trick or treat.
U.S.S. Reuben James sinking, October 31, 1941 – National Archives photo
October 31 is also the anniversary of the sinking of the World War I era Clemson-class, four-stack destroyer, U.S.S. Reuben James, by a German U-boat. Woody Guthrie memorialized the sad event in the song, Reuben James, recorded by the Almanac Singers with Pete Seeger (see also here, and here), and later a hit for the Kingston Trio. The Reuben James was sunk on October 31, 1941 — over a month before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Details via Wikipedia (just to make you school librarians nervous):
USS Reuben James (DD-245), a post-World War I four-stack Clemson-class destroyer, was the first United States Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II and the first named for Boatswain’s Mate Reuben James (c.1776–1838), who distinguished himself fighting in the Barbary Wars.
This history figured into the 2008 presidential campaign in a small way: One of the internet hoax letters complaining about Barack Obama claimed that the U.S. entered World War II against Germany although the Germans had not fired a single round against the U.S. The 115 dead from the crew of 160 aboard the James testify to the inaccuracy of that claim, wholly apart from the treaty of mutual defense Germany and Japan were parties to, which encouraged Germany to declare war upon any nation that went to war with Japan. After the U.S. declaration of war on Japan, Germany declared war on the U.S., creating a state of war with Germany.
This history also reminds us that many Americans were loathe to enter World War II at all. By October 1941, Japan had been occupying parts of China for ten years, and the Rape of Nanking was four years old. The Battle of the Atlantic was in full swing, and the Battle of Britain was a year in the past, after a year of almost-nightly bombardment of England by Germany. Despite these assaults on friends and allies of the U.S., and the losses of U.S. ships and merchant marines, the U.S. had remained officially neutral.
Many Americans on the left thought the sinking of the Reuben James to be the sort of wake-up call that would push Germany-favoring Americans to reconsider, and people undecided to side with Britain. The political use of the incident didn’t have much time to work. Five weeks later Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and by the end of 1941, the U.S. was at war with the Axis Powers.
Letter to the U.S. Navy asking the fate of friends aboard the U.S.S. Reuben James, November, 1941
Telegram informing his family of the death of Gene Guy Evans, of Norfolk, Virginia, lost in the torpedoing of the U.S.S. Reuben James
The Kingston Trio sings, as the names of the dead scroll:
This is mostly an encore post from 2008. Brad DeLong at Berkeley is “live blogging” World War II, and referred to the 2008 post for his entry for October 31, which drove a little traffic this way and reminded me to memorialize the crew again — tip of the old scrub brush to Dr. DeLong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2011/10/liveblogging-world-war-ii-october-31-1941-1.html
More:
- Entry for USS Reuben James in the U.S. Navy’s Dictionary of American Fighting Ships:
- Reuben JamesReuben James was born in Delaware about 1776. During the Quasi-War with France, Boatswain’s Mate James participated in Constellation’s victories over the French ships L’Insurgente, 9 February 1799, and La Vengeance. During the Barbary Wars, he served aboard Enterprise and accompanied Stephen Decatur into the harbor at Tripoli on 16 February 1804, as Decatur and his men burned the captured American frigate Philadelphia to prevent Tripoli from using her in battle. In the ensuing skirmish, an American seaman positioned himself between Decatur and an enemy blade. This act of bravery was attributed to Reuben James and to Daniel Frazier. For the rest of the war, James continued to serve Decatur aboard Constitution and Congress. During the War of 1812, he served in United States, under Decatur, and in President. On 15 January 1815, however, President was defeated by the British and James was taken prisoner. After the war, he resumed service with Decatur, aboard Guerriere, and participated in the capture of the 46-gun Algerian flagship Mashoudaon 17 June 1815. After peace was made with the Barbary states, James continued his service in the Navy until declining health brought about his retirement in January 1836. He died on 3 December 1838 at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Washington, D.C.
I
(DD – 245: displacement 1,215; length 314’5”; beam 31’8”; draft 9’4”; speed 35 knots; complement 101; armament 4 4”, 1 3”, 12 21” torpedo tubes; class Clemson)
Reuben James (DD-245) was laid down 2 April 1919 by New York Shipbuilding Corp., Camden, N.J.; launched 4 October 1919; sponsored by Miss Helen Strauss; and commissioned 24 September 1920, Comdr. Gordon W. Haines in command.
Assigned to the Atlantic Fleet, Reuben James sailed from Newport, R.I., 30 November 1920 to Zelenika, Yugoslavia, arriving 18 December. During the spring and summer of 1921, she operated in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean out of Zelenika and Gruz, Yugoslavia, assisting refugees and participating in postwar investigations. In October 1921 at Le Havre, she joined Olympia (C-6) at ceremonies marking the return of the Unknown Soldier to the United States. At Danzig, Poland, from 29 October 1921 to 3 February 1922, she assisted the American Relief Administration in its efforts to relieve hunger and misery. After duty in the Mediterranean, she departed Gibraltar 17 July 1922.
Based then at New York, she patrolled the Nicaraguan coast to prevent the delivery of weapons to revolutionaries in early 1926. In the spring of 1929, she participated in fleet maneuvers that foreshadowed naval airpower. Reuben James decommissioned at Philadelphia on 20 January 1931.
Recommissioned 9 March 1932, she again operated in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. From September 1933 to January 1934 she patrolled Cuban waters during a period of revolution. Sailing for the Pacific from Norfolk 19 October 1934, she arrived at her new homeport of San Diego, Calif., 9 November. Following maneuvers that evaluated aircraft carriers, she returned to the Atlantic Fleet in January 1939. Upon the outbreak of war in Europe in September 1939, she joined the Neutrality Patrol, and guarded the Atlantic and Caribbean approaches to the American coast.
In March 1941, Reuben James joined the convoy escort force established to promote the safe arrival of war materials to Britain. This escort force guarded convoys as far as Iceland, where they became the responsibility of British escorts. Based at Hvalfjordur, Iceland, she sailed from Argentia, Newfoundland, 23 October 1941, with four other destroyers to escort eastbound convoy HX-156. While escorting that convoy, at about 0525, on 31 October 1941, Reuben James was torpedoed by German submarine U-562. Her magazine exploded, and she sank quickly. Of the crew, 44 survived, and 115 died. Reuben James was the first U.S. Navy ship sunk by hostile action in World War II.
25 September 2005
More:
4 Comments | 1941-1945, Battle of the Atlantic, Famous Battles, History, World War II | Tagged: 1941-1945, Battle of the Atlantic, DBQ, Folk Music, History, October 31, U.S.S. Reuben James, USS Reuben James (DD-245), Woody Guthrie, World War II | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
No! Someone whose comments don’t show up at Steve Goddard’s blog? Must be some massive disruption in the force of the Tubes of the Interweb thingy.
What is this guy Tony on about?
At Steve Goddard’s blog — this is the same guy who said the western drought was over because Lake Powell rose a few feet, though the drought raged on everywhere else — Goddard and his flying and limping monkeys have been poking fun at something James Hansen is alleged to have said:
According to NASA’s top scientist, Manhattan has been underwater for the past four years, and is experiencing a horrific drought.
While doing research 12 or 13 years ago, I met Jim Hansen, the scientist who in 1988 predicted the greenhouse effect before Congress. I went over to the window with him and looked out on Broadway in New York City and said, “If what you’re saying about the greenhouse effect is true, is anything going to look different down there in 20 years?” He looked for a while and was quiet and didn’t say anything for a couple seconds. Then he said, “Well, there will be more traffic.” I, of course, didn’t think he heard the question right. Then he explained, “The West Side Highway [which runs along the Hudson River] will be under water. And there will be tape across the windows across the street because of high winds. And the same birds won’t be there. The trees in the median strip will change.” Then he said, “There will be more police cars.” Why? “Well, you know what happens to crime when the heat goes up.”
And so far, over the last 10 years, we’ve had 10 of the hottest years on record. [Quoting an article at Salon]
The West Side Highway under water? Ha.
Goddard’s blog has used Hansen’s quote as a regular punchline, not noticing that Hansen said “in 20 to 30 years,” and assuming he was just awfully, comically wrong. 30 years from 1988 will be 2018. This year is 2012, six years to go. Goddard tried to ridicule Hansen a few times over the past couple of years, for example:
AP may complain about this use, but this is an academic, learning exercise:
Caption from Yahoo! News: This photo provided by Dylan Patrick shows flooding along the Westside Highway near the USS Intrepid as Sandy moves through the area Monday, Oct. 29, 2012 in New York. Much of New York was plunged into darkness Monday by a superstorm that overflowed the city’s historic waterfront, flooded the financial district and subway tunnels and cut power to nearly a million people. (AP Photo/Dylan Patrick) MANDATORY CREDIT: DYLAN PATRICK
Dylan Patrick got the photographic evidence that shows, once again, warming denialists really are a classless, fact-lacking bunch. CNN has photos from Dylanphoto1 (the same guy, almost certainly), in a slide show, noting, “Most of the Westside Highway south of 49th street is flooded all the way down, and in front of the USS Intrepid.” Across from Pier 88 and the USS Intrepid, the street is indeed underwater.
So we learn that, as a comedian, Steve Goddard has an extremely limited range and depends on a sympathetic room to get laughs; and as a climate scientist, he is even more limited, and wrong, with 6 years to go in the 20 to 30 year range James Hansen offered. And we learn once again, sadly, that James Hansen was right back in 1988 when he hit the claxons to warn us of global warming.
23 times Goddard repeated the charge? Do you get the idea that “climate skeptics” ran out of material years ago, and have been dancing a cover-up for a very, very long time? Hurricane Sandy blew and floated his claim away.
More:
Even more, a bit later:
41 Comments | History, Science | Tagged: Climate change, denialism, Global warming, History, Hurrican Sandy, James Hansen, NASA, Science, West Side Highway | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Web 2.0 asked for recommendations for books on leadership. I’m sure I swamped them.
One that almost no one today has read should be required reading of every new school principal, and any principal who hasn’t read it yet: Robert Townsend‘s Up the Organization. It’s a great book, with very short chapters — each chapter can be consumed within ten minutes. It’s also loaded with the kind of leadership advice that seems to be beaten out of education “leaders” before they ever get close to a real position of leadership.
I found a blog, LeadingBlog, probably a commercial outlet for a consulting organization, that mentioned the 2007 reissue of the book and carried several pithy quotes from it. Heck, if most principals practiced just these few points of leadership, their faculties would be astonished.
Up the Organization
Cover of Robert Townsend’s Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits
Jossey-Bass has released a commemorative edition of Robert Townsend’s (1920-1998) leadership classic, Up the Organization: How to Stop the Corporation from Stifling People and Strangling Profits. Originally published in 1970, this candid and provocative book deserves to be re-read every year. Here’s a sample of Townsend’s straightforward and practical advice:
On People: Why spend all that money and time on the selection of people when the people you’ve got are breaking down from under-use. Get to know your people. What they do well, what they enjoy doing, what their weaknesses and strengths are, and what they want and need to get from their job. And then try to create an organization around your people, not jam your people into those organization-chart rectangles.
On Delegation: Many people give lip service, but few delegate authority in important matters. And that means all they delegate is dog-work. A real leader does as much dog-work for his people as he can: he can do it, or see a way to do without it, ten times as fast. And he delegates as many important matters as he can because that creates a climate in which people grow.
On Leadership: True leadership must be for the benefit of the followers, not the enrichment of the leaders. In combat, officers eat last. Most people in big companies today are administered, not led. They are treated as personnel, not people.
On Rewards: Rewarding outstanding performance is important. Much more neglected is the equally important need to make sure that the underachievers don’t get rewarded. This is more painful, so it doesn’t get done very often.
On Compromise:Compromise is usually bad. It should be a last resort. If two departments or divisions have a problem they can’t solve and it comes up to you, listen to both sides and then, unlike Solomon, pick one or the other. This places solid accountability on the winner to make it work.
Robert Townsend served as the president and chairman of Avis Rent-a-Car from 1962 to 1965 during its celebrated turnaround. You may remember the infamous the “We Try Harder” advertising campaign that helped to transform it into a world-class organization.
See if you can find the book in your school or local library.
Leave a Comment » | Education, Leadership, Management | Tagged: Education, Leadership, Management, Robert Townsend, Up the Organization | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
This is an encore post, a repeat post from about four years ago, back in 2008. For some reason the post got a couple hundred hits one day this past week, probably from a reference at another blog that I could not track. I reread it — still true, still good stuff. In this campaign year of 2012, I am dismayed at how anti-science and the denial of reality haunts election discussions, especially on-line, but also in the newspapers and magazines, on television and radio, in diners and drugstore fountains, in churches and PTA meetings. Denial of reality may or may not be a genuine ailment to humans. When it becomes a core belief of a significant number of people, denial can cripple our nation, our states, cities and towns. We need to ask deep questions. We need to have real answers, not fantasies nor dangerous delusions.
Charles Darwin’s study, where he conducted experiments and made many of the observations he wrote about. Photo: National Endowment for the Humanities
Denying reality plagues us as an actual political response to several problems. Denialists wander so far down paths of disreality, they argue that we should ignore serious problems, and that the problems will then go away.
Should we teach the science of evolution to our children, or should we pretend fairy tales will substitute? This has deep meaning to those who understand that Charles Darwin’s greatest contribution to science probably was his strict methodology, which required observation of things in nature before writing about them as if authoritative.
Early in his life Darwin recognized that the natural world he saw, in Brazil, in the Galapagos Islands, in Australia and Tasmania, in South Africa, bore little resemblance to the world portrayed as authoritative by the great William Paley in his Natural Theology. Throughout his science career Darwin observed real things in real time. For his monograph on coral atolls, Darwin extensively observed the volcanic island phenomena throughout the South Pacific. To write about barnacles, Darwin raised them in tanks in his study. Looking at the mystery of exactly how the ivy twines, Darwin put a plant before him, and watched it, unraveling the secrets of how tendrils “knew” what to latch onto for support of the vine. To write about leaf moulds, Darwin observed worms at work, in his lab and in his gardens. To show the variation existing in what we now call the genome of a species, Darwin made extensive interviews and correspondence with animal husbanders of pigs, sheep and cattle, and he raised pigeons for generations himself, demonstrating how variations can be expressed that drive populations of one species to split into two through natural, everyday processes familiar to anyone who observed nature, and accessible by anyone who made methodical notes.
This familiarity with reality made Darwin a great scientist. The methodology proved extendable into other areas when he carefully observed the mediums to whom his brother had cast great credence. Charles revealed to Erasmus that spirit knocking on the tables at the séances did not occur so long as they held the hands of the mediums, who were then unable to feign the knocking.
Ultimately it provided some despair to Darwin, too: In the face of criticism from William Thompson, Lord Kelvin, that the Earth was not old enough to allow for evolution as Darwin suggested it must have occurred, Darwin had no answer. Lord Kelvin calculated the ages of the Earth and Sun to be no more than 200 million years. This was shown by the present temperatures and color of the Earth and the Sun, and calculated by Lord Kelvin from how long it would take the Earth, known to be composed of much iron and nickel, to cool from white hot to current temperatures. Lord Kelvin ventured deep into coal mines to measure the temperatures of the Earth deep underground, to confirm his calculations. At his death, though he defended his own observations of fossils and breeding of live animals, Darwin had no response for those arguments. Darwin thought there must be other forces at play. Only some years later did Ernest Rutherford find the secret of the Earth’s heat: Radioactive decay in the mantle and core of the planet keeps it warm. Measures of heat loss for such a large body had not accounted for continuous heating from within. A short while later astronomers and physicists discovered problems with Lord Kelvin’s calculations of the age of the Sun: The Sun is not composed of iron, cooling from white hot temperatures, but instead is hydrogen, fusing into helium, and making its own heat.
Darwin’s calculations of the age of the Earth were more accurate than Lord Kelvin’s, based on Darwin’s crude calculations of how long it might take animals and plants to have evolved from much more primitive forms. History demonstrated by easily observable things provided greater accuracy than history devised without benefit of grounding in reality.
In what other realms might grounding in reality produce answers different from what some expect, even producing better questions that many ask? Should we consider the migratory pattern changes of birds, fish and mammals, as indicators of a warming climate, over rebuttals provided by untested claims that measuring stations might not be placed correctly? Can we actually “cool” atoms with lasers, and use individual atoms to store information, no matter how counterintuitive that might sound? Can it be true that teaching people about contraception, and about sex, actually prompts teenagers (and others) to reduce sexual activity and look for love, rather than just sex? Does extending medical coverage to an entire population actually decrease total health care costs as observed in all other nations where that solution has been tried, or will it increase costs because the only way to reduce medical costs is to ration it, either with a bureaucracy, or by cutting off access by backdoor, death panel means testing (no money, no health care)? Is there any place Arthur Laffer‘s “curve” of increasing tax revenues by cutting tax rates, actually does not work — or any place it actually works? Has any society in history ever gotten rich by showering riches on the rich, and ignoring the poor, the merchants, and the working class?
In short, how does reality we know, inform us about reality yet to be? Which is the more potent predictor, observed reality, or hoped-for results to the contrary?
Our future hangs on how we answer the question, probably more than what the answer actually is.
I believe Christians, the largest faith group in the U.S., have a duty to stand for reality, and truth discovered by observation. That was the issue in 2008, too.
Here is my post of four years ago. I noticed a few of the links no longer work; I’ll replace them with working links as I can. If you find a bad link, please note it in comments; and if you have a better link, note that, too.
Several weeks ago [in 2008] I responded to a lengthy thread at Unreasonable Faith. The original post was Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury” cartoon of the guy in a doctor’s office, just diagnosed with an infection. The physician asks the guy if he’s a creationist, explaining that if he is, the doc will treat him with old antibiotics in honor of his belief that evolution of bacteria doesn’t occur.
Charles Darwin’s Study, Down House, where Darwin wrote all of his publications after his marriage. Photo by and copyright held by Bob Radlinski. Radlinski’s description: Darwin regularly spent about 5 hours a day here for 40 years and kept a chamber pot behind the partition so that he wouldn’t have to trek to the toilet. But he still had time for an active family life with his wife Emma and their 10 children. The low stool with casters was used to spin himself from one desk where he dissected in front of the window to another where he took notes or wrote up labels—the stool the children were allowed to use for their games, punting themselves around the living room with long poles. The sitting room at the back of the house has large windows that go to the floor so that on nice days, the children (and dogs) could roam back and forth from house to garden at will.
Point being, of course, that evolution occurs in the real world. Creationists rarely exhibit the faith of their claims when their life, or just nagging pain, is on the line. They’ll choose the evolution-based medical treatment almost every time. There are no creationists in the cancer or infectious disease wards.
At one point I responded to a comment loaded with typical creationist error. It was a long post. It covered some ground that I’ve not written about on this blog. And partly because it took some time to assemble, I’m reposting my comments here. Of course, without the Trudeau cartoon, it won’t get nearly the comments here.
I’ll add links here when I get a chance, which I lacked the time to do earlier. See my post, below the fold.
4 Comments | Biology, Charles Darwin, Creationism, Darwin, denialism, Education, geology, History, Religion, Science, Voodoo science | Tagged: Accuracy, Biology, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Creationism, denialism, Evolution, Garry Trudeau, geology, History, Religion, Science, Unreasonable Faith, Voodoo science | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Is it immoral for the federal government to coordinate disaster responses, and to provide aid for disasters, especially during and after superstorms like Sandy?
Caption from NASA: This night-view image of Hurricane Sandy was acquired by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite around 2:42 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time (06:42 Universal Time) on October 28, 2012. In this case, the cloud tops were lit by the nearly full Moon (full occurs on October 29). Some city lights in Florida and Georgia are also visible amid the clouds.
CREDIT: NASA/Suomi NPP – VIIRS/Michael Carlowicz
I was troubled when GOP Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal called for cuts to disaster forecasting and especially our volcano monitoring systems, in 2009. I’ve been troubled by slams at NASA and NOAA with calls to cut budgets for orbiting satellites used to forecast storms and floods and other disasters, from the GOP.
And, with Sandy bearing down on the U.S. Northeast, Middle Atlantic and New England states (where older son Kenny lives in building that is, we hope, about 20 feet above sea level), I’ve been troubled by memories of calls for cuts to FEMA in the Republican presidential primaries.
Correspondent James Kessler tracked down a transcript from a campaign event in June, a presidential candidate cavalcade broadcast by CNN, with John King as moderator/anchor. Look at this exchange:
KING: What else, Governor Romney? You’ve been a chief executive of a state. I was just in Joplin, Missouri. I’ve been in Mississippi and Louisiana and Tennessee and other communities dealing with whether it’s the tornadoes, the flooding, and worse. FEMA is about to run out of money, and there are some people who say do it on a case-by-case basis and some people who say, you know, maybe we’re learning a lesson here that the states should take on more of this role. How do you deal with something like that?
ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.
Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut — we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…
KING: Including disaster relief, though?
ROMNEY: We cannot — we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.
Can you imagine how different the world would be today had Americans shared that view in 1936, or 1940, or 1942? Immoral to do what is necessary to preserve the future, because we have to borrow to do some of it?
Has Romney changed his position in the last 24 hours? I predict he will change it very soon, if he hasn’t already flip-flopped on it. Of course, he may double down on crazy, and stand pat. What do you think a rational patriot would do in this case? [At about 1:00 p.m. Central Time, I heard an NPR radio news report — Romney urges private contributions to the Red Cross. Meanwhile, President Obama has been working all morning to make sure the disaster response from the federal government is coordinated with affected states.] [Ha! But within hours, Romney has taken the almost-opposite position again. World land speed record for flips on an issue?]
I erred, perhaps. I had thought Mitt Romney the most capable and sober of the GOP candidates for president, and I urged by GOP friends to support Romney if they had no chance of completely recovering their senses by November. Now I realize that, on the GOP side, “most capable” should be “most nearly capable,” and still means “incapable.” And “sober” means nothing at all. Perhaps worse, he’s still the best of the GOP lot this year. Even worse, he has a chance to win.
Can we blame Romney? Yes, we can blame people who reject science and don’t think of consequences past election day. Yesterday Greg Laden offered a long post on what we should have learned from the “Storm of 1938” and the remnants of Hurricane Irene that slammed the Northeast in 2011, “What you need to know about Frankenstorm Hurricane Sandy”:
Here’s the thing. Imagine that a storm like Sandy came along in either of two years; 70 years ago or 35 years ago. Sandy is much larger and contains much more energy than the ’38 storm, or for that matter, of any known storm of the North Atlantic (we’ll get to that below). If Sandy hit the region in the 1930s, it would have been without warning, and it would have been prior to the reconstruction of seawalls and the development of flood mitigation measures inland that have happened in recent decades. Sandy, in ’38, would kill tens of thousands and destroy thousands of structures. That would be an average Sandy, a Sandy not being as bad as the most dire predictions we are considering today as the storm begins to take a grip on the eastern seaboard.
A Sandy of 35 years ago would have been predicted. The ability to see hurricanes coming was in place, but not as well developed as it is today. We would have seen Sandy coming, but her massiveness and extent, and her exact trajectory, would probably have been unknown. But at least there would be warning. Many of the seawalls and flood mitigation systems would have been in place, but the overbuilding on barrier islands and other vulnerable coastal regions would have been at or near a peak. With evacuations, Sandy would not kill 10s of thousands… probably only hundreds. But the number of buildings destroyed would be unthinkable. Most of those buildings are now gone or shored up. A Sandy in 1975 would have left some very interesting coastal archaeology for me to have observed during my trips to the shore in the 1980s. Very interesting indeed.
Mr. Laden always offers a good view of science, and his history is good here, too.
We can learn from the past. FEMA is charged with learning from past disasters. It’s a function of federal government we would be foolish to forego. “Austere” shouldn’t mean “stupid.”
What do you think? Is it immoral for the federal government to provide disaster assistance?
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9 Comments | History, Natural history, Nature, Politics, Science | Tagged: Disasters, Federal Budget, FEMA, History, Hurrican Sandy, Politics, Sandy, Science, Superstorm, Weather | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Must be rare to get such a reflection of the sky in a calm Tidal Basin pool; from the Department of Interior‘s Instagram:
From Interior’s Instagram: Last night we posted an aerial photo of the #Washington #Monument, which everyone seems to really enjoy. So we are keeping it going today with a #photo of the #Jefferson #Memorial. #NationalMall #DC
One commenter noted the photo almost makes it appear that the Jefferson Memorial is floating in the clouds.
There are more than 300 units in the National Parks System. In the past two days we’ve had two spectacular photos from almost the same place, two memorials about a half-mile apart. How many thousands of great photos are possible from all of these properties? NPS’s job, caring for all of that stuff, is monumental.
12 Comments | Architecture, History, photography, Travel | Tagged: Architecture, Department of Interior, History, Jefferson Memorial, photography, Travel, Washington D.C. | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
It was more than five years ago I originally posted this? Heck, I won’t even add links or a “More” section at the bottom. I deserves to be repeated though, I think, especially in an election year when we wish we could gather more people around a campfire. Here goes:
Training adult Scout leaders always produces a few puzzled looks, and occasional passionate, fearful rebukes, when I note that a campfire gives a boy or a girl an opportunity to play with fire.
No, I don’t mean, exactly, that we should let kids play with fire. There are rules — what’s burning must be in the fire pit, is the chief rule.
There is some primal need to watch a fire, to study it, to experiment with it, and finally just to watch it go. If you camped as a kid, you probably know what I mean.
Camp fires are universal. This one was outside Bangalore.
Every kid needs to do that. It’s a part of growing up. It’s a necessary memory for healthy and sane adults.
Start a fire, and a kid will get a stick and poke the burning logs and, especially, the red-, yellow- and white-hot coals after the fire burns a while. They’ll start the stick on fire, put it out, and light it again. They’ll pull the stick out of the fire and watch the flame consume the stick. Kids will experiment with different things on the fire, to see whether, how fast, and how they burn.
Just keep it in the fire pit.
A Scoutmaster can tell which kids have been camping. A Scoutmaster knows which kids have been able to sit around a campfire and play with fire in that way. Kids who know fire are more mature, generally, more relaxed about the excitement of the stuff, and much more careful with it. Scouts who have dabbled in the campfire respect fire for what it is and for what it can do, good and bad.
What you’ll remember 20 years later, or 30 years, or (God bless me!) 40 years, and I hope 50 and 60 years, is the watching of the fire as the flames die down to a red and pulsing bed of coals.
You’ll remember some of the stories — Freddy Jonas’s often-told story of racing down the Champs Elysee in horse-drawn carriages, bribing the driver of the other carriage to go slower to win the race; the story of Rulon Skinner, the best non-swimming canoe instructor on Earth, and the big canoe race in which his opponent finally tipped Skinner’s canoe, and then yelled “snake!” to appeal to Skinner’s other great fear; the night the bear invaded the camp at Ben de la Tour, a bear later found to have antlers and four hooves. You’ll remember the s’mores, and you’ll forget how messy they are. You’ll remember the time you waited for the cobbler to cook after someone forgot to start the charcoal, or the the time the story got so good you forgot to take the cobbler off the fire, and how the Dutch oven had to be thrown away because it never would come clean.
You may remember that little fox at Camp Carter, sneaking just beyond the light of the fire and carefully circling every chair, looking for something good to eat, to steal. Or that stupid porcupine that, now that you think of it must have been rabid, heading straight for the fire there in the only stand of Ponderosa pine in Utah County, up Payson Canyon. And that will trigger the story of the night the fire wouldn’t start in the Catskills, and what seemed like hundreds of giant porcupines convened in bacchanalian festivities while campers dared not sleep, in their tents.
Someone will mention retiring U.S. flags, and you’ll remember the retirement ceremony for the flag from the widow of the veteran, how she insisted that you promise the flag would be burned completely and honorably, and warned “he’ll be watching!” You’ll remember the mass flag retirement after the lifting of the burn ban at Wisdom, and how you suddenly realized lots of flags put out lots of toxic fumes — but somebody ad libbed a part to the ceremony to add time to let the fumes clear, and no Scout noticed (you hope!).
We haven’t even gotten to the singing.
I was put in mind of the power of the campfire with a remembrance from Real Live Preacher writing at High Calling:
I remember how worried we were the first time we tried to set one of those brush piles on fire. We nervously stood before a ten-foot high, fifteen-foot wide mound with a can of lighter fluid and a couple of matches. I squirted a modest amount around the bottom of the pile and stood back while Michael threw the match. That’s when we discovered that it’s surprisingly difficult to set things on fire. Now I marvel at stories of people casually throwing cigarettes out of their cars and setting whole forests ablaze. Michael and I had a hard time starting fires even when we used diesel fuel and a blowtorch.
It takes about five hours to burn a giant pile of brush and cedar, so Michael and I would start a fire, then sit on the tailgate of the brown pickup truck and talk while we kept an eye on it. Apart from the searing heat and looking like chimney sweeps, it was fun. I’m always looking for guilt-free reasons to sit around and talk with friends. I don’t suppose I’ll ever have as good an excuse as I did back then.
A guilt-free reason to sit around and talk with friends? A campfire is an automatic reason — guilt only obtains if there’s a ban on burning where you’re making the fire.
Carl Buell painted another one that took my breath away the first time I saw it. Go see it. (I’m asking permission on this one; it may take a little while. Posted below with permission.)
That’s not a photograph, you can tell because it so well preserves what you remember — better than any photograph ever could — it preserves what you remember from that campout up in the San Franciscos the night the sky was so blue so late and you could see the whole moon from the earthglow — or was it in New Mexico? Probably not Colorado because there aren’t any mountains — oh, but if he’s looking east, it could have been south of Pueblo . . . no, maybe near Albion in the Sawtooths . . . Buell works in the east; it’s probably up in Maine . . . but he lived and painted in Marin County.
Didn’t he perfectly capture that night?
4 Comments | Art, Boy Scouts of America, Camping, History, Life, Mythology, Natural history | Tagged: Boy Scouts of America, Campfire, Camping, Carl Buell, Dutch oven, Freddy Jonas, History | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
U.S. Department of Interior, on Instagram:
Interior’s Instagram caption: It’s not every day you see the #Washington #Monument from this angle. #dc #mall #bestofteday
For me, additional security in Washington, D.C., has stolen much of the fun, joy and awe of the Washington Monument — compounded by the damage from the 2011 Virginia earthquake.
Before September 2011, the Washington Monument was open until midnight in summer months. Tourists head off for dinner and hotels at before 6:00 p.m. — the tourist lines disappear, and especially after 10:00 p.m. on most nights, one could, or one and the three or four visiting friends you had could, without waiting catch the elevator to the top for an absolutely matchless view of Washington D.C. at night.
Spy on the White House; spot the tourists dangling feet in the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial; see the light in the Capitol Dome indicating Congress in session, and gloat that you were in recreational mode instead. See a couple kissing on the steps of the Jefferson Memorial, thinking no one would see them. Watch the arc of U.S. Airways airplanes coming down the Potomac River corridor, panicking anyone in the USA Today building who happened to look out and look down on an aircraft passing by, and almost hear the screams from the non-frequent DCA fliers as the plane banked sharply at low level to line up with the runway at National Airport (it will never be Reagan to true aviation buffs, who still miss the controllers who gave us confidence in that thrill ride).
For the Fourth of July, the National Park Service (NPS) used to conduct a lottery to select a tiny handful of professional photographers to shoot the fireworks, one of the best displays on Earth. The fireworks shoot from near the Lincoln Memorial. Does NPS do that any more?
Then walk down the stairway, past the hundreds of carved memorial stones, gifts of Americans who wished to honor George Washington by contributing some large, expensive rock to the interior of the obelisk rising Pharaoh-style out of the swamp near the Tidal Basin. Notice the color line shift that marked the Know-Nothing Party control of the group building the monument — the original American Tea Party austerity group, who stopped construction for 20 years just to prove they could impose austerity on those ‘spendthrifts’ who wished to build a monument to a man, even without any public money, and even though they controlled the commission only from 1855 to 1858 (the Civil War intervened).
The Washington Monument, all 555 feet, 5 1/8 inches of it, is closed now. When I visited last, in June, damage from the earthquake was still being assessed, and to protect the monument and the public, no access to the interior was allowed. Around the base, the 50 U.S. flags still fly 24 hours each day; but the paths to the monument now have blockades to stop any unauthorized truck, perhaps laden with explosives, and the public benches sat empty where we used to meet small-town Americans awed by the thing, and foreign tourists in awe of America.
The caption from Interior begs more explanation. Why don’t we see this view? The Washington Mall — that expanse of grass and, now, museums between the U.S. Capitol on the east end and the Potomac-side Lincoln Memorial on the west — graces pilots’ air charts as a civilian no-fly zone. After too many small-plane pilots gave the FAA fits, and somebody parked one on the lawn of the White House, FAA banned all flights over the mall, except by police or other official aircraft. Pragmatically it’s the D.C. cops and Marine One helicopters who might be able to capture this view.
How did Interior get the shot? The Instagram doesn’t explain. Perhaps it was part of the work to repair and restore the monument from the earthquake.
This picture highlights some interesting things. You can see wear and discoloration of the stone, from weather. Discoloration is not consistent; you can see how the windows at the top alter the even flow of water. Acid rain causes the stone to turn gray, then black; the monument is light only from a couple of scrubbings (though, contrary to climate denialist and GOP claims, Clean Air Act control of acid rain reduces the damage since 1972). Some of the discoloration may be from copper solutions washed off the window frames by the rain.
If you look closely, you can see one of the cracks caused by the earthquake. At the peak rests a tiny pyramid of aluminum, undistinguishable from the limestone. Aluminum? Yes — while the metal is a very common element around the Earth, refining it out of ore was difficult, commercially impossible in the 1880s when the Monument was completed. As a last tribute to Washington, builders capped it with what was then one of the most precious metals on Earth, aluminum. Soon after, the advent of mass quantities of generated electricity made aluminum refining commercially viable; today we make disposable drink cans out of what was once the most precious metal on Earth, when purified. One may ponder how George Washington would consider such technological changes in the nation where he hoped every citizen might have a “vine and fig tree,” first to cap his monument with aluminum, and then make millions of tons of the stuff to throw away. We are an industrial society to an extent Washington did not, perhaps could not anticipate. Would he approve?
About a quarter of the way up from the base, you see the color of the limestone changed, as I noted earlier. All the stone on the face of the monument came from the same quarry; however, during the cessation of construction during the rule of the Know Nothings on the monument commission, rock from the quarry continued to come out, to be used in other projects. By the time construction on the monument was restarted, rock quarrying pulled out limestone of a slightly darker, more reddish color. Builders decided to continue with the color variation rather than pull down the stone already stacked. The Washington monument thus becomes a memorial not only to Washington, but also to the politics he futilely hoped would not affect our nation’s government, even non-governmental commissions working around and about the government. That color line preserves in stone some of the political errors of the mid-19th century. It remains unclear whether anyone ever learned a beneficial lesson from those times.
At the base you see patterns of stone unrecognized at ground level (are those white stripes the benches to wait in line to get up to the top?). Around the monument a phalanx of 50 U.S. flags, which fly constantly (except in hurricanes), and you can see the lights that illuminate the flags and the monument at night. Flying into Washington, D.C., at night, becomes one of the great vistas of the world, pierced by the shining white spire of the Washington Monument against a black sky (or dark blue, better), and the panorama of great public buildings, also lighted limestone.
Under local and federal zoning rules, skyscrapers are not allowed in that core area, to preserve the buena vista.
And finally, in the photo you can see fewer than a dozen people, colored dots at the base of the structure. Are they looking up?
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Leave a Comment » | George Washington, History, Know-Nothing Party, Landmarks, National Parks, photography, Politics, Travel, White House | Tagged: George Washington, History, Landmarks, Monuments, photography, Tourism, Travel, Washington D.C., Washington Monument | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
